Towards better cooperation between home and school

By Mochtar Buchori

JAKARTA (JP): Education starts at home, many say, and school education is said to be merely an extension of education provided within the family.

In reality, the situation is not that simple. There are instances indeed where a child receives good education at home, and that the school has to continue the education provided at home. Thus in general the school has to reinforce the foundations of personal development that have been laid down at home and to enrich the child's repertoire of knowledge and values.

However, not every child enjoys ideal education at home. A young teacher once complained that one of his pupils used very obscene language, which disturbed the entire class. It turned out that this child lived in a poor neighborhood where such language was normally used.

Here we have a case where the school cannot simply extend family education provided at home. What the young teacher did in this particular case was to correct this influence from home. It is only after remedial steps have achieved satisfactory results that the school can go ahead with providing further education.

The most tragic situation is when a good education at home is undercut by wrong educational practice at school. In one family, religious tolerance was considered a very important part of family education. The children had been trained to respect friends who embraced religions other than their own. One day a daughter came home from school crying.

The child said her teacher told the class that wishing "Merry Christmas" to Christian friends is a sin for Muslims. This "instruction" came exactly on the day the girl received a telephone call from a Christian friend, wishing her "Selamat Hari Raya Idul Fitri". She wanted to reciprocate by wishing Merry Christmas. But mindful of her teacher's message, she could not do this and cried.

The mother tried to convince her daughter that she was not in the wrong, and tried to explain how respecting different religions was important in a pluralistic society. She said in the family it was not wrong to wish Merry Christmas to Christian friends.

The child was then torn between two contrasting opinions, between two different value systems. And she has not reached that stage of development where she can make her own decisions in face of a moral dilemma.

The question here is, can we allow such a conflicting situation to persist? Is it educationally right to leave a child torn between two conflicting value systems without help?

Such a conflict should not have surfaced at school in the first place. Leaving children torn by conflicting values can make them morally indecisive, or worse, it can make them become hypocrites. This is not merely an innocent shortcoming in our educational system.

In the long run children could, to paraphrase Homer, become men and women "who hide one thing in the depths of their hearts, and speak forth another." And according to the French writer Andre Gide (1869 - 1951) such people will cease to see their own deceptions, and "lie with sincerity".

How can we prevent such situations in our schools? The school must have an idea what kind of education each child gets at home prior to their enrollment. This can be easily done if the school is willing to establish rapport and cooperation with the parents. The school should not one-sidedly decide which practice is wrong and which is right in sensitive and debatable issues.

An exchange of ideas is very important. Do we really accept the idea of religious tolerance? Do we have a common understanding concerning the dictates of a multireligious society for education? Is it morally and politically right in cases like this to impose the views of the "majority" on "minorities?"

Congratulating friends embracing different religions on particular days cannot be simply "right" or "wrong" according to the precepts of a particular teacher. This matter affects the social well-being of the community. No teacher has the right to impose his or her personal judgment on a community's social norms.

Conflicts like the one described above is only one example of current conflicts between school and the community.

There are also conflicts in academic education. Tests evaluating students' progress have been found to contain questions which are academically questionable -- to the effect of sometimes imposing wrong answers to the questions for the sake of a good mark.

Some parents feel this practice can never be justified.

In one quiz for third graders in a Jakarta elementary school, students were asked: "Showing respect to a guest is the characteristic of (a) a person with strong religious faith; (b) a Muslim; (c) a person devoted to God: (d) a good person." It was not clear which response was considered correct by the test maker, but the (d) option was considered wrong.

Can you see any logic in this evaluation practice? What I see is only an act of marshaling children toward a blind quasi- religious belief.

Such evaluation practices could subvert good education laid down at home, in the family. It is tragic that when a confrontation occurs between what parents believe to be right and what the school thinks is right, parents and families have so far been the losers. The school is never wrong. Teachers are "professionals", whereas parents are "amateurs".

This situation can no longer continue. If we genuinely want a community-based school management system, the school must learn to listen to and comprehend the views and aspiration of the community, including, and especially, those of parents.

Are teachers and educational bureaucrats today really willing to do this? As long as they persist in their old views and attitudes, school committees and school boards representing the community and educational bureaucrats will not significantly improve the social climate in schools. This is because when bureaucrats and parents come together, it has always been the bureaucrats who have the final say.

Establishing good interactions between the family and the school in pursuit of good education for our children require, among others, humility on the part of our teachers and the educational bureaucracy.

The writer is an educator and former rector of Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta.