Why we need an international curriculum model
Why we need an international curriculum model
By John Phillips
This is the first of two articles about an international
curriculum model.
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Most international schools are international
in name only since they often mirror an existing school system
from one of several "home" countries such as the United States.
Everything in these schools reflects the culture of that
country -- everything, that is, except the students. The students
are "from" all over the world as even those from the dominant
culture in the school often spend years overseas.
Out of school these "international" students may live in a
cultural cocoon sheltered from the host country environment and,
even when they find themselves moving to a third culture, they
are still stuck in an international cultural vacuum.
In this sense, these children represent the future challenge
of preparing students for a multi-cultural world, one that will
drive educational policy. But, for these children now, and for
the children of Indonesia later, current curricula are ill-suited
to this task as most were created in a rapidly disappearing
environment for a society that has long since evolved.
Educators have long anticipated that curriculum reform will be
needed because of anticipated changes in technology and in the
nature of work.
So, curricular change models have often focused on the
essential task of primary and secondary education-teaching
students how to learn and to think.
Now, in addition there is as great a need to assist students
in becoming international citizens. While it is remarkable how
the basic principles implied in this idea were anticipated by the
Indonesian state "ideology" of Pancasila, in order to meet the
challenges of the future, Indonesia will still need to change its
educational system.
A new system should include not only less emphasis on teaching
specific information and more on critical "learning-thinking
skills", but also, more emphasis on cross-cultural awareness and
adaptation skills while teaching tolerance for differences in the
way others live, think and believe.
The importance of teaching all children "thinking" skills
cannot be overestimated. These skills are essential for the
obvious reason that as the world changes and the nature of what
it means to be an educated person changes with it, most of us
will have to continue to learn new things well beyond our initial
years of education.
Thinking skills are also crucial as all citizens of the planet
must be able to make critical decisions about the quality and
worth of the information available to them in ever increasing
quantity, but not necessarily better quality.
For this reason, students must be taught how to think
analytically about their world and their lives to allow them to
make appropriate choices about which information is valuable and
useful and which is not.
The idea that information can be "worthless" or even harmful
may strike some readers as being inward "looking", but taking the
example of the dissemination of "pornography" over the Internet,
it is much easier to see.
Another example might be information that is inflammatory,
racist or hate-filled "propaganda" designed to sow confusion and
to reap violence in a society.
An apt example of this occurred late last year in Jakarta when
a group of armed students were arrested before they could attack
students in another school.
Their excuse for planning the attack was that a pamphlet had
been circulated saying that the other students had insulted their
religion. These students should have been able to figure out that
they were being manipulated by someone who wanted to cause what
can only be described as mindless violence.
Since there seems to be no way to stem the flow of information
regardless of its intrinsic value or truthfulness, students must
have the ability to think through problems, sort information, and
critically analyze ideas in order to separate the "wheat from the
chaff", that is, distinguish the good from the bad.
Without these skills society is at the mercy of those who
control information. At the same time, while any curriculum must
include the learning of thinking skills, these skills alone are
insufficient for future international citizens.
Perhaps as important as thinking skills, future citizens must
have the ability to look beyond themselves and the cultural
milieu in which they exist to "see" the value and worth of other
cultures.
Such a curriculum would begin to alter the predominant view
that other ways of living and thinking are interesting, but,
ultimately inferior or hostile.
With an appropriate education, other cultures and their
perceptions would become not just interesting subjects to be
studied but valuable "insights" into the human condition worth
exploring for their alternative ways of explaining the world in
which we live and from which we can learn and benefit.
In the East, the predominate need might be to combine the
previously discussed critical thinking skills with a more
scientific approach to those areas of life which can benefit from
objectivity and analysis such as the ability to critically
analyze texts for flaws in logic and proof.
In the West, the predominancy need seems to be exactly the
opposite, to go beyond our self-imposed cultural "blinders" which
dismiss anything that is not rational or scientifically provable
and to go back to spiritual and cultural roots to discover within
them the essence of our common humanity that makes us more than
efficient thinking machines.
These "gaps" in our educational system and our inability to
perceive the world as others do appear to be rooted in our lack
of understanding about other cultures and in our inability to
think in ways that take in alternatives instead of rejecting them
out of hand.
That is, it seems that what is missing from our education is
the ability to think and to act as "whole persons" who are open
to new information and ways of seeing and who understand not only
ourselves, but others as well.
Perhaps it is restating the obvious, but we have much to learn
from one another, if we could only open our eyes up a little and
"see". To do this, we need a truly international curriculum that
expands our ability to think and opens us up to a diverse world
of possibilities and promises.