Culture and Education

KOMPAS/DIDIE SW

.

Perhaps we should not spend any more time talking about the worrying (or is it “humiliating”?) data regarding our (terribly) poor literacy rate on the global scale, in its many dimensions.

We are worried that literacy is frequently seen as a benchmark of quality human resources. On the other hand, quality human resources are often seen as the key to national progress. This may be the actual reason behind the national development growth rate, which has stagnated at around 5 percent, “the mediocrity trap of human capability” in developing countries.

Such a trap is not indicated by statistical figures in economic development or material capacity. This is more about the people’s mental-cultural capacity and capability in facing and responding to the problems and challenges of today.

Those responsible for our national education may hide behind material/statistical indicators, but factual evidence says that it is difficult to ignore the moral/cultural measurements.

Surely, we are not talking only about the biased and deviant lifestyles of not just one part of our people, but the majority, across all social classes. Violent acts are committed not only by parents, but also by teenagers and even children. Or, let us simply observe how the daily lives of people in Indonesia’s major cities is modeled after Jakarta, resulting in thousands of traffic violations, committed in front of the police and even transportation agency offices. Everyone commits traffic violations, from drivers of luxury cars (most of whom are surely rich, educated and of high positions) to drivers of ride-hailing ojek (motorcycle taxi) services.

Complete neglect has negated law enforcement and rendered the police’s achievements meaningless. Moreover, it has fostered a tradition (that has expanded) of “insubordination” among the people, not only against the government and the law, but also against the morality and culture of the nation.

We can easily find teenagers and even elementary school students wandering about and gathering at local hangouts day and night, doing things outside the control of their parents (who are busy controlling themselves). Their activities reflect the absence of a strong focus in their lives, which they should have gained through education.

If we ask the direction they wish to pursue, they may only be able to answer “right” or “left”. They will not be able to point to the north, southeast or southwest. They will be confused about where Miangas or Rote is, where the anoa is endemic. Do not bother asking where Hiroshima is located or what is the capital city of Nicaragua.

Our children, of generations Y and Z on whom we depend for our future, suffer from not only disorientation, but also severe dislocation. This has led to their failure to understand their own spatial reality: “Where am I?”, “Where do I come from?” and “Where will I go?” Such a fundamental failure may reflect a more substantial problem, the lack of a clear answer to “Then, who I am?”

How can they answer any of these questions if their lives are filled by activities that do not provide the time and space to think clearly, let alone for contemplation?

In a basic calculation, daily activities consume no less than 298 days of a year. This includes sleep (6 hours/day for 30 days/year), the biological activities of eating, drinking and defecating (2 hours/day, 30 days/year), holidays of all forms (47 days/year), playing and hanging out (2 hours/day, 30 days/year), going to school (7 hours/day, 60 days of 200 total school days) and studying at home (30 days/year).

Based on this calculation, 67 days remain in a year (365 minus 298) for other activities, say, productive ones. However, this time is further reduced by the modern, “mandatory” activity of using mobile gadgets, which uses up at least four hours a day, or 61 days a year, thus leaving just six days. This means less than one week is available in a single year in the lives of teenagers and youths for productive activities.

What can they do to fulfill their lives, reach self-actualization and contribute to developing the country? As a matter of fact, this figure is outlandish, as the time for productive activities can be completely spent and even reach a minus figure if certain groups of people increase the time they spend for hanging out, sleeping or playing with mobile gadgets. Some people may also wish to exercise, pray, clean their homes or pursue other activities, which makes the figure of 365 absurd, even nonsensical.

Knowledge of life

We need to acknowledge that these problems are a result of our failed education system. We have failed to prepare a generation that has the capability to carry our nation to a higher standard. This condition has led to burying the nation’s best potentials further, making it increasingly difficult to explore and actualize them as major dependent variables in driving development and boosting the 5 percent figure to higher rates.

Each person may have a different opinion and argument as to the exact cause of these failures. Whatever your opinion may be, I am humbly of the opinion that this all began with our poor comprehension of the close link between education and culture. The separation of these two terms, let alone the use of the conjunction “and”, reflects the viewpoint that the two are separate entities. This is despite the fact the two need to be integrated and blended with each other.

I think our education policies serve as proof of this. It becomes even more apparent if we took at how programs are developed outside of the Culture and Education Ministry, whether at other ministries and state institutions – which take up more than 90 percent of the Rp 400 trillion (US$28.4 billion) budget – or at the education efforts in the regions, with a budgetary allocation of more than 50 percent.

Among the difficult things to understand is the fact that a child is “required” to be able to read, write and count to enroll in elementary school, or the policy of “high-order” logical thinking as a high school graduation requirement. This is not just absurd. It is also difficult to see how such policies can be used as a measure to ensure that students do not suffer from dislocation and disorientation, as I explained above.

In reality, these education targets end up producing graduates that are incapable of creating a strong link between the knowledge gained at school and real-life needs – even at the highest level of education. The government’s temporary response, following in the footsteps of, say, the education programs in China, Vietnam or other countries, is vocational education. This type of education develops skills and expertise instead of scientific knowledge to be applied directly in the job market. On the other hand, it produces laborers instead of innovators, visionaries, entrepreneurs, business developers, inventors, explorers and others.

This is despite the fact that the real problem lays in the fundamental difference between formal science with its Continental, philosophical, pedagogic and ideological basis and life knowledge that we gain through the journey of our daily lives. In my term, there is a foundational difference between natural life knowledge and cultural life knowledge.

In many cases, graduates have a wealth of formal knowledge but severely lack life knowledge. This is because most problems in real life are not abstracted in teaching modules and because life may have a different logic to what we learn at school.

Schools are based on closed spaces and high walls, and sometimes even a boarding system – with historical bases in Christian monasteries or St. Augustine evangelism in England in the 6th century – where they are alienated from real life and all its ugliness.

Spirit of local culture

If the process of integrating knowledge could be carried out as explained above, we can, in fact, achieve two or three things at once. Education will, among others, internalize and even sow the greatest seed that this nation possesses: culture. At the same time, with culture as the spirit of natural (read: scientific) knowledge, we are guaranteed to raise a generation that understands and properly practices moral and ethical principles as well as good manners. This is not just in interpersonal relationships, but also in adhering to the most basic traffic rules, such as not going against the direction of traffic.

Such good behavior is encouraged not by criminal or social punishment, but more by a sense of awareness of a collective rule that will benefit everyone in establishing regularity in life. It is this awareness that will urge people to carry out and maximize their civic roles.

In education programs, both formal and non-formal, the end result for students must include the most fundamental levels of ethics and morality. Good behavior, for instance, can begin by accustoming children to be physically clean and wear their uniforms properly, to clean their classrooms, to practice good manners to other students of different grades, teachers and school workers.

The core to this polite language is the proper and adequate use of the official (national) language and local languages – regardless of which local language – both in the active and passive voice. All this must form the basis of elementary education, at least until the third grade. Surely there will be other school programs to strengthen children’s motor and affective skills, including arts, handicrafts, sports, games and cooperation.

Cultural integration occurs when these programs are all based on local culture and knowledge, whether in terms of language, arts, rituals and other aspects. Papuans and Acehnese may have different programs, as may coastal and mountain communities and urban and rural communities.

In this way, students will develop in harmony with the realities of their locality, including the superior characteristics of their regions, instead of according to the idealized scientific abstractions in textbooks. As such, reading, writing and counting will be basic skills can be learned easily and quickly.

It is only in the higher grades that knowledge based on liberal arts and historically Continental (Western) education should be taught, by first orienting students with spatial and temporal awareness. Next, they can learn about math, the natural sciences, technology and many other subjects as bases for understanding (comprehending) their updated reality.

What is most important on the back of this all, is that children completing elementary education will have a strong cultural foundation that is built upon (national and local) languages, their existence in space and time, and physical and mental agility, as well as cognitive and affective awareness. Our nation will no longer suffer from an identity crisis from forgetting one’s roots. Strong roots will lead to a large and strong body with lush leaves and many fruits.

Kompas

Radhar Panca Dahana

Learning programs that focus more on self-exploration, -actualization and -expression using the cultural modules above will result in more independent individuals. This is far more important than, say, a “rote learning” ability that serves as the basis for gaining scientific (logical) knowledge, whereby students strongly depend on references or textbooks.

Here is where the “freedom” in creating and producing can be processed properly and optimally. Scientific individuals that possess a cultural spirit will be the main drivers of the country’s development and growth in all sectors.

Radhar Panca Dahana, Humanist