Educational Movement
Nadiem’s belief that experienced teachers can train teachers can be understood in the context of the teaching profession as an applied science.
Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim
Nadiem Makarim is introducing jargon that uses the word “penggerak” (mover) to transform education, such as “guru penggerak” (teacher mover), “sekolah penggerak” (school mover), and “organisasi penggerak” (organization mover).
The assumption is that these different types of movements will accelerate educational transformation. But moving without a clear purpose can be misleading, especially if only the elite are moving.
Transformation, according to Nadiem, starts from the teachers. From the various explanations published in the media and remarks made in public discussion, what is meant by “teacher mover“ is an educator who possesses competence and advanced knowledge in their academic subject. This educator can the guide and train other teachers. The headmaster must be appointed from among these teacher movers to become a “school mover”.
Teacher trainers
In several meetings between the National Education Standards Agency and the Education and Culture Ministry, Nadiem always stressed that only teachers could train teachers. Teachers can only be trained by those who are skilled and experienced teachers. Armed with this concept, Nadiem launched a breakthrough in teacher training at non-tertiary institutions (PT) to train those teachers he identified as “organization movers”. It is essentially a community organization that actively contributes to teacher training and development.
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Thus far, universities have entrusted their Teacher Training Institutions (LPTK) to several teacher training systems like the Teaching Profession Education system. The kind of training that LPTKs offer can be deemed too theoretical, less relevant to current needs, and ineffective in that the lecturers are unfamiliar with the dynamics and complexity of a classroom environment. The teacher training universities provide has been deemed incapable of producing teacher movers.
Nadiem’s belief that experienced teachers can train teachers can be understood in the context of the teaching profession as an applied science. The assumption is that teaching skills can only be developed through constant reflection of a collection of experiences (Moon, 2005). Prioritizing the applied science aspect of teaching does not mean ignoring the role of universities in the academic domain. University professors might focus more on theory than practice when training teachers, but it is also true that university professors, because of their academic experience, have special insights to academic theory (Murphy, 2007).
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Minister of Education and Culture Nadiem Anwar Makarim at the virtual launch of Merdeka Belajar Episode 5: Mover Teachers, Friday (3/7/2020), in Jakarta.
Academics do indeed tend to proceed slowly and carefully through a systematic, evidence-based approach that has been developed and built upon by their predecessors and is can showing the limitations and the gray areas in practice. In contrast, policymakers, educators, and teachers tend to prioritize knowledge that can be used directly to solve short-term problems.
As a result, basic knowledge that has direct applications is prioritized rather than issues that require reflection and long-term research (Kochan, et al 2002: p 290, Black & Haines, 2018). Trial-and-error teaching can indeed bring progress, but this progress would not be significant because it is not accompanied by experience that shines the light of solid educational theory on practice. In fact, if it is enriched with an understanding of leadership theory derived on research that uses rigorous methods, the training will be strong and can be generalized so it is easier to share.
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Bridging the two domains of theory and practice is fundamental to educational transformation. Universities still have a critical and strategic role in transforming education. Sidelining the role of universities in teacher professional development and entrusting teacher training to so-called organization movers with unclear competencies and expertise will endanger educational performance. Bridging university theory and practical classes is certainly a more promising option than leaving an opening for non-tertiary institutions whose credibility in both theory and practice is questionable at best.
Elite team
The fundamental weakness of the “teacher mover” concept is its elitist nature. They deserve to become the headmaster for the school to become a “school mover” because of their capacity to become instructional leaders. The concept of the headmaster as an instructional leader emerged in the US in the early 1980s, when standardization and accountability grew stronger (Edmonds, 1979; Leithwood & Montgomery, 1982). The concept emerged in line with the introduction of school-based management policies that gave schools the autonomy to manage learning.
Nadiem\'s concept of the headmaster as an instructional leader still refers to instructional leaders in a narrow way (Sheppard, 1996). Although academics have not agreed on a singular definition for “instructional leader”, supporters of this concept understand instructional leadership to mean a school leader that can guide teachers to engage in activities that have a direct influence on student learning and development (Davidson, 1992; Duke, 1987; Leithwood et al., 1999; Marzano et al., 2005). Meanwhile, the broader sense of this concept means that all activities of a school headmaster contributes to student learning (Donmoyer and Wagstaff, 1990).
The effectiveness of the narrow sense of the instructional leadership model, which focuses solely on classroom learning, started to be questioned three decades ago and garnered much criticism. Moreover, the era of standardized education has reduced the success of instructional activities to the parameter of standardized exams. Ironically, standardized exams like the national exams have been abolished in Indonesia, but we are now stuck on the PISA global standard as a means of measuring the success of learning objectives. This reduces the greater aim of national education.
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In reality, the role of headmasters in improving the learning output is not as previously thought. Marzano, et al (2005), for example, found that headmasters contributed only 25 percent to increasing student achievements. This means that 75 percent of a headmaster’s activities – such as motivating teachers, establishing school discipline, developing the teaching profession, collaborating with parents and the community, developing the school culture towards a friendly and comfortable learning environment – is not directly related to instructional activities. Educational success is not dependent on the role of headmasters. Many later studies found that other factors were also influential, such as shared leadership, teacher leadership, distributed leadership, and transformational leadership.
"The emergence of these models indicates growing dissatisfaction with the instructional leadership model, which many believe is too focused on the headmasters as a center of expertise, strength, and power." (Hallinger, 2003, p330; Stewart, 2006) The main weakness of the instructional leadership model is the top-down approach (Urick, 2012) that has only one play and one hero: the headmaster. In fact, leadership in schools is diffuse and ubiquitous (Sergiovanni, 1994; 2001), and cannot be confined to a headmaster alone (Rajbhandari, 2014). In other words, the centralized and elitist instructional leadership model is no longer sufficient.
Alternative transformation
Instead of looking for teacher movers to appoint as headmasters, there are other ways of transforming education, namely through teacher leadership and developing habitual reflection on practice (reflexive practice) in a school community (Gibbs, 1998; Moon, 2005). Although both teacher movers and teacher leadership can be called school leaders, the concept of teacher leadership is very different from a teacher mover. York-Barr and Duke (2004) defined teacher leadership as a process in which teachers, both individually and collectively, influence fellow teachers, headmasters, and other members of the school community to improve teaching and learning practices, the purpose of which is to improve learning quality and student achievement. The concept of teacher leadership is broader and more strategic than the mere teacher mover a la Nadiem.
Furthermore, not all teachers aim to become headmasters in the course of their careers. Not all proficient teachers are interested in an administrative position. Proficient teachers who are rewarded with incentives and remuneration that is the equivalent of headmasters is already appreciation enough. Not all teachers are pursuing a career to become a headmaster. Forcing a teacher to become a headmaster can be counterproductive. Leadership is essentially a leader\'s response to contextual issues towards achieving organizational goals. The ability to grasp the context and reflect on the praxis of education is a key to transformation.
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What is necessary in facing a situation that is complex, uncertain, always changing, and ambiguous, is to strengthen each actor’s role. Therefore, an educational leadership model that is spread out (distributed leadership) and supported by a reflexive attitude towards praxis will be more effective. Every individual needs to learn to understand the issue and produce an answer through continuous evaluation and reflection, to find the best way for engendering a sense of togetherness among all members of the school community towards achieving the greater goal of education. Simply relying on a teacher mover, a headmaster as instructional leader, or an organization mover is inadequate for addressing this large task.
A school does not belong to the teacher mover, nor does it belong solely to the headmaster as the school mover, let alone the organization mover. Educational transformation is possible only on the belief that each individual has the capacity to become a leader. And every leader will learn from others’ leadership through the contextual, daily dynamics of school life. Educational elitism will not accelerate the intelligence of the life of the nation
Doni Koesoema A, 2019-2023 Member, National Education Standards Agency.
