"education is not preparation for life; education is life itself " -. John Dewey (1859 - 1952)
Psychologists will tell you that the first three years of life are the most important. In terms of bonding with the mother to have a healthy diet, learning to walk and talk, we can only agree.
But at the age of five years or so, the expectation is that human babies leave the nest and go to this strange place called school. If we are lucky, there is a mother figure in charge of the reception class for insiders. I was lucky with Mrs Davies, although I pushed myself the rocking horse on my first morning and got a bloody nose.
Terry Collins 14 years old or more
Looking back on those years, I think learning to play a musical instrument well - the soprano recorder. I collected stamps, so I knew where countries were on the map. I read about them in books that I've had in my local public library, where I also came to love adventure stories. As a member of my local Cub pack (junior scouts), I learned the importance of social service because we were going to take part in the week Bob-a-Job. This meant going around our neighborhoods and do odd jobs such as mowing the lawn or operation of someone racing in exchange for a warehouse of a 'bob', a shilling in pre-decimal money (and 5p in today's currency).
Inevitably, there was a time when life has changed dramatically: I sat the 11 , the school leaving examination. At that time, in the post-war Britain, there were two schools of Common: moderns, where students are prepared for life as workers, and grammar schools, where students brightest were groomed for higher education and adult life care workers.
I was one of those brilliant students, and regretted since - none of my former classmates were with me. Life has become a matter of competition rather than cooperation fostered my elementary school years. In my elitist grammar school, with its carrot diet and stick test results were important if we were to achieve greatness. A top students rivers were groomed by being appointed monitors from school and given free rein to boss us mortals in the C grade, my natural level. The ultimate prize was to have our names on the "honor roll" because we brought reflected glory by going to a first class university. My name is not there, fortunately. I wished that I had to be someone I was not and I had not had the opportunity to find out who I wanted to be.
So I became a teacher.
The word "education" comes from the Latin word "Educare" which means "set up." The methodology decrees the acquisition of knowledge as provided by teachers with a curriculum as determined by "authority" (ie government of the day and its bureaucracy). A simple term is the school, which is the format used to train circus seals honking horns and cheering with their fins.
Another Latin word is "educere" meaning "birth", the pulling and encouraging individual talents and innate abilities developed both in and out of the classroom.
So how does this relate to Indonesia?
education consultant Mark Heyward points succinctly that "the education system in Indonesia has been designed to provide the huge population of the nation with basic skills in literacy and numeracy, religious piety and nationalist values.
It has been successful in achieving these goals. But the world has changed and the education system has not changed with it. The system fails to produce an educated population with the skills of critical thinking necessary for a modern, open and democratic society or with the professional skills needed for a competitive economy. "
In 1950, when the first post-independence Education Act was brought into law, the illiteracy rate of the population was about 50 percent. According to UNESCO, in 1970 when it was reduced to about 21 percent, the Suharto government introduced a package program, which was divided into 100 modules, A1-A10 were basic literacy and A11-A100 focused on literacy as part of life skills. during the period of the next three decades, illiteracy has been reduced to about 11 percent in 2000.
However, basic literacy refers the ability to read simple instructions, while the failure is functional literacy, or criticism. the ability to form opinions beyond the printed words Since 1998, the fall of Suharto and the dawn of the Internet it may have provided the conditions within the public school system have improved.
A qualified teacher of UK stock writes that "the school is only as good as its teachers -. And teachers are only as good as their education, vocational training and job satisfaction "
Well, they and parents of current students were afraid to express thoughts contrary to the Suharto era this led to the inability to be responsible or to think of the consequences. I discovered this early in my teaching here in Jakarta. I asked my advanced English course of business leaders how they would have spent US $ 1,000 if I had given them the previous week. one of them said he could not answer the question.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because you do not give me $ 1,000."
He seized the grammatical structure, but not the concept.
Twenty percent of the government budget is expected to be allocated to education; a figure which is enshrined in the constitution, but only recently under President SBY has it been applied. The budget is transferred to regional authorities to 'operational expenditure', adding new layers of bureaucracy in the process, and broadening the possibilities of delays and embezzlement. This month we read ceilings of a primary school on the collapse of the four classes :. The school had waited for the renovation of three years
Teacher training focuses on classroom practices and the need to "teach to the test", all in terms of ranking are multiple choice. There is a government program to "certify" teachers, but it also has been criticized in that the materials for the courses are not always available.
Ministers come and go, each seeking changes to the program. While national tests are the only factor that determines whether graduate students between the three levels of schools and universities, they are now extended to schools outside the state system that offer programs abroad is yet another indication that the powers that be have no underlying philosophy of the educational value. Everything is a makeshift solution.
My fellow teacher perhaps best expresses my frustration as both a teacher and a parent.
"Despite all the problems, a visit to a local school Jakarta shows enthusiastic and dedicated teachers, who - while painfully aware of their professional boundaries - do their best to ensure a good education for their students. the future development of Indonesia and the economic success depends on education as an educated workforce that does not invest in its teachers and making the teaching profession an attractive career and is adequately remunerated more than a misfortune. - it is a crime "