The group is the fifth group sent by the Willi Toisuta & Associates to Australia, in collaboration with the USC as well as the Education Bureau of Papua Province. At the farewell ceremony, which was organized at the Aston Marina Hotel in Jakarta on January 19, Bill Allen from the International Projects Group of USC said that WTA has been sending more than 100 teachers from Papua to the USC. Therefore, Bill presumed, about 10.000 Papuan schoolchildren have been benefited by the teacher sending program to Australia.

The farewell ceremony was attended by Elia Loupatty from the Provincial Secretariat of Papua, Emily Serong and Harris Siagian from the AusAID, in addition to Rama Brierty and Bill Allen from the USC.

Hotben Situmorang from the WTA training committee said that the training is attended by 29 teachers who are going to be selected to be able to teach at Del Superior High School in Laguboti, North Sumatra. Lecturers from the Faculty of Language and Literature as well as the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics of SWCU are involved in this training, beside the teachers from Satya Wacana Laboratorium School and lecturers from USC.

At the first session after opening ceremony, Willi Toisuta gave a presentation about “WTA’s Road Map to Learning” that is derived into T4 Method, which is comprised of Telaah (Study), Teliti (Research), Tata (Order), and Tutur (Share). The method is a research-based learning method aimed to optimizing the capacity of the pupils. The Del teachers will be studying this method in order to become good learning facilitators for their students.

The chairman of Del Foundation, Patuan Simatupang, in his presentation described Del Superior High School’s vision as “Excellent school that is summoned to educate and develop the sciences and personalities of the nation’s children for the advancement of Indonesia”, while the mission of which sets “To educate the nation’s reliable children to have globally high academic competencies as well as noble character through the education system that has excellent management quality and learning methods”.

John Titaley said that SWCU supports the training as an effort to provide highly qualified education in Indonesia. “By this training, I hope there will be another school that implements good education in Indonesia such as the Labschool. Good quality of education in Indonesia has been the SWCU’s commitment. We had cooperated with schools, especially the Christian ones, since long ago,” said Titaley.

The selection was carried out on December 4-10, 2011 at Bina Darma Training Center in Salatiga and was attended by 100 qualified public-servant high school teachers by the subject of sciences and mathematics.

The selection included psychological, English, written, interview, and microteaching test. Assessors involved in the selection are experts in sciences and mathematics from Satya Wacana Christian University such as Ferry Karwur, Andriani Karyanto, Jubhar Mangimbulude, Ferdy Rondonuwu, and Dharmaputra Palekahelu. The other assessors are Rudangta Arianti Sembiring and Widya Hiltraut Padan from Thera Center for Psychological Service.

Those who will pass the selection are those who are good in academic ability, fluent in English, psychologically intelligent, able to think concretely, practically, analogically, verbally abstract, as well as remembering, practical counting, and constructive thinking.

The selection committee will allow 20 best candidates to attend the curriculum, pedagogy, and ICT enrichment program at the University of the Sunshine Coast, with the support of Australian Leadership Awards Fellowships from the AusAID.

The certificates were given by IPG’s director Merv Hyde at the hall of USC recently, continued by a farewell party, and was attended by USC’s deputy vice-chancellor Birgit Lohmann, Alison Atwell (IPG’s academic advisor), Bill Allen (IPG’s programs leader), WTA’s director Eka Simanjuntak, the hosts, and also the lecturers of USC.

Merv Hyde said that he was very proud and happy when the nineteen Papuan school principals completed their course successfully. “I saw that their willingness to learn was high. They studied seriously and diligently during the course,” he told Papua Post after the farewell at USC.

Merv said that he understands the situation of education in Indonesia well, especially in Papua. It is because he was advisor to Indonesian Minister of Education during Wardiman Djojonegoro’s era. He admitted that he has worked for about 35 years in various provinces of Indonesia.

Merv also said that prior to his works at IPG he met WTA which invited him to be involved in the development of education in Indonesia, particularly in Papua. At that time, in 2007, Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu was determined to foster education in Papua in order to enhance its quality.

WTA requested Merv to carry out the projects for enhancement of education quality in Papua. He accepted that request, so that in 2007 he came to Papua and conducted a research in order to know what Papuans need most, particularly in education sector.

During the research, he met and talked with the teachers and principals, even the local stakeholders of education and health in Papua. “We can’t separate the education from the health sector because they are interconnected. If the people are sick, how can we develop the human resources?” Merv said.

In order to enhance the human resources in Papua, he expected that the school teachers and principals who have been trained at USC can implement their new knowledge throughout their schools. “The turn now is in hands of the school teachers and principals. Do they want to make the transformations happen?” Merv asked rhetorically.

By the WTA’s cooperation with Papua provincial government and the IPG, up to 100 educators from Papua have been sent and trained at USC. In addition to that, 20 school teachers from West Papua have also completed their course at USC.

Besides the school enhancement programs in Papua, Merv said, he and his fellows will continue supplying new technologies for Papuan teachers, so that the education in Papua can shift forward even further. “We are working on 200 laptops aid program for elementary school teachers in Papua. This is our commitment with WTA in order to help Papuan people through development of education,” he explained.

IPG’s academic advisor Alison Atwell said that during the short course at USC, the school principals from Papua were very enthusiastic to learn. They even creatively explored the materials given by USC’s lecturers. “I am proud of them. For six weeks, they learnt eagerly and faithfully attended classes on school leadership and management at USC,” said Alison, who claimed to have a little ability of speaking Indonesian.

Alison said that the learning model given to the Papuan school principals during their course at USC was a combination of theoretical and practical masteries on school leadership and management. They studied the theories in class, and did apprenticeships at some schools in Brisbane. “I saw that their interaction abilities were good enough. What have been learnt at schools were reflected and evaluated at campus. Every week they learnt for five days at campus, and one of that five was used to know how the knowledge they acquired at the campus and schools could be implemented well,” Alison explained.

Alison added that she has worked for about 14 years in Indonesia. She even worked her doctoral dissertation in Lombok. Therefore, speaking on educational contexts in Indonesia, Alison claimed to have well understanding of it. “My commitment to develop education in Papua is unquestionable. I am expecting that after the school principals went back to Papua, there should be transformations,” she said.

“I wanted that one day in the rest of my life I come to Papua to see whether there is any transformation, although I fully understand that changing management and learning customs needs times and processes. This must be their homework. For example, the school’s closet must be clean, because I saw that school’s closets in Indonesia were unclean. We need to pay attention to such things,” Alison added.

WTA’s director Eka Simanjuntak explained the beginning of WTA’s cooperation with the Education Bureau of Papua Province. Initially, WTA proposed to the head of the bureau to train the Papuan teachers in Australia. At that time, the Head of the Education Bureau of Papua Province James Modouw was afraid of the training’s cost, which is expensive.

“We then said that the cost is not that expensive because there is a scholarship program given by the Australian government (ALAF). But, in order to access that facility, we need to have a partner in Australia. So, WTA sought one Australian institution that has abilities to undertake the training and manage the scholarships for the Papuan teachers. At that time, me and Mr. James Modouw came to Australia to meet USC’s vice-chancellor and explain the training program, which was turn out to be responded positively by him. After that, we started recruiting and selecting teachers in Papua, and sent their names as ALAF applicants to be accepted by the AusAID. Then we sent the selected candidates to IALF Bali to get them trained in English for three months before sending them to USC,” Eka explained.

This cooperation was initiated in 2008, and continued in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Papua is the first province of Indonesia which makes benefit of ALAF and special autonomy funds to train their teachers. Perhaps, Papua is the most diligent province in sending teachers to undergo short courses in Australia. In September 2010, USC bestowed an honorary doctoral degree on Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu.

Source: Papua Pos

Firstly, I was not alone during my visit to de Britto. I accompanied several school principals from Papua during their comparative study there. The visit was part of a leadership and management training for international standardized schools conducted by Willi Toisuta & Associates.

WTA chose de Britto as the location of the comparative study because the school, which is one of the favorite schools in Yogyakarta, is included as one of the schools that are being prepared to become international standardized schools by the Ministry of National Education. Therefore, they wanted to learn the management system of de Britto as an international standardized school preparation. The other reason stated by Jeffrie Lempas, the chair of the training committee, is that de Britto’s aim of education which is to produce “servant leaders” is considered to be suitable with the theme of the “leadership training”.

Apart from those reasons, I was more interested in de Britto’s concept of free education, than its leadership concept. My reason is simple: I think it is impossible for one to lead his/her self if s/he is never free. To be free means not to be bound by other’s rules–which are usually oppressive–because leading oneself means managing oneself, creating rules for oneself. If one is never free to be able to learn to lead and manage his/her self, s/he will never be able to lead and manage the others. Therefore, it is probably wise to learn about the spirit of free education before engaging into school leadership or management. If not, one’s leadership is probably just the leadership of followers, and his/her management is none other than oppressive rules.

So, what is free education a la de Britto?

I first heard about freedom a la de Britto from my mother’s stories. When I was in the elementary school (I forgot in what grade I was), I asked her why school children had to wear uniforms. I forgot what my mother’s answer was. What I remembered is her side information that students of de Britto, which were all males, were allowed not to wear uniforms, to wear sandals, and to grow long hair, but they were smart and had good etiquettes.

My mother could be said to be Yogyakartan, but she probably knew nothing about de Britto. She spent her childhood until junior high school in Kulon Progo, continued her education to Widyatama Teacher Preparatory High School and Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, before becoming a school counselor in Surabaya up to today. I phoned her recently and she said that she never visited de Britto. She just once read a book entitled “Menebus Pendidikan yang Tergadai” (Redeeming Mortgaged Education) by St. Kartono, an Indonesian language teacher at the college. Freedom a la de Britto she told me was based on the stories she heard and not necessarily true.

However, as an elementary school child, I believed completely of what she said. Maybe people tend to believe whatever they like. Maybe belief is merely about preference. As a school age child, I disliked uniforms. Red and white uniform with shorts and totally black pair of shoes were not cool in my preference. Those uniforms made the geeky me looked even geekier. I wanted to have more freedom in the way I dressed at school, while having the academic excellence and good etiquettes at the same time. I believe that such freedom is cool. And I believed that such freedom exists at de Britto.

I then wanted to see directly the freedom at de Britto. If necessary, I even wanted to study there. Yet, graduating from junior high, I forgot that I had the intention to enter that college. I went to Petra 5 Christian Senior High School in Surabaya. In 2005, Surabaya Education Bureau held a student exchange program with Yogyakarta Education Bureau. Several students from Surabaya including me were sent and placed in several schools in Yogyakarta. I was not placed at de Britto at that time, but I remembered about what my mother told me. Yet, such memory was not enough to force me to visit the college to answer my childhood wonder. I finally thought that de Britto was an “elite” school which happened to let the students dress freely and grow their hair long. No more than that.

I could have developed that opinion to comfort myself because I didn’t enroll to the college, but more importantly, such opinion may represent the opinion of some people about the freedom a la de Britto. Such opinion may not only circulate among people outside of de Britto, but also among students of de Britto. When I visited the college, I talked with Theodorus Sukristiyono, ex-school principal of de Britto during 2000-2008. I asked him, what was the biggest problem of free education practices at de Britto? He answered: there were students who interpreted freedom only as freedom to dress and to grow long hair.

Sukristiyono said that such interpretation could be problematic, and even dangerous, because it could trap students in a pragmatic way of thinking. Pragmatic here means shallow, did not bother to think more essentially about freedom. Shallow interpretation about freedom can entrap people to be followers, bandwagon, or even anarchists. Anarchy here is not in the original definition, which is cooperative society without clear hierarchy, but anarchy in the popular sense today: wild without any rules whatsoever.

Of course, such attitudes deviate from the spirit of freedom de Britto wants to promote. The first page of de Britto College Senior High School Handbook stated: “De Britto College’s education emphasizes on the value of freedom which is the manifestation of the freedom of children of God (Rome 8:21). The students are educated in a free environment to become a free human being, which is a person who is able to make decisions and act accordingly to the right conscience, not bound by prestige, wealth, or the tendency to be a follower only. A free human being is a person who is independent and responsible to his/her choice and actions.”

As an introduction, you may like a book entitled “Menjadi Manusia Bebas” (To Be a Free Human) by F. Wawan Setyadi, a Jesuit and alum of Driyarkara School of Philosophy, who used to work at de Britto as an educator. The book is thin and light. It was written as an introduction to the reflection of the college’s free education. I will summarize the book and give a short note at the end of the summary to push further reflections.

“To Be a Free Human” emerged as Wawan’s concern on the practices of free education at de Britto. He wrote in the introduction, “As a part of the mentoring team, I have to instill freedom to the students in various occasions. Day by day I tried to do so and the more I did it I was more concerned that the meaning of freedom had not been understood well.”

With such concern, the book aimed to explain the meaning of freedom systematically in the context of free education at de Britto. The explanation was divided into one prologue and four chapters. The first chapter is about the importance to instill freedom. The second one is about understanding freedom. The third one is about freedom at de Britto. The fourth one is about the paradox of freedom. Before starting the prologue, Wawan quoted Jean Jacques Rousseau in his book Du Contract Social:

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains!”

Wawan considered that the quote represents the spirit of era when Rousseau was alive, that is Romantic age. Human beings were considered good and free in their natural state. The freedom was then in chains by all sorts of advancements, developments, and cultures brought by Renaissance age. Therefore, there was the call to “go back to nature”. The Romantic age invited human beings to go back to nature, like it used to be. The problem was people could no longer go back there and lived solitary. People lived in the society. Therefore, a social contract which was considered to be able to make people back to their freedom was created.

“There is a similarity of thoughts between this essay and Rousseau’s above. Talking about freedom means revealing things that are natural in human beings,” Wawan wrote in his prologue.

Wawan then questioned this issue in the first chapter: does freedom still need to be instilled in students? Because he had similar way of thinking with Rousseau, his first argument came from the philosophical perspective of humanity. According to this philosophy, freedom is the characteristic of the human beings. People were not born first, and free later. People were born and free at the same time. Wawan referred to Kierkegaard and Macquarrie who said that freedom and existence are synonymous. Freedom marks the perfect existence of the human beings. Therefore, Wawan thought that instilling freedom was caring for the humanity in a human. Instilling freedom means to make human beings conscious that there are many options they can choose based on various motives, and not only based on instincts.

From the perspective of humanity, Wawan moved to the philosophical perspective of divinity. He said that divinity can complement humanity. “One interesting thing that needs to be explained is that freedom can become a way to God, to the divine reality. It means that freedom can be an argument to prove the existence of God. People are led to believe in God whose existence has been proven,” said Wawan.

Wawan’s argument on divinity began with the premise that when making a choice, human beings were not moved by instincts only, but also by various motivations based on the values they believed. For example, although some students were already famished, they decided to delay their lunch by 30 minutes because they decided to have discussion on a biology task first. The decision to delay their lunch–because they chose to do something more important–did not happen on animals. When animals were hungry, by instinct they would hunt for their food. For Wawan, this showed that human beings were not bound by anything. Human beings were unbound to limited objects only when they were directed to the “infinite” reality which was definitely real. If it was not real, it was impossible that such reality defeated human tendency to finite objects.

“That real infinite reality is divine reality; It is the God that we have faith in,” he concluded.

Based on that conclusion, Wawan then disagreed with the opinion of existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre’s reflection of freedom, in Wawan’s opinion, could lead one to atheism, because human beings were considered to be absolutely free. If human beings are free absolutely, it is impossible that God exists. Wawan was against this opinion because he’d rather see freedom as a way to God. He wrote, “Through his freedom, somebody is led to come to a transcendental reality that he believes in.”

Wawan’s third argument came from the perspective of developmental psychology. From this perspective, students of senior high school are under the category of teenagers. In their teenage years, students need mentoring because the period of transition from children to adults is usually difficult and unclear. Therefore, Wawan thought that teenagers need to be mentored so that they had a fixed perspective about freedom and its responsibilities.

Wawan continued his argument by using sociological perspective in the past and in the present. In the past, during the New Order era, the military regime strictly imposed uniformity in all aspects of life. Long hair was forbidden because it was considered subversive and not reflecting “national identity” (see a book entitled “Dilarang Gondrong!” (No Long Hair!) by Aria Wiratma Yudhistira). Freedom was almost impossible and automatically longed for. Hence, long hair a la de Britto became the symbol of freedom that made students of other schools jealous and demonstrated; demanding that they could grow long hair too. Now, the New Order has been thrown over and freedom gets more room. The question is: does freedom still need to be instilled? Wawan answered, “Yes. In fact, in the era when freedom has more room, we need to really consider what kind of freedom in use and whether such freedom can be justified.”

Wawan mentioned two social problems that make freedom still needs to be instilled: corruption and technology advancement. About corruption, in 2008 Indonesia received the score of 2.6 from Transparency International within the range of 0 (very corrupt) to 10 (very clean). This means that Indonesia is still considered to be a country that is slightly very corrupt. From its etymology, the word “corruption” comes from the Latin word “corruptio” which means “rottening”. What is rottened by corruption? “None other than our humanity which includes freedom,” said Wawan.

In terms of technology advancement, Wawan wrote more on the phenomenon of teenagers who were addicted to the Internet. He then connected this phenomenon with Heidegger’s perspective about human beings and technology. “At the beginning, technology was created by human beings as a means. What happens today is the contrary. What human beings created to control the world becomes difficult to be controlled. And even worse, human beings were controlled by the technology.”

Wawan completed the four arguments with the Driyarkara’s educational philosophy. The philosophy views education as the combination of two elements: hominization and humanization. Hominization is the elevation of human beings as human. For Driyarkara, human beings are initially not human. Human beings have to humanize themselves to be able to live their nature as human. Humanization is different. If hominization is humanizing human beings to the lowest level of human, humanization is humanizing human beings to the level of high civilized.

“Considering the argument of humanity, what Driyarkara explained above is confirmative. Freedom is the nature of human, and it is must be given through meaningful education which aims to humanize a human being,” explained Wawan.

Wawan ended his first chapter by quoting the content of de Britto College Students Handbook which I quoted earlier as the sixth argument. His conclusion was that freedom needs to be instilled in students.

In chapter two, Wawan invited the readers to understand the meaning of freedom. The first one is by looking at the dictionary. We can pass this section because Wawan did not really discussed freedom in general. He discussed more deeply the meaning of freedom from the perspectives of ethics or moral philosophy.

In terms of moral philosophy, Wawan divided freedom into two types: “free from”, or existential freedom and “free of”, or social freedom. Existential freedom is “the state that enables human beings to decide for themselves”, while social freedom is “the state that enables human beings to decide on their actions on their own and not deliberately limited by others”.

Wawan described three ways to limit social freedom: (1) by limiting physical freedom, such as in the case of prisoners; (2) by limiting spiritual freedom, such as on a person whose is brainwashed by propaganda; and (3) by giving orders and restrictions, such as in the case of a person who is governed by religious, family, schools, and society norms.

“What needs to be noted in this issue is that limitation of freedom by norms has to be justified. When certain norms dictate or forbid somebody to do this and that, they need to be reasonable. The reasons have to be described clearly and logically,” he said.

Wawan stated that freedom and responsibilities are interrelated. Only a free person can be asked for responsibility. Therefore, a person who is mentally ill is not mature cognitively–hence, is not considered to be spiritually free–cannot be held responsible before the law when s/he murdered somebody. A child will be asked for less responsibility than an adult when that child draws graffiti on the wall. Wawan said, “The more freedom someone has, the more responsibilities that s/he is expected for.” What kind of responsibilities?

Every action always invites consequences. For instance, when a student didn’t do a task, s/he will not get a grade. If there is any students who said that with his/her freedom s/he chose not to do the task, and therefore is willing to take the consequence of not getting a grade, will that be considered to be responsible? Wawan did not think so.

For Wawan, responsibility on the consequence part was not enough. Responsibilities should also include the decision making process part. He wrote, “The decision making part is the first part of the responsibilities. When making a decision, someone has to consider first whether the decision that s/he is about to make is a qualified one.”

Wawan said that the parameters used in evaluating the quality of someone’s decision is the hierarchy of values believed, family norms, society norms, school norms, and finally conscience. Therefore, in chapter three on freedom at de Britto, he stated that the implementation of freedom at the college needs to be done by teaching the hierarchy of values, norms, and sharpening conscience as the foundation.

“Building a foundation like this is not enough in cognitive level only. There are needs to be interiorizing as well–the values need to be instilled into the depth of the heart. What has been inside the heart at the end will be expressed concretely in daily actions and tasks,” said Wawan.

In building the foundation of values, Wawan referred to Max Scheler hierarchy of values which divides values into four levels, which are sensory, vital, spiritual, and absolute values. In each level, there are positive and negative values. Sensory value means likes (positive) and dislikes (negative). Vital value means healthy (positive) and sickness (negative). The example of spiritual values is in the case of beautiful-ugly, right-wrong, fair-unfair. The highest value is absolute value which includes “absolute objects” in religious matter–for example, Wawan mentioned, is holy persons or “The Absolute”. He said, “If there is a conflict of values, the highest one should be made of the winner.”

Another division of values, which is simpler according to Wawan, is to divide values into two: instrumental and true ones. Instrumental values are those which enable people to reach their life goals, while true values are those which are true in whatever conditions. By knowing this division of values, people can decide which should be the means and which should be the goals. If not, there will be an up-side down: the means becomes the goals and the goals become the means. For example, if the goal of a student is to study, he can use the Internet for achieving that goal. If this is flipped up-side down, he can ask for the Internet by the reason of using it for studying, and after he is given the facilities he is not studying.

In addition to freedom, love, inclusivism, and other values listed in the school’s vision and missions, the values promoted as a slogan at de Britto are “competence”, “conscience”, and “compassion” based on Ignatian spirituality. The 3Cs, according to Wawan, will never be enough to be revisited over and over, although they already concretely exist in the student profiles and school’s vision and missions. There is always a room for a new interpretation according to the ever changing contexts. The school needs to revisit the values and put them in the “grand design” of the school.

“Therefore, as an effort to provide a foundation, the instillation of values always includes a critical force to question the existing and established,” Wawan emphasized.

At de Britto, the effort to instill the values was conducted using “cura personalis” approach. Each student is approached and known. This is because in free education, each student has the right to get as much personal attention as they need in order to instill the values. Free education according to Wawan is not a mass education which produces uniformed students. Wawan explained, “In cura personalis approach, we cannot avoid procedural approach. Yet, the respect to each personality as a subject who has certain dynamics is prioritized. There is always a room for discussion, for exploring and strengthening the foundation of values, instilled conscience.”

I remember the story of Father Bagus Dwiko when he found three students of de Britto smoking at the campus. Father Dwiko is the “mentor” or the vice principal of the school for students affairs at de Britto. He told me that at the college, students were not allowed to smoke. When he found the three students smoking, the first thing he did was to ask: among the three, who had the initiative to smoke? When the one who did confessed, he was sent back to class, while his two friends had to stay and deal with Father Dwiko. The father argued that the other two only followed the lead to smoke. People who only follow are considered to be not free. This is more serious than violating the rule not to smoke in school. The different treatments the three students received may be an example of “cura personalis” approach at de Britto. From this case, we can also see that at de Britto the value of freedom is higher than the school norm which forbids students to smoke.

After the foundation of values is instilled, the next important stage is to give a room for freedom to the students. Wawan said, this is what he meant by “giving wings”. Maybe what he meant is the wings of freedom. He explained, “If de Britto college wants to be consistent to adopt freedom as its education characteristic, one must always ask if the students indeed have enough room to practice their freedom based on the foundation of values that are instilled and live within them. In academic or non-academic activities, are they always given enough room to choose, to show their creativity and imagination, to practice the foundation of values they already have? Is a student given a fish or a rod to fish?”

In the stage of room for freedom, according to Wawan, there are two extreme actions that may happen and need to be alert of. The first one is the effort to decrease or even take back the freedom that has been given. Not because the student is not ready for freedom, but because practicing freedom is not easy, tiring, and needs endurance. “The simplest example is that seeing all students in tidy uniform may be easier and more pleasant than letting students choosing their own outfits in school. Locking the gate after the bell rings is easier than letting the gate stays open with the consequence of dealing with late students one by one.”

The second extreme action that may happen is to let the room for freedom is opened too far to the level of forgetting the instilled principles or values. According to Wawan, in this situation people will act without certain valuable principles or values, and such freedom will be considered to lead to anarchy. Once again, this is the popular version of anarchy today: unruly without rules at all.

“As an example, a student chooses to smoke and drink. He doesn’t know what circle of values that become the foundation of his choice. He just follows. He acts without a clear principle. A simpler example, a student doesn’t understand why he chooses to grow his hair long or short.”

That is why in this stage of room for freedom, de Britto students need to have the choosing exercise. “Freedom rests on a free choice that is decided through a choosing exercise,” said Wawan. The choosing exercise is taken from the Ignatian tradition of “electio” because de Britto is an institution founded by the Jesuits. In this tradition, Wawan explained, a choice will always be made in a “praying mode” because choices are considered to be “spiritual discernment”. In spiritual discernment, people have to differentiate the moves of the spirit, good spirit from evil spirit, until they can find “God’s will for them”.

Finally, in chapter four, Wawan lead the readers to a paradoxical conclusion about freedom. The conclusion is that freedom always means “unfreedom” because freedom always requires room and such room means limitation, unfreedom. For Wawan, it is impossible that freedom moves in a room that is void and empty. Freedom needs room and such room is restriction and bound. In this matter, the room is manifested in responsibilities. Wawan then gave a new meaning to Rousseau’s quote:

“To choose to be faithful to birthright freedom means to choose to be in chains. Choosing freedom means choosing to stay in a certain room, to accept a certain limitation, a certain unfreedom, and a certain responsibility.”

According to Wawan, because freedom and responsibility are like two faces of a coin, the debate whether free education is better than responsibility education is unnecessary. The two things will always go together in a paradoxical tension which will always happen.

“Up to now, this explanation seems to be enough. Yet, it can’t end with a full stop of answer. It has to and should end with a question. If de Britto wants to keep its free education, how will it maintain the depth of this paradoxical tension?” Wawan ended his book.

The first thing that attracted my attention is the logic of Wawan’s freedom instillation. The first chapter of his book is entitled “Freedom Needs to Be Instilled”. If we return to Rousseau’s he quoted that freedom exists since birth, why does it still need to be instilled? Wawan answered: to maintain its humanity.

I imagine that to instill is like to plant. It means to insert something from outside into the object that is planted, because that something being inserted does not exist yet in the object. For example, rice seeds are planted into the ground because the ground does not contain the seeds yet. If the ground contained the rice seeds already, why do people have to plant the seeds again in the ground? Is it to maintain the identity of the ground? To plant rice seeds into the ground that contains rice seeds is like to salt the sea, a useless act.

Yet, the uselessness in the context of freedom instillation is not only redundant, but also the freedom that is instilled is not the genuine freedom since birthright. The instilled freedom may be synthetic freedom that has been constructed by certain cultures and perspectives which actually are strange to the students. Is constructed freedom free? Furthermore, do human beings choose to be born free?

Sartre, an atheist philosopher whose the opinion Wawan was against, said that human beings are “thrown” into the world. Being thrown means that there is a nuance of being forced. Human beings are thrown into means that human beings are in a passive state when they were thrown into. They do not “wish” to be born. They were “wished” to be born. Who/what wished for them to be born? It was who/what that wished, of course. Who/what was it? Who knows.

Such question can only be answered with who knows, except if we want to do a leap of faith by mentioning the word “God”. If not, we could say that the birth of human beings happens merely because of a natural process: the meeting of ovum and sperm. Then who/what regulates the natural process? Who knows. People who do the leap of faith will certainly mention again with conviction the word “God”, while others may mention with conviction that nature happens naturally and was not created. Others who stand by the answer of who knows, of course, do not do the leap of faith and therefore do not get any conviction. Yet, standing in doubt is actually a form of faith, and the leap of faith itself is not necessarily certain. Generally they are all the same. The difference is faith that stands in doubt doesn’t need to leap.

Therefore, if Rousseau said that human beings are born free, Sartre on the contrary said that human beings were “cursed” to be free. Who/what cursed them? Who/what that cursed, of course. And who/what cursed them? Who knows. Maybe who/what that cursed is the same with who/what that wished for human birth, which created and regulates the natural process. Maybe it is the omnipotent, the transcendent, the one beyond anything that human beings think of. It is super holy, but also super evil, and neither or super normal. No need to make it bigger, or smaller, or even don’t think, don’t discuss, and don’t preach about it at all, because whatever human beings think or say about it will not affect its existence. It is transcendental, isn’t it?

Therefore, I started to think that Wawan’s disagreement on Sartre’s opinion may be not necessary. If the God he meant is transcendental, atheists like Sartre actually admitted that there is the transcendent in human beings, and that transcendence enables human beings to be free. But if the transcendent is claimed as God who tells human beings to do things, based on certain religious practices and moral values which were in certain books written and passed on through certain prophets, like in religions, then the claim needs to be proven in details.

It is simple. We can start understanding Sartre’s admission of the transcendent by differentiating “us” from “our self”. We are not our self. For example, when we are conscious that we are thinking, “we that is conscious” is different from “our self that is thinking”. There is a difference between “thinking” and “conscious of being thinking”. Still confused? When we are conscious that we are confused, “we that is conscious” is not “our self that is confused”. There is a difference between “confused” and “conscious of being confused”. Confusion cannot be settled in confusion. Confusion must be transcended so that we are not confused and solve the confusion. We can transcend our confusion by being conscious of it. We can be conscious of it because we have consciousness. This consciousness is transcendental in human beings and becomes the ontological foundation for our freedom. When we are conscious of every thing, we transcend beyond every thing and not attached to every thing. We can choose freely. Hence, Wawan was right when he said that to instill freedom means to make human beings “conscious” that there are many choices before them that they can “choose” based on any motives, not simply based on instinct. Human beings can transcend their tendency on limited objects because they have infinite transcendental consciousness.

It is indeed a bit “odd” that human beings consciousness that is transcendental is considered to be the same with the transcendental reality that wished for human beings birth, that cursed human beings to be free or even created and regulates the natural process. I put odd in between quotation marks because it may sound odd only for those who get used to think that the transcendent is God and God is not human beings consciousness. Nevertheless, there are people who consider human beings consciousness as God. The “other” perspective see that every human being consciousness is the little transcendental reality (microcosm) which is a part of the big transcendental reality (macrocosm), which becomes the beginning and the end of everything: the alpha and the omega. If the alpha and the omega is God, the big transcendental reality, then the consciousness of every human being, the little transcendental reality, is nothing but the “sparks of God’s spirit”, the holy entity, which God instilled in human beings to guide them. In the language of religions: God always be with us. Therefore, we can say that in each human being there is God (as consciousness, the little transcendental reality) and in God (as the big transcendental reality) there are human beings. Human beings and God are interconnected, or even united, when the human being is in full consciousness. This matching game or making concepts matched like this may not be right, but it may not be wrong either.

The transcendental consciousness of human beings will be useful in turn to deconstruct and reconstruct the synthetic freedom instilled in the students. If we go back again, freedom a la de Britto stands on a foundation of certain values. If the foundation of values is changed, the construction of the freedom will automatically change. The foundation of values can change when students transcend them, are conscious of them. When the student is conscious, he is not bound to the foundation of values that was instilled. He can build his own foundation, beyond Max Scheler’s values hierarchy and construct new values he selected freely based on his own consciousness, to create newer freedom construction that is more suitable for him.

Such action is certainly a bit different from the concept of “anarchy” that Wawan mentioned in page 58, because the student does not forget the instilled foundation of values. The student only replaces it with newer values that he considers to be more valuable based on reasonable arguments. Wawan himself stated, “An effort to give a foundation, to instill values, always involves critical force to question what already existed and established.” In this case, human beings’ transcendental consciousness acts as the original source of freedom that devours established old values and creates new values to replace the construction of synthetic freedom which is obsolete.

Now the question is: is there a genuine freedom? The answer is: yes, but not really. If the genuine freedom is in the transcendental consciousness of the human beings, Sartre himself said that consciousness is immaterial: “nothing”. What he meant by nothing is that consciousness does not have an objective reality, so that it can be considered to be “nothing”. Yet, because such immaterial consciousness does exist–we can sense the existence–then nothing exists. This consciousness which is “nothing” leads human beings to shape their existence. And because “nothing” leads the direction of human life, human beings are free to decide their life. Human beings are free absolutely, and therefore human beings have absolute personal responsibilities. They can’t be mushy and blame others for what they did, including blaming God. “In the end, one is responsible for what is made of one,” Sartre said.

Therefore, differing from Wawan who disagreed with Sartre, I started to think that if the reflection of Sartre’s absolute freedom can advocate people to be responsible absolutely, then it should be instilled in schools exactly. As Wawan explained, choosing to be in chains of responsibilities means being faithful to the birthright freedom. If this is done absolutely, this means maintaining humanity absolutely, and preventing dehumanization since the beginning. How?

I think the key is the choosing exercise like what Wawan described at the end of his essay about the implementation of freedom at de Britto. I started to think that the choosing exercise is the first one to do since the very beginning of implementing freedom–integrated to the instillation of the foundation of values. As once again I took from Wawan himself, “Freedom rests on a free choice that is decided through a process of choosing.” This means when somebody chooses, he uses his freedom; he is free, he is experiencing freedom. When he is experiencing freedom, values of freedom are instilled within him. Freedom cannot be only preached. Freedom has to be experienced so that the value of freedom, in Wawan’s term, “interiorized” into the depth of the heart. If someone uses his freedom wisely, the freedom will set him free. If he corrupts, misuses his freedom, the freedom will corrupt, corrupting his humanity and others’ humanity. To use freedom wisely means choosing the right. It takes exercise to choose the right. If life is full of choices, this choosing exercise is a process of living life the fullest.

In instilling the foundation of values, we need to remember that people should not believe in certain values blindly, because every decision is always made under certain situation and condition in a certain context. Such situation and condition in such context is ever changing and never the same. At the same time, we are conscious that values are not always value-free. Values are not always value-free because they are from human experiences that are full of subjectivity. Because values are not always value-free, they cannot be applied generally to any situation and condition in any context. If they are forced to be applied, what will happen is “deviation”. I put this word in between quotation marks because people can think that such deviation is the truth–because it is accordance to what one believes absolutely–although such deviation is in fact destroying humanity. For example: a person who practices jihad to the level that s/he destroys others’ place of worship. In this case, we need to be careful in selecting the values that we will consider to be absolute. Again, it’s a matter of choice.

Because we can’t always rely on values, and at the same time we always have to make decisions, we need other basis which we can always count on in any situation and condition in any context. The basis should be transcendental. And the transcendental reality we can access logically as human beings is our own consciousness: nothing.

Sartre said that our consciousness is “fluid”, not identical with self, and dynamic. Because it is not identical with self, consciousness is not the same with the thoughts in human’s self. Remember that “thinking” is not the same with “conscious of being thinking”. Because consciousness is not the same with thoughts, whatever we think about consciousness is not the consciousness itself. Consciousness is always beyond our thoughts, human’s thoughts, including Sartre’s thoughts. Therefore, Sartre’s statement about consciousness is not the consciousness itself. Sartre’s statement about consciousness is his concept or value about consciousness. The concept is not the same with the conceptualized, like in the proverb “the map is not the area”. A map is only the visual description that is connected to the reality of an area. If the visual description is connected properly with the reality of the area, the map is correct. If not, the map is wrong.

Therefore, Sartre’s statement about consciousness needs to be re-checked whether it is true by sensing the connection of the concept with the reality of consciousness in ourselves. Nevertheless, because I have sensed the suitability of Sartre’s concept with my reality of consciousness, I chose to adopt the concept in this essay. This is also to remind us of my previous statement that value or concept is not always reliable. “Not always” also means “sometimes”. For the time being, I may say that I rely on Sartre’s concept on consciousness because I think that I can rely on that concept. I say that I can rely on it because I have proven the truth of that concept, and therefore I know that the concept can be relevant for our discussion.

The value of consciousness a la Sartre which can be useful for this discussion is “dynamic”. Our consciousness is dynamic and it is different from our thoughts that are stagnant, difficult to change. The stagnancy of our thoughts is the root of our stubbornness as human beings; the main cause of our tendency to reject new things, new values we find, while making our self to stay comfortable, to keep the old values that may not be relevant anymore. To keep our mind “up-to-date”, not behind, we need to keep our mind to stay connected with our consciousness at all times. The dynamic nature of consciousness is the one that makes it suitable to be relied upon in uncertain conditions and situations in any ever changing context. If someone wants to always be right in making decisions, s/he has to be conscious when s/he is thinking. If one is thinking without being conscious, s/he can’t control her/his thoughts. Thinking without control can cause someone to be trapped in confusion; can’t make any decisions or make decisions recklessly.

The consciousness itself, because it is transcendental and beyond values, is “something” which is free from values. I put the word something between quotation marks because consciousness is “nothing”, not a thing. But because consciousness is not a thing, I think that the Ignatian “electio” tradition de Britto chose to be its method for choosing exercises may be appropriate. According to Wawan, in this tradition, choices are always made in a “praying mode” because choices are considered to be “spiritual discernment”. The spiritual element here is important because our consciousness we want to access is not a thing; it does not have an objective reality. Our consciousness is physically non-existent, but spiritually it is. Because consciousness only exists spiritually, we can only access it through spiritual ways. One of the spiritual ways is the Ignatian spirituality chosen by de Britto.

I don’t know exactly about Ignatian “electio” tradition. What I learned from Wawan’s description is that the spiritual discernment aims to find “God’s will”. Here, if we play the matching game again and to make God same with the transcendental human consciousness, the essence of praying mode and spiritual discernment in the tradition of Ignatian “electio” may be the same with coaching students to be more sensitive to their consciousness. Coaching students to be sensitive to their consciousness does not mean to coach consciousness. We can’t coach our consciousness, as we can’t coach God. What we can coach is ourselves to be more sensitive to God, to consciousness. Therefore, if someone is not conscious, it doesn’t mean that his consciousness is weaken or lost. Rather, he himself is not connected with his consciousness. As religion says, God never leaves human beings. It is the human beings that turn away from God.

As an institution founded by the Jesuits, de Britto may be had to opt for Ignatian spirituality as its spiritual way. This spiritual way is the color of its free education spirit. But we know that Ignatian spirituality is not the only kind of spirituality in the world. Therefore, other schools that wish to practice free education can also opt for other kinds of spirituality suitable to their contexts. What we need to be conscious of is that the choice of the institution may not be suitable for each person in the institution. Everyone has and should be able to choose one’s spiritual way. Probably, the ideal approach of “cura personalis” is applied since individual students choose their spiritual way. Each student is encouraged to find his own spiritual way, which is suitable for him. The question is how to find the right way if the student is still “lost” at the beginning?

I think students can initially “test the water” (any way) with their teachers’ assistance. By testing the water, students can experience the way. When they are experiencing the way, students can find their own values toward the way they’re experiencing. Are the values they find similar to what they are taught? If it is not the same, or it has not been taught at all, students can renew the existing, established values. Hence, there will be new values, new concepts; new knowledge is blossoming. This is the correlation between spirituality and knowledge. In the process of trying the spiritual way, I think Ignatian spirituality can be an interesting and worth trying alternative.

What we need to note is that spirituality is not always the same with religion in the common sense. That is why people with no religion can have their own spirituality. People with no religion basically embrace nothing, like the atheist Sartre embraced nothing: transcendental human consciousness. In a deeper sense, spirituality can be interpreted as spirit. There is someone who is so spirited that he declared science as his religion. The rituals are to analyze research, manage his mind, and then describe it in words and actions. Whatever we do can be spiritual as long as we do it in full consciousness. As religion says, to work is to worship.

That shows that the teachings of ancient religions may be still relevant today. Those teachings that have lasted for hundreds even thousand of years might be right, during its time, in certain situation and condition of certain context then. Maybe the teachings of religions are the fruit of human consciousness then. Time flew, human consciousness changed, and automatically the fruit changed as well. The new teachings, which were more apt to the spirit of the next era, came. What we need to remember is that the fruit of the consciousness is not the consciousness itself. Human consciousness changes dynamically, while the fruit which falls from time to time–settled in various traditions–is always static, stagnant. People unconsciously then prefer to keep the fruits of consciousness than the consciousness itself. People’s mind is twisted: the fruits of consciousness are treated as the consciousness, and the consciousness is considered to be the fruit of certain spiritualities. People even reject the consciousness because it produces new fruits that may not go together with the expired old fruits. God is said to be unchanged, while human consciousness is always changing. Yet, if we are conscious, we have known for so long that what never changes is change itself.

Therefore, I start to think that atheists like Sartre who held on the transcendental consciousness might be more spiritual than those who held on the teachings of ancient, established religions. The closer human beings to the transcendent, the more absolute their freedom is. As religion says, the closer human beings are to God, the freer and responsible human beings are. Why? Because the Rome passages de Britto quoted from the Bible in its students handbook said that “the children of God” are free.

So far, Indonesians who claim to follow certain religions may need to stop opposing the reflection of absolute freedom as expressed by Sartre and other atheists. If de Britto chose Ignatian spirituality as the color of its free education, we might be interested in trying Sartrean spirituality as the color of our free education. We can also choose freely other colors of spirit, like intellectual spirit. After all, it is free education. What matters is we are free and responsible.

Freedom becomes important because, as I said before, without freedom it is impossible for people to learn to lead themselves. If people cannot learn to lead themselves, it is impossible for them to lead others. If recently Anies Baswedan said that Indonesia is experiencing a crisis of leadership, it may be because schools with free education like de Britto are still so few. Most Indonesians are taught to be responsible under pressure, not in freedom.

De Britto is not like that. At de Britto, students are taught to be free and responsible. That’s a complete education in my opinion. Complete education is more possible making human beings to be human completely. Thus, I said that the instillation of freedom at de Britto may be useless. When it may be useless, it is necessarily useless; it just may be useless. “Maybe useless” can also mean “maybe not useless”. Maybe synthetic freedom needs to be instilled first, so that the students know that the freedom instilled is synthetic and they can create the freedom by themselves; maybe de Britto free education lead to Sartrean absolute freedom. Maybe the instillation of synthetic freedom will in fact entrap students in the shallow understanding about freedom. Maybe students basically can free themselves because the genuine freedom is already within their consciousness. Who knows? If people have to be taught about freedom first to be free, who taught the first free person? God maybe? Maybe, maybe, and maybe. There are only possibilities. Possibilities can be chosen. Father Joannes Oei Tik Djoen said that de Britto free education aimed to help people to choose, without closing the door to choose other options before or after making a choice. Father Oei used to be the rector of the college and one of the key persons behind de Britto’s free education.

Possibilities always bring risks. What are not possible from possibilities are no risks. The possibility to free, for instance, will always bring the risk of freedom abuse to the level of creating negative excesses. People then reject completely the possibilities of negative excesses and get afraid of freedom. People would rather choose unfreedom, including in education. In fact, if people are always educated not to be free, they will not be able to use freedom appropriately. If they can’t use their freedom appropriately, won’t it bring even more negative excesses? We can see this in Indonesians who are educated (under pressure) since they are young to be responsible, but Indonesia earns the title of the most corrupt country in the world. Leadership crises are everywhere. Who is responsible for these? Indonesians are not responsible.

On the contrary, people at de Britto have long been not afraid of freedom. They chose free education in full consciousness, including the risks: the emergence of excesses. In Father Oei’s paper entitled “Free Education at de Britto College High School as a Basic Attitude”, he described, confessed, and even accepted the excesses of freedom the school chose. I quoted his words here:

“Excesses emerged from the nature of human beings that were granted with human freedom of being able to choose different options. Every human being must be respected in his/her human freedom to choose personally (of course, with all consequences that follow the choice) and this freedom will not be taken by any power. However, we don’t say that we have given our blessing ‘different choice (attitude)’. We say that we acknowledge/respect/appreciate the rights to choose. Therefore, if we see supposedly that there is a ‘wrong’ choice which we label as viable ‘excess”, we should in fact give it an opportunity to appear. This excess should appear to give as a sign that there is something wrong, be it in the school, family, or society environment. Therefore, it will be easier for us to find a way out to help those who make the ‘wrong’ choice.”

For Father Oei, excess is a “positive red light”, which is useful to reveal a problem. When the problem is revealed clearly, the way to solve it is easier to find. Father Oei was sure that the positive sides of free education are “more than the excesses”. I am also sure.

Father Oei’s paper was written on May 29, 1976 to answer the public criticism on the practices of free education at de Britto. Some say that the concept of free education was initiated in 1973 academic year when Father Oei commenced his term as the rector of the college. “The concept of free education is an answer to the condition of the society that cannot accept differences, particularly during 1960-1970. The society valued outer appearance more than inner motivation. The educators at de Britto high school felt that students had to be able to have their own opinion,” described de Britto website on the history of the free education practices at de Britto.

If we pay attention to the dates, we can learn immediately that de Britto free education was born almost at the same time with the school of critical education pioneered by Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich in Latin America in 1970s. Hence, I am tempted to guess that de Britto free education as a genuine idea from Indonesia that is not less qualified than the critical education from Latin America. Moreover, the concept has been tested for years at de Britto and brings certain excellences to the college. It means that Indonesians may not need to learn to Latin America to design free education for their schools; maybe it will be enough if they adopt de Britto’s concept. I say it may be so, once again, because it is only a possibility. If people at de Britto can come up with their own concept of free education, maybe others can come up with their own concepts as long as they want to think in full consciousness.

At the end, this essay will not be able to cover the discussion on free education (de Britto) in whole and perfectly. As I warned earlier, I only stayed for three hours at de Britto. Therefore, I ask you to visit de Britto yourself and to experience directly the atmosphere of freedom there. If not, you may be like my mother and others, which view the freedom a la de Britto as free style of dressing and long hair. For me, the perception of freedom like that is shallow. But no matter how shallow the concept of freedom as expressed in long hair, it is an interesting entrance to further analysis on freedom. We only become shallow when we stop at that entrance.

SATRIA ANANDITA

The training aims to improve their basic English language competence, both oral and written, and their professionalism in teaching-learning process in classrooms. During the training, they will be taught by two teachers, one native speaker of English and one local teacher. They will attend sessions five days a week from Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 4 PM. On Saturdays, they may use the resource center facility for independent study.

The methods used in this training are based on the principles of; needs-oriented (based on the needs of the institution where the teacher will teach), learner-centered (focused on the needs of each participant), learning-centered (focused on the learning of each participant), and task-based. The participants will be evaluated with progressive evaluation method that includes achievement and motivation of each participant, levels of the tasks in the program, and final results of the speaking, listening and writing tests.

The training will run from October 3 to December 16, 2011. The opening of the program was held in IALF Bali campus, attended by Jacob Hutubessy (staff in Human Resources Development Section of Papua Province Education, Youth, and Sports Bureau), Irwanti Sarewo (the head of Human Resources Development Section of Papua Province Education, Youth, and Sports Bureau), Caroline Bentley (IALF Bali manager), Vladimir Pejovic (IALF Bali academic manager), Candra Dewi (IALF program officer), and the participants.

After the opening ceremony, the participants were taken to a campus tour to get to know all the classrooms and facilities of IALF Bali, including the resource center where the computer, Internet, and books were provided, and to be introduced to their teachers. Upon completion of the course, the participants will depart to Australia to attend a program of curriculum, pedagogy and ICT review in the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland for ten weeks.

The cooperation between the institutions includes: (1) developing qualified education and learning activities; (2) planning and carrying out various programs in order to improve the quality of school human resources, school management, and output quality; (3) deciding and developing various alternatives in order to increase school income.

Activities currently carried out and planned in the development program are: (a) identifying and clarifying problems, potentials, and opportunities of schools or other education institutions under the foundation; (b) deciding the development direction of those schools and education institutions; (c) creating plans based on priority scale and application strategies in order to improve the quality of teaching-learning process in those schools and education institutions.

Since August 1, 2011 the participants have been in SWCU campus to undergo 81 intensive training sessions on English, leadership, communication, school management, good governance principles, problem solving and decision making, SWOT analysis, creative and innovative thinking, opportunity and risk analysis, school business planning, and application of ICT for learning. The training is a preparation before the participants depart to Australia on September 30 to learn pedagogic leadership and school management at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

Jeffrie Lempas, the WTA working team leader who was in charge in training, in his report mentioned that during six weeks in Salatiga, the English skills of the participants have progressed. Based on the pre- and post- TOEIC like tests, ten participants experienced significant score improvement between 50-275 points and five participants showed improvement between 5-45 points. Two participants didn’t show any progress, and two other was not evaluated because they were late in joining the program.

“Their English competence needs to be improved so that they learn better in Australia. The sessions on school management, SWOT analysis, business planning, etc were given so that they have similar basic concepts to what they are going to learn there,” said Jeffrie.

In his speech representing the participants, Yustinus Raunsai from Anotaurei Junior High School in Yapen said, “We feel very fortunate to be chosen among many teachers in Papua. We hope that similar trainings will be conducted in the future so that teachers can improve their service to Papuan children.” About the English sessions, Raunsai suggested the committee to mix participants from different competence levels so that those who were still weak could follow the materials better.

Until September 10, the participants will be at SWCU campus in Salatiga to attend 81 intensive training sessions. 66 of those sessions are in English language training. The rest is sessions in leadership, communication, school management, principles of good governance, problem solving and decision making, SWOT analysis, creative and innovative thinking, opportunity and risk analysis, school business planning, and application of ICT for learning. Upon completing the training, the participants will go to Australia to strengthen their school management skills at the University of the Sunshine Coast.

The opening ceremony was held in Probowinoto Hall in SWCU campus. WTA director Eka Simanjuntak delivered his speech with Rector Titaley and Saul Salamuk, the head of Human Resources Section of Papua Education, Youth, and Sports Bureau before 17 participants and several faculty members of SWCU.

Eka said that WTA and the bureau had sent at least 80 Papuan teachers to study in USC in Queensland, and Saul Salamuk said that WTA has been a great help to the bureau in improving the quality and capacity of Papuan teachers. Now the principals need to be sent to study to USC to keep up with their teachers.

Rector Titaley asked the bureau to give more time and opportunities to the principals upon their return from Australia to make positive changes in their schools. Titaley thought that it was not easy to change school organization because it required changes in the attitude and culture of the human resources. “Therefore, it takes at least minimum two periods,” said Titaley.

From the cover we can directly know the aim of the book: to uncover the relation among knowledge, politics, and power. In the book, it is illustrated that there is no knowledge that is neutral and free of values. All take sides, and in a society with social class system, all forms of knowledge naturally take sides with certain social class. You must have remembered the history of Indonesian Communist Party and how the September 30 incident was used to legitimate Soeharto’s heroism.

Education is a political commodity. We know that this is not entirely a new idea. Ages ago, Francis Bacon has said that knowledge is power. No matter how influential Bacon to the world of knowledge, today we still can find academicians who believe that education is neutral. It is not a political commodity and should not be affiliated with politics. “Students movement is a moral movement, not a political movement!” somebody stated to me during a discussion forum in campus.

According to this person, a moral movement is a movement that takes sides to the needs of the people and not the needs of any political parties. But we all are aware that any political party will always claim itself to be on the side of the needs of the people. Thus, I think that such moral movement which said to be “on the side of the needs of the people” is, in a way, a political movement.

If students’ moral movement is not a political movement, why did the New Order regime need to create regulations to “normalize” campus life? What did it mean by “normalization”? What it meant by “normalization” is that students had to stay in classrooms, and must not go outside of campus to speak of their criticism to the development during that era, because such movement was considered not normal and disturbed national development stability. On the contrary, students’ criticism was expressed because they didn’t only learn in classrooms, but also from the world outside campus when they observed social realities.

That also happened during Indonesia’s struggle for independence. The only reason why Indonesian political leaders were educated people is because they were educated. Because they were educated, they were aware and knew about colonialism. They were then able to gather forces to raise and fight against colonialism. Because knowledge is power, as Bacon said.

Therefore, education is close to politics and power. Education is not neutral. Education is always full of interests. That is what the book shows. If I quoted Bacon and mentioned some pieces of Indonesian history, the book quoted three main perspectives in critical education discourse as its theoretical framework. The first one is critical theory from Frankfurt School. The second one is hegemony concept by Antonio Gramsci. The third one is critical pedagogy by Paulo Freire.

After he finished playing with theories and abstract concepts, Agus Nuryatno took us into the reality of contemporary education issues in chapter three. In total, there were six issues discussed by Nuryatno in his book.

The first one is the relationship among schools, capitalism, and positivism culture. He described that capitalism domination is not only limited to the realm of economy, but it has reached other realms such as education. This is shown by our educational orientation which only serves the needs of industries. Schools are like factories where workers for industries are created. Whatever taught in school must fit the needs of the industries. If not, the school is wrong.

If schools keep adjusting themselves to the needs of the industries, Nuryatno argued that what will happen is technocratic rationality mode of thought. Technocratic rationality has two main characteristics: conformity and uniformity. Conformity is passive adaptive attitude to textbooks and realities of life. Uniformity means everything must be the same. Students raised in this mode, according to Nuryatno, will experience a drop in their critical thinking. Without critical thinking, people can do nothing.

Education is a social mobility media. The main question is: can education create a new social class or does it simply produce old social classes? If it only produces members of the current social classes, education fails to improve its learners’ quality of life. The rich will stay rich (or even richer), the poor will remain poor (or even poorer). The rich can use all their financial resources to buy good quality education, while the poor will only get whatever they can afford. The poor will always lose against the rich.

Another issue discussed is the link between globalization, neoliberalism, and education politics. In the past, colonialism was done in physical level. Nowadays, colonialism is practiced even more in education realm through theory and methodology colonialism. Our orientation about academic quality always refers to what they called “developed countries”, as if they have more authority in deciding the right and the wrong in the world of knowledge.

In psychology, we always turn to the West, although in Java we have what we call Kawruh Jiwa (Soul Knowledge). In philosophy, we also always turn to the West. We forget that our ancestors had their own philosophy that is more relevant and contextual to our life here. Twenty centuries ago, Aristotle said that the truth was the result of deductive thinking. Francis Bacon then said that the truth must be verifiable in the laboratory. Early last century, a Russian philosopher Ouspensky also said that the truth needed not be decided with logic and experimental activities only, but also with the intuition. This kind of sense philosophy has been practiced centuries ago in Java, so people should have known the difference between krasa (to sense what really exists) and rumangsa (to sense what seems to exist).

In chapter four, Agus Nuryatno tried to “incorporate” the ideas of school of critical education into Islamic education discourse. This incorporation was done conceptually, thematically, and pedagogically. Generally, Nuryatno felt that Islamic education discourse is currently dominated by theological and normative issues, and ignored social, political, and historical aspects. If this trend continues, Nuryatno thinks that Islamic education will not be able to bring positive transformation into public life.

With his book, Nuryatno tried to even out the norms of Islamic education discourses with the ideas of critical education. For example, the duty of Islamic education is not only to produce a human being whose aim is to be close to God, but also as a media to criticize social realities. Conceptually, a human being is not only viewed as a perfect person (insan kamil), a complete person, and God’s representative on Earth, but also a person who has, in Freire’s term, an “ontological calling” to be more perfect from time to time. According to Nuryatno, the meeting point between Islamic education and critical education is on the belief that they share that human beings are not important and need to continuously perfect themselves for the rest of their life.

I consider that Nuryatno’s book is quite good as an introduction to critical education. His effort to include the spirit of critical education in Islamic education discourse may be an example of how to incorporate critical education to other educational models. Happy reading!

SATRIA ANANDITA

© Illustration: kupretist