When anything goes wrong in society,
people promptly point the finger to education. Recurring social problems such
as student clashes, interethnic or interfaith conflicts, corruption and moral
decadence are assumed to be indicative of failure in the education system.
Recently, some people, including government
officials, enthusiastically proposed that anticorruption, character building,
sustainable development, scouting, traditional martial arts, and even soccer
should be included as school subjects. In brief, people want to put anything
valuable into the curriculum.
Granted, those additional subjects would have
made the curriculum inflated and unmanageable. Parents complain that their kids
are burdened by the number of school subjects and extended learning time. This
brings us to the issue of school subjects versus education aims. Confusion
begins when people mix them up.
Education in general is aimed at making man
more human, enabling him/her to understand human nature and the universe.
Without a proper education, people become meaningless and they are bound to
fail in life.
As meaning is abstract and infinite and
learning time and space are limited, the curriculum should be structured
cost-effectively. Therefore, education should be conducted on the basis of
knowledge about human nature, its actuality, potential and possibility within a
particular culture.
Philip H. Phenix in his book Realms of Meaning
identifies six classes of meaning, indicating general kinds of understanding a
person should have as a member of a civilized community. They are symbolic,
empiric, esthetic, synnoetic, ethical and synoptic meaning. People should
challenge the curriculum when it fails to inculcate the meaning. The meaning,
not the subject, matters.
Students develop meaning through school
subjects or disciplines. Meaning is more or less fixed while school subjects
are not always clearly assignable to a single class of meaning. Literary works,
for example, can be used to teach multiple meanings — be it symbolic, empiric
or esthetic meaning.
Classification of meaning is important for
facilitating student learning and for allocating school subjects. Practically
speaking, meaning delivery is in the hand of teachers. The six categories of
meaning are elaborated as follows.
Students are taught empiric meaning through
language and mathematics to enable them to use symbols meaningfully in
communication. Literacy and numeracy are basic for human life. Therefore,
language and mathematics, along with science, constitute core subjects in
schools across the globe.
Students are taught empiric meaning through
the scientific enterprise, i.e. physical sciences, life sciences and social
sciences to discover truth. While symbolics is based on form, empiric is based
on observable facts. The teaching of sciences is to enable students to discover
truth.
At lower elementary levels, where play-based
teaching is appropriate, there is no necessity to separate natural science
(IPA) from social studies (IPS), as both are assignable to teach empiric
meaning. The Education and Culture Ministry, commencing this year, is now
redefining both subjects. From a pedagogical point of view, the focus should be
on inculcating the empirical meaning rather than school subjects.
Students are taught esthetics through music, visual arts, the arts of
movement, literature, etc., to enable them to grasp esthetic meaning in life.
Esthetics sharpens student feeling and sensitivity. The focus of teaching music
is not to train students to be musicians but to develop musical sensitivity.
The very end of teaching art is appreciation, not description of it.
Synnoetic meaning is simply tacit knowledge as
opposed to explicit knowledge. Different from symbolic meaning, which is
abstract, synnoetic meaning, is personal meaning based on experience. Through
literature, psychology and religion, teachers develop in students an
existential meaning of their own life.
Ethical meaning provides students with
informed decisions to do things. It arises out of disinterested perception,
while esthetic meaning arises from subjective perception. Students may have
active personal commitment to a particular type of dancing at the cost of
ethical meaning. In ethics, activities are done for purposes of public
participation, as the public tends to share intersubjectivity on what is right
or wrong.
Through religious education, citizenship
(PPKN) and Pancasila, teachers instill moral teaching on students. The outcome
is not explicit student knowledge on the subject but rather putting moral
values into practice. Physical education can also be used for teaching moral
values such as fairness, sportsmanship, team work and a respect for rules.
Synoptics, or synopsis of meaning, suggests an
integrative function of all meanings elaborated above. History and religion are
the major school subjects that promote synoptic meaning. Teaching history is
not to memorize past events but to make sense of them in an integrated way. In
the end, learning history is to improve the present and future.
We have elaborated on the aim of general
education — to provide students with six realms of meaning to make sense of
themselves and the universe — however, we cannot put everything praiseworthy
and desirable into the curriculum.
The six meanings can be inculcated through
multiple school subjects. Obviously elementary, secondary and tertiary students
need different levels of understanding of the meaning. The curriculum should be
designed accordingly.
Which subjects propagate what meaning and at
what level of education are vital curricular decisions to make. What matters most
is the teacher who controls the class to inculcate the meanings.
A
Chaedar Alwasilah ;
A
Professor
at
the Indonesian Educational University (UPI) Bandung
JAKARTA
POST, 19 Januari 2013
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