Noriko Kimura (20), a Sophia University student from Tokyo, was surprised of what she found in Sanggar Anak Alam (SALAM) Bantul. “This is exactly what my professor Mr. Masahiro Nasu told me about ideal education: children should learn by their curiosity, and should learn in an authentic way,” said Noriko San. “Let children grow based on their interests.”
The place was surrounded by many children learning and playing together with their friends and parents; another thing which is rarely found in many other formal school. Her interest on SALAM continued as she found many other things together with Ecological Education team from Global Leadership Program 2016 during their first fieldwork on Thursday, August 11th 2016.
SALAM is a community working on education. Established in 1988 in Lawen village, Banjarnegara, SALAM community concern was to educate locals to be independent in terms of education and economy. The community was later established in 2000 in Nitiprayan kampong, Bantul, Yogyakarta. SALAM concerns were later developed into four: food, health, environment, social and culture; they learn how to appreciate food by its process, living healthy life by keeping the environment, and living in harmony with nature without neglecting their social and cultural background. The works are divided into three: school (playgroup, kindergarten, elementary school, and junior high school), environmental program (composting, farming, waste paper recycling, and coconut shell charcoal making), and fundraising by producing eco-friendly products. It is a non government community where all people can learn together on how to live their life in harmony with nature and culture, which helps them to be a part of independent society.
Liberal and ecological education is the main core of SALAM curriculum. Parents are involved as facilitators for students in SALAM; they facilitate the students based on their specific area, such as arts, music, farming, and formal subjects such as Mathematics, social science, natural science, and language. As an informal school, SALAM creates curriculum and learning materials based on students’ interest. At the beginning of the semester, there is a forum held by parents and facilitators to figure out students’ interests and create curriculum and learning materials based on those interests. Later, parents will try to take a part in SALAM as facilitators to facilitate those interests. The learning process is conducted through experiential and project based learning (learning by doing), which motivate students to actively participate during the classes.
SALAM becomes good news with many ecological and educational issues rising up nowadays; climate change, global warming, expensive education, and conformity in education are several issues out of many other issues rising up these days. People do need to change to solve those issues and save humanity and our mother earth, and education is the main key to change mankind. Question is, is it applicable in other countries? Can we implement and develop similar system in other countries instead of Indonesia? Or is it only an education utopia happens in Bantul?
Impossibilities
In Indonesia, there are factors and issues which do not support the implementation of SALAM education system. Government control on education in Indonesia becomes one of the most influential factors.
Periodical standardized national curriculum and national examination system by the government are the main topic; standardized national curriculum tends to change ironically in every different period of Indonesian government depends on the new Minister of Education, and national examination system is applied in all elementary up to senior high school in Indonesia as the main requirement for students to finish their study without considering different context and situation of education in different places in Indonesia (many rural areas are below the standard of the national examination system). This standardization issue creates mindset of result oriented education rather than process oriented education; schools and educational institutions are focusing on preparing their students to pass the national standard of education in the national examination and tend to neglect the importance of process in educating their students, which actually holds the main role in education. SALAM emphasizes the importance of process in education, which is totally the opposite of the phenomenon of standardization of education in Indonesia; it is SALAM against the standardized education in Indonesia.
In Philippines, education is affected by industrialization. Industrialization demands education in Philippines to focus more on particular subject in more systematic curriculum rather than liberal education as it is found in SALAM. Formal schools in Philippines have given exact subjects for students to learn about instead of giving students opportunity to learn things based on their interests. In Taiwan, there are high requirements and qualifications to be a teacher. Teaching license, undergraduate degree, and half year internship are several qualifications which are required to be a teacher in Taiwan. It is far different from facilitator system in SALAM, where parents could participate as facilitators for students based on their specific area without particular high requirements and qualifications; the only requirements and qualifications are skills, willingness, and commitment to dedicate their skills for students in SALAM.
Financial life also becomes a factor in other countries. In SALAM, facilitators’ salary is not as high as formal school teacher’s salary, since it is more about their dedication to the community. Teaching is also a way for parents to pay the school fee by contributing as facilitators. SALAM school fee policy will not work in Japan, since school fee in Japan can only be paid by money. The most important factor is parents’ involvement: it is nearly impossible to involve parents during the education process in Japan and Korea with harsh working condition in those countries. It is ironic since parents hold a very important role in SALAM education system, which means that it is nearly impossible to apply it in other countries where most parents are working with such harsh working condition.
With all impossibilities appear in other countries, does it mean it is impossible to run SALAM model of ecological and liberal education in other countries, even in Indonesia?
Rural Empowerment
There is a hope to implement SALAM model of education in other countries: rural areas. Country sides are potential places to implement SALAM education system in other countries, and the answer lies on available green environment and cultural heritage in country sides.
Green environment is the first key in ecological education. It is not enough for students to learn about ecology from books and the internet; they are supposed to learn about ecology by getting in touch with ecology through the environment. They need to experience living in and from the mother earth, which would give them transformational experience as they learn how to live with their environment and how to keep their environment clean, healthy, and safety. This is a great opportunity for people who live in rural areas, for they usually live their life from agriculture. They could teach students how to keep their environment and how to live their life from the environment in their daily life, which would help students to realize how important the environment in their life. The closest thing related to this topic is staple food. It is undeniable that most people depend on their staple food. Bread, rice, cassava, and many other staple foods come from agriculture. By understanding their staple food dependency, students would realize how importance it is to keep the environment.
The second key of SALAM model of ecological education is culture. Traditional culture and local wisdom are rooted in country sides. These cultural heritages are rich of many traditional values which are closely related to ecological environment. Harmony with nature for example, is a traditional local wisdom which is very close to agriculture. People cannot live without nature and ecological environment. No matter how modern urban life in cities is, people who live in cities are still dependent to agriculture, which is absolutely clear: food. Water and oxygen are also important things which are irreplaceable in human life and can only be obtained from our nature. People could rise up their awareness on these things by living traditional values and local wisdom in rural areas and people in rural areas could help them by teaching their children how to live those values. It is another great opportunity for people in rural areas to develop their country sides and also their economics, and it is also a great opportunity for us to revive our local wisdom and traditional culture in country sides.
Rural empowerment and economics growth are excellent opportunities to implement SALAM ecological education by building an alternative school in country sides in other countries. However, there would be hardships in implementing SALAM model of ecological education. “Clashes between different values of urban people and people who live in country sides would be inevitable, especially different mindset and lifestyles among them,” said Keon Sun Kim, a student from Sogang University Korea. Therefore, it is necessary to build alternative ecological school in country sides based on today’s school’s philosophy. Institutionalization (monitoring, license, compulsory program) of alternative ecological school in country sides and economic rhetoric (economic growth, investment, job creation) as a persuasion strategy will be effective to persuade people who live in cities to send their children for education purpose in this school. In the end, reconsidering modern rhetoric to gain deep understanding between people with different values is necessary to solve the problem. “It is necessary to reconsider modern rhetoric, in order to build emotional and mutual understanding among them,” said Sun.
Transforming People and Society
SALAM community is an example of society transformation and rural empowerment by independent society. It is also a critique for the government with lots of issues on education and rural areas in Indonesia: conformity in education, low concern on rural areas, etc., that the society can be independent and educate their people without being dependent to the government. It is a good example of social movement which is trying to solve their problems independently by learning from the nature and living their life from the mother earth without neglecting their social and cultural background, which also becomes a perfect solution for many ecological issues nowadays.
It is possible to implement SALAM model of ecological education in other countries by creating an alternative ecological school in rural areas. It would be an effective rural empowerment for people who live in country sides and a good solution for people in cities to rise up their awareness on environment and ecological issues which become certain concerns nowadays. Alternative ecological school in rural areas will also answer the loosing population phenomenon in country sides which happens as an effect of massive urbanization in many countries. Furthermore, it will also give a solution for ecological issues nowadays: climate change, global warming, etc., which demands change of modern mankind which tend to exploit natural resources without paying attention to the mother earth and the sustainable life of all living creatures, and without exception, human being.
Ecological education is the key to change human kind. It is not as simple as introducing students to green environment; it is to raise up students’ awareness on ecological issues, nurture empathy and sympathy in form of concrete actions, and motivate passionate students to develop their competence, conscience, and compassion, so that they can contribute to the society and heal our broken world.
Yogyakarta, September 5th 2016
Andreas Rahardjo Adi Baskoro
Jendela kata 