Michael Heng pernah jadi docent matematika di Amsterdam. Belakangan banyak menulis tentang management. Di bawah ini tulisannya, minta tanggapan. Ia berbahasa Inggris, Belanda dan Mandarin. Di Jakarta 30 tahun yang lalu sudah ada sekolah, yang semua pekerjaan rumah murid dikerjakan di sekolah. Jam sekolahnya lebih panjang. Tiba di rumah tidak perlu bikin kerjaan rumah. Waktunya bisa untuk olah raga, untuk hobby. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Heng <[email protected]> Date: 29 January 2018 at 12:06 Subject: School system needs to match transformation society has undergone To:
Dear Friends, Below is my op-ed piece in China Daily (Hong Kong) and its website address. Your comments are most welcome. Regards, MH https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/88/78/128/1517201370909.html Monday, January 29, 2018, 12:47 School system needs to match transformation society has undergone CHINA DAILY HK EDITION Monday, January 29, 2018, 12:47By Michael Heng *Despite emergence of small families and well-educated but working parents, education structure has changed little in past five decades, Michael Heng points out* Schools in Hong Kong and many cities elsewhere in Asia have not undergone significant changes since the 1960s while family structure, the economy and other elements of society have experienced great transformations. Just to name four changes that have direct bearing on education. First, families have become smaller; many children have either one or no sibling. Second, most parents today are pretty well-educated — at the very least they are literate. Third, jobs for university or polytechnic graduates are more difficult to come by. Fourth, there is an ample supply of teachers’ college graduates. In the 1960s, schools focused mainly on transmitting knowledge to students. In line with this exam results were the key criteria to measure school performance. Not many schools had well-trained teachers. Where students felt their teachers failed their expectations, they had to turn to some kind hearted and brainy fellow classmates for help. In many cases, their parents were too poorly educated to help, and they could not afford private tuition. In such conditions, other important matters related to full development of an individual were pushed into the background. One hardly heard of schools being responsible for helping students develop social and communication skills and guide them in coping with personal problems, failures in life, etc. Fast-forward to the 2010s, schools have changed. Though there has been open recognition of the roles of schools in the full development of an individual, the main emphasis is still on exam results. Even with a growing army of well-trained teachers and better-educated parents, we see a booming private-tuition industry. Our mindset and practices on educating our young are stuck in the 1960s, despite conditions having changed so much. With only one sibling or no sibling, a child has lost the family environment and does not acquire the habits and skills to cope with older and younger siblings. This inadequacy is often not addressed by schools, which put children of the same age in the same class. As an alternative, primary schools can have just two kinds of classes. One kind comprises classes with children aged 6, 7 and 8, and the higher for children aged 9, 10 and 11. They not only learn from the teachers, but from each other. The younger ones do content-learning from the older ones, while the older ones learn how to teach the younger ones. There is a “risk” the older ones will fail to teach the content correctly to younger ones. But there are textbooks, well-trained teachers, and well-educated parents to correct errors. Moreover, children are exposed from a young age to develop independent thinking and to absorb materials through questioning and critical thinking. Such mental habits are immensely useful for independent pursuit of knowledge. For those familiar with Montessori educational philosophy, the approach sounds familiar. Schools should also be reorganized in terms of time and space. Since both parents of most young families work, schools can be organized to keep students at school while parents are working. All kinds of interesting activities can be organized to fill in the hours. Homework in the traditional sense should be done during these hours. “Weaker” students should be assisted by “stronger” students, making tuition redundant. Off-school hours are free from homework and can be fruitfully spent on such activities as community work or learning extra languages. As a very rich city, Hong Kong can afford to have small classes. Unlike a class of 40 students, where teachers sometimes have to struggle just to maintain discipline and order, what about a class of 20 to 25 students? Any person with teaching experience can testify to the benefits of small classes in schools. To offset the negative aspects of living in a concrete jungle, schools should have bushes, flowers, vegetables, plants and trees to cultivate an early respect for the natural environment. Besides transmitting book knowledge, there are other dimensions of education — cultivating good character, attitude toward work, social-justice awareness, proper human interaction and ability to cope with failures and setbacks in life. Good character is more than integrity and being upright. It includes the ability to help others, especially the weak and disadvantaged. Here schools should design incentives to encourage such behavior. For example, classes can be assessed on cooperation and mutual assistance among students, as a balance to competitive exams. The major spiritual traditions attach great value to productive work, whether well-paid or otherwise. Such attitude is important especially in the current labor market where well-paid professionals may lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Those who perceive all productive work as respectable will be more flexible in facing the situation. Of course, social attitudes must also change to make it easier for redundant staff. *The author is a retired professor who had academic appointments in Australia, the Netherlands, and at six universities in Asia. He has been trained as a school teacher and has also taught in secondary schools. * Share this story -- *Albert LIN* *Op-Ed Editor* *China Daily Hong Kong Edition* ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------- Mobile: (852) 9773 3358 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: (852) 2518 5136 Fax: (852) 2552 6061 Website: www.chinadailyasia.com // www.chinadailyasia.com/opinion/ Address: Unit 1818, Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Praya Road, Aberdeen, HK <https://maps.google.com/?q=Hing+Wai+Centre,+7+Tin+Wan+Praya+Road,+Aberdeen,+HK&entry=gmail&source=g>
