This article is not intended to persuade or to convince anyone. It's just a note to myself as to remembering my decision in choosing the education that I feel right for my kids.
First of all, I didn't choose this school because of its "International School" tag. In fact, the "International" tag had made my doubts in the beginning.
It all started from my long contemplation of the education system that I went through all my life. It's about the curriculum.
Basically, I feel the conventional curriculum no longer sufficient for future competitiveness, as the learning is a one-way instructional from teachers to students. It doesn't help motivate and develop creative way of thinking and stimulate the excitement of learning. The conventional curriculum puts too much emphasis on academic and too much pressure on students, it is even doing more damage to them. When kids feel pressurised, their brain cells stop to grow.
Education must cater both character building and intelligence building starting from very early. Most schools nowadays only focus on the latter. Education must provide what is needed by the child to survive now and in the future. Drilling a child to learn to read and to master many academic subjects very early are not helping their character and their ability to survive today and in the future.
My son is 3 years 9 months old now, which is still within his golden age period, so I want to do it right. I felt like I was a victim of the old education system. So, I don't want my children to be exposed to the same type of curriculum, period.
Finding the "perfect" school and education was not easy. We did surveys by going to one school and another, and asking a lot of questions. I also did my observations online, learning about different perspectives of education, collecting people's experiences and feedback, to finally conclude the type of education that I want for my kids. Then, we found the schools that were closest match to our vision and mission.
Getting enrolled to the school we want was another challenge. My son was rejected the first time. But we were quite determined and we finally got it.
Here goes our reasons in sending my son to that school.
1. Active Learning
Active learning means children learn not merely through instruction, but also through experience, experiment, and interaction. In fact, it expects most initiatives come from the students.
It was quite an abstract concept at first for me, because all I knew was the conventional education system. Until I learned about Montessori, and later on Highscope approaches, as I did school surveys for my son.
Montessori and Highscope are basically student-centered educational approaches based on scientific observations of children. Both approaches focus on student initiated activities within a setup environment as their learning methods. They believe that a child has a natural capability to learn independently through a prepared learning environment. Teachers act as a guide and facilitator, but not as a direct instructor. They encourage independence, freedom within limits, and a sense of order. The difference is, Montessori requires the use of predefined tools and materials, while in Highscope any materials can be used as learning tools. We then chose Highscope for the consideration of school availability in the area, school certification, and tuition fee.
Why active learning?
Active learning prepares the students to be a lifelong learner, instead of just persons who are good at following orders and instructions. Because in active learning, students will get used to learn by themselves through self-discovery. These skills will be very useful in real life as they graduated from schools. It also can accommodate the uniqueness of each child and reveal their true potential.
According to research, Early learning programs that are most appropriate for a child’s developmental level are the ones that provide opportunities to learn through play and hands-on exploration. Learning through formal instruction class will hinder the development of the child's brain itself.
“Play is the highest form of research.”
—Albert Einstein
As opposed, students in conventional curriculum depend greatly on their teachers instructions. They always need guidelines from their teachers to study and to do their work. Smart students mean those who are good at following their teachers' instructions. They might struggle later on in real life when they need to face new challenges without any clear guidance. The curriculum also tends to generalize kids.
2. Encourage creativity
I believe that creativity is the key to competitiveness. When competitions are getting tight in the future, it is creative people that will survive.
I feel that I am a very uncreative person. I will struggle as hell when it comes to creative ideas. I was too much used to being fed throughout my education, and wasn't taught to have my own initiatives for a very long time (Thanks to the conventional education system). The same cannot happen to my children.
In this school, children get to choose their own activities, express their own ideas, and to have initiatives. Children get to experiment with any materials in class. The whole environment and system are setup to encourage creativity.
3. No rank system
Rank system will do more harm than good to the kids, and to the society. Children should not be compared with each other, as they are unique. It will only pressurise them. Life is not about competing with each other, but about being collaborative with each other.
In this school, children will only be compared with themselves, i.e. their own previous progresses, but not with the other children. This is one of a few schools in Indonesia that doesn't implement rank system, and that is exactly what I'm looking for.
I wrote something here as to why I dislike rank system: Perlukah Punya Anak Pemenang?
4. No pressure to kids
"Learning is a journey, not a race." That is the motto of the school. It promotes enjoyment to the learning process. This is probably the only school that clearly states 'enjoyment' in their curriculum. They provide learning through play experience for the early childhood education. Children learn best when they enjoy what they are doing. Pressures will only damage kids brains. As I have written in my previous posts, school should be fun. And that is exactly what this school provides.
The school applies the so called "Developmentally Appropriate Practice" method of education. In class, the teachers will never push the students to do something beyond their time. They believe children will achieve things on their own when they are ready, after constantly being exposed to proper stimulations. For example, baby starts to walk when they are ready, after we're constantly giving them support to practice. We can't just push them to do it immediately.
That's why this school is one of a few schools in Indonesia that does not require children to master literacy (read and write) and numeracy to enter their first elementary grade, because they believe children will start to read and write when they are ready.
5. Address all aspects of child development, not only academically
IMHO, reading and writing ability is not part of early childhood milestones. While many parents seem to worry to get their children able to read and write very early, I don't find it right. Early children need more of social, emotional, and psychological development rather than technical skills development. Reading and writing are actually the easy part. Children will master it in no time once they are ready. I find no reason to push them to do it very early.
This school emphasizes so much on social and emotional development, while still giving proper stimulations on cognitive skills development. What I like about this school is, since it comes from a research based foundation, every aspect in their curriculum is based on years of research. I can say that this school sees a child as a whole.
I will name a few of the school activities that show just that:
6. Bilingual
Yes, the school uses English as their primary language besides Bahasa Indonesia. And they use it actively.
I don't mean to worship English so much, but it's not about English language per se. Raising kid in bilingual environments have a lot of benefits, which is known as "Bilingual Advantage". It has tremendous effects on the kid's brain development, from cognitive, to focus, to complex thinking capabilities. One source can be read HERE.
Additionally, I can't ignore the fact that it's an international language that is being used everywhere. Mastering English is a good asset, as we will be valued more professionally and be more competitive globally.
English is not an easy language to learn. Most Indonesians are struggling with English, even those who have very high degrees, although they have learnt it since elementary school. Even I'm still struggling at times. So, learning and using it actively since early age will help a lot. Bear in mind that we are facing that global economic challenges in the future.
However, I also don't want my son to be forgetting his Indonesian root. Thus, he must also be good in Bahasa Indonesia. I find this school is putting the right balance between Bahasa Indonesia and English. They practice "English Day" and "Hari Berbahasa Indonesia" alternately within a week starting from elementary grade.
So, it's quite a bonus for me.
7. Home and School Collaboration
We can never achieve good results in education without collaboration between home and school. We cannot just leave everything about education to school and assume that everything will be fine. By collaboration, I mean it is more than helping the kid to do homework and achieve academic targets or such. It's far more than that. It's about make everything inline between school and home in regards to parenting and education.
From the beginning, I always want a school that has the same concern in home-school collaboration. In this school, the teachers are very informative and always giving updates about our child's progresses. We can easily meet and talk to them every morning during drop off time to class. They are always welcome to questions and discussions with parents. They also always ask parents feedback about the child development at home. This is the kind of school that can be a parenting partner.
The school really knows the importance of home-school collaboration. In fact, parents must sign a commitment letter as part of the enrolment to the school. Great!
8. My son loves going there
This is actually a second school for my son. In his previous school, he often said "I don't want to go to school" as he woke up in the morning. From his teachers, we heard that he liked to daydream so much in class. He didn't seem to be fit in in that school. Just a note, the school has a more conventional curriculum, and not applying active learning, although they apply bilingual.
Since my son moved to the new school, Alhamdulillah, he is excited to go to school every morning now. Sometimes, he even asks to go to school on weekends. He loves the school. We knew he'd love it since we did some trials for him there. Since then, he always said he wanted to go to that school. It's really a good sign for me, as I don't need to have so much worry to get him out of bed and drive him to school every morning now.
9. It's international school with local values
Being an international school student means you have the quality to compete globally, but you still hold on to your local values and tradition. It doesn't mean you speak English better than Bahasa Indonesia. It doesn't mean you know all western cultures but forgetting your own local Indonesians.
That is my perspective of being an Indonesian international school student.
Judging from what I see in this school, this is one of international schools in Indonesia that still upholds Indonesian values. It puts respect on diversity and it celebrates Indonesian cultures and national holidays. The students speak both English and Bahasa Indonesia fluently, unlike students from other international school who seem to be struggling with Bahasa Indonesia (which I find weird).
I'm also glad to know that they do teach religious subjects to students. Being a muslim, I have an obligation to teach about Islam and bring the legacy to my kids. However, being a general school, the school doesn't do any religious practice during early childhood education. Religious subject is still considered too abstract for children at this early stage. Fortunately, they do give Islamic subject starting from elementary grade. And from what I've heard, they do it quite seriously. Most elementary students who are muslims there have mastered Iqra in their early years. In higher grades, they do active discussions about Alquran and Hadist a lot in order to get deeper understandings about Islam, not only in aqidah, but most importantly in akhlaq.
10. Because it All starts from education
If you think conventional education system is fine and there's nothing wrong with it, think again. Indonesia is so ruined and chaotic because of its education system.
It's about "Knowing vs Being".
Indonesian education system is emphasizing too much on "Knowing". They push students to know and memorize lots of subjects without getting them to know the real reason behind it and experience it themselves. They solely measure students achievements by exams and scores. The students are 'smart' and know many things, but they may have no clue as to the implementation in real life. The students are often feel stressed due to the lots of pressures given to them. They also think they're only obliged to "know" and struggle up until the exams. Let alone sopan santun values.
As opposed, the active learning education system means it gets students to know things through real experience, experiment, and implementation. Students are "being" the subject, not only academically, but also socially.
For example:
Reference: Sekolah Knowing vs Being
Government have actually realized the flaws in their curriculum. They came up with "Curriculum 2013" which tried to embrace the active learning approach and add more focus to character building (moral values). Unfortunately, it was being put on hold in 2015 due to the lack of competencies of the education workforce, particularly the teachers. Many schools were still not ready. So, better find school who already has years of experience in active learning.
For me, education is not about competition. Education is not about being number one and achieving the highest academic scores that could possibly be. Education is about revealing the true potential of each child, and letting them develop to be the best of themselves in every phase of their lives. Then other good things will hopefully follow through.
So, instead of trying to feed my son with as much as knowledge that we can think of, we prefer to prepare him to be a lifelong learner and build his character.
Character is the key to success in everything, whether professionally, personally, and even religiously. Knowledge is the easy part. Character building is the hardest part. Knowledge will come along in no time, but character will persist for a life time.
I want my children to grow and spend their childhood happily, thus avoid any bit of pressures, especially during their early stages. According to research, happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.
I want a change and make the world better. Many people are still in denial, so might as well start from my family.
Those are some of the reasons why I chose this school. However, nothing is perfect. Having said the above, I'm an open-minded person who always accept inputs and corrections. It hasn't been a month yet since my son started going to school there. I wouldn't deny just for the sake of denying if some day I found some flaws and I have a new and better perspective of education. But for now, it's all just perfect.
Sumber http://ortubelajar.blogspot.com/
First of all, I didn't choose this school because of its "International School" tag. In fact, the "International" tag had made my doubts in the beginning.
It all started from my long contemplation of the education system that I went through all my life. It's about the curriculum.
Basically, I feel the conventional curriculum no longer sufficient for future competitiveness, as the learning is a one-way instructional from teachers to students. It doesn't help motivate and develop creative way of thinking and stimulate the excitement of learning. The conventional curriculum puts too much emphasis on academic and too much pressure on students, it is even doing more damage to them. When kids feel pressurised, their brain cells stop to grow.
Education must cater both character building and intelligence building starting from very early. Most schools nowadays only focus on the latter. Education must provide what is needed by the child to survive now and in the future. Drilling a child to learn to read and to master many academic subjects very early are not helping their character and their ability to survive today and in the future.
My son is 3 years 9 months old now, which is still within his golden age period, so I want to do it right. I felt like I was a victim of the old education system. So, I don't want my children to be exposed to the same type of curriculum, period.
Finding the "perfect" school and education was not easy. We did surveys by going to one school and another, and asking a lot of questions. I also did my observations online, learning about different perspectives of education, collecting people's experiences and feedback, to finally conclude the type of education that I want for my kids. Then, we found the schools that were closest match to our vision and mission.
Getting enrolled to the school we want was another challenge. My son was rejected the first time. But we were quite determined and we finally got it.
Here goes our reasons in sending my son to that school.
1. Active Learning
Active learning means children learn not merely through instruction, but also through experience, experiment, and interaction. In fact, it expects most initiatives come from the students.
It was quite an abstract concept at first for me, because all I knew was the conventional education system. Until I learned about Montessori, and later on Highscope approaches, as I did school surveys for my son.
Montessori and Highscope are basically student-centered educational approaches based on scientific observations of children. Both approaches focus on student initiated activities within a setup environment as their learning methods. They believe that a child has a natural capability to learn independently through a prepared learning environment. Teachers act as a guide and facilitator, but not as a direct instructor. They encourage independence, freedom within limits, and a sense of order. The difference is, Montessori requires the use of predefined tools and materials, while in Highscope any materials can be used as learning tools. We then chose Highscope for the consideration of school availability in the area, school certification, and tuition fee.
Why active learning?
Active learning prepares the students to be a lifelong learner, instead of just persons who are good at following orders and instructions. Because in active learning, students will get used to learn by themselves through self-discovery. These skills will be very useful in real life as they graduated from schools. It also can accommodate the uniqueness of each child and reveal their true potential.
According to research, Early learning programs that are most appropriate for a child’s developmental level are the ones that provide opportunities to learn through play and hands-on exploration. Learning through formal instruction class will hinder the development of the child's brain itself.
“Learning progress may actually be slowed by overly academic preschool experiences that introduce formalized learning experiences too early for a child’s developmental status.”
—Rebecca Marcon, Developmental Psychologist
—Rebecca Marcon, Developmental Psychologist
“Play is the highest form of research.”
—Albert Einstein
As opposed, students in conventional curriculum depend greatly on their teachers instructions. They always need guidelines from their teachers to study and to do their work. Smart students mean those who are good at following their teachers' instructions. They might struggle later on in real life when they need to face new challenges without any clear guidance. The curriculum also tends to generalize kids.
2. Encourage creativity
I believe that creativity is the key to competitiveness. When competitions are getting tight in the future, it is creative people that will survive.
I feel that I am a very uncreative person. I will struggle as hell when it comes to creative ideas. I was too much used to being fed throughout my education, and wasn't taught to have my own initiatives for a very long time (Thanks to the conventional education system). The same cannot happen to my children.
In this school, children get to choose their own activities, express their own ideas, and to have initiatives. Children get to experiment with any materials in class. The whole environment and system are setup to encourage creativity.
3. No rank system
Rank system will do more harm than good to the kids, and to the society. Children should not be compared with each other, as they are unique. It will only pressurise them. Life is not about competing with each other, but about being collaborative with each other.
In this school, children will only be compared with themselves, i.e. their own previous progresses, but not with the other children. This is one of a few schools in Indonesia that doesn't implement rank system, and that is exactly what I'm looking for.
I wrote something here as to why I dislike rank system: Perlukah Punya Anak Pemenang?
4. No pressure to kids
"Learning is a journey, not a race." That is the motto of the school. It promotes enjoyment to the learning process. This is probably the only school that clearly states 'enjoyment' in their curriculum. They provide learning through play experience for the early childhood education. Children learn best when they enjoy what they are doing. Pressures will only damage kids brains. As I have written in my previous posts, school should be fun. And that is exactly what this school provides.
The school applies the so called "Developmentally Appropriate Practice" method of education. In class, the teachers will never push the students to do something beyond their time. They believe children will achieve things on their own when they are ready, after constantly being exposed to proper stimulations. For example, baby starts to walk when they are ready, after we're constantly giving them support to practice. We can't just push them to do it immediately.
That's why this school is one of a few schools in Indonesia that does not require children to master literacy (read and write) and numeracy to enter their first elementary grade, because they believe children will start to read and write when they are ready.
5. Address all aspects of child development, not only academically
IMHO, reading and writing ability is not part of early childhood milestones. While many parents seem to worry to get their children able to read and write very early, I don't find it right. Early children need more of social, emotional, and psychological development rather than technical skills development. Reading and writing are actually the easy part. Children will master it in no time once they are ready. I find no reason to push them to do it very early.
This school emphasizes so much on social and emotional development, while still giving proper stimulations on cognitive skills development. What I like about this school is, since it comes from a research based foundation, every aspect in their curriculum is based on years of research. I can say that this school sees a child as a whole.
I will name a few of the school activities that show just that:
- In the Plan-Do-Review daily routine, children is encouraged to speak and express their ideas and initiatives, as well as to recall what they have done and the results. It stimulates language, communication, leadership, and cognitive skills.
- The learning through play method will give opportunities to children to work alone or in groups. Working alone will teach students to be more focus and to build their intra-personal skill (self discovery, duduk kasus solving), while working in groups will teach students to build relationships, as well as to build interpersonal, communication, and leadership skills. They will learn about interaction a lot, and also how to solve conflict with each other (in case it happens).
- The school provides food for students during Snack Time everyday. Children are not allowed to bring their own food from home (unless for those who have allergies). Snack time is the opportunity for students to get introduced to healthy foods and to learn to eat by themselves. Since my son is a severe picky-eater, I really hope it will help him to accept more variety of foods.
- Also during Snack Time, each student will be given tasks to serve the others on certain schedule, such as distributing cups and plates to their peers, and do the cleanups afterwards. This teaches students about independency, life skills, and sharing with others.
- There is bodily care session in the daily routine, where students will learn to cleanup their bodies and change clothes by themselves. It teaches independency, life skills, and self health awareness.
- The class is a multi-age class, usually in the range of 2-3 years of age. So the children will actually learn to teach each others, to be a leader, to be a follower, to take turns, and to nurture others. This multi-age concept is also based on years of research. According to it, students in a single-age class tend to compete with each other, which might then trigger bullying. While students in a multi-age class tend to help each other.
6. Bilingual
Yes, the school uses English as their primary language besides Bahasa Indonesia. And they use it actively.
I don't mean to worship English so much, but it's not about English language per se. Raising kid in bilingual environments have a lot of benefits, which is known as "Bilingual Advantage". It has tremendous effects on the kid's brain development, from cognitive, to focus, to complex thinking capabilities. One source can be read HERE.
Additionally, I can't ignore the fact that it's an international language that is being used everywhere. Mastering English is a good asset, as we will be valued more professionally and be more competitive globally.
English is not an easy language to learn. Most Indonesians are struggling with English, even those who have very high degrees, although they have learnt it since elementary school. Even I'm still struggling at times. So, learning and using it actively since early age will help a lot. Bear in mind that we are facing that global economic challenges in the future.
However, I also don't want my son to be forgetting his Indonesian root. Thus, he must also be good in Bahasa Indonesia. I find this school is putting the right balance between Bahasa Indonesia and English. They practice "English Day" and "Hari Berbahasa Indonesia" alternately within a week starting from elementary grade.
So, it's quite a bonus for me.
7. Home and School Collaboration
We can never achieve good results in education without collaboration between home and school. We cannot just leave everything about education to school and assume that everything will be fine. By collaboration, I mean it is more than helping the kid to do homework and achieve academic targets or such. It's far more than that. It's about make everything inline between school and home in regards to parenting and education.
From the beginning, I always want a school that has the same concern in home-school collaboration. In this school, the teachers are very informative and always giving updates about our child's progresses. We can easily meet and talk to them every morning during drop off time to class. They are always welcome to questions and discussions with parents. They also always ask parents feedback about the child development at home. This is the kind of school that can be a parenting partner.
The school really knows the importance of home-school collaboration. In fact, parents must sign a commitment letter as part of the enrolment to the school. Great!
8. My son loves going there
This is actually a second school for my son. In his previous school, he often said "I don't want to go to school" as he woke up in the morning. From his teachers, we heard that he liked to daydream so much in class. He didn't seem to be fit in in that school. Just a note, the school has a more conventional curriculum, and not applying active learning, although they apply bilingual.
Since my son moved to the new school, Alhamdulillah, he is excited to go to school every morning now. Sometimes, he even asks to go to school on weekends. He loves the school. We knew he'd love it since we did some trials for him there. Since then, he always said he wanted to go to that school. It's really a good sign for me, as I don't need to have so much worry to get him out of bed and drive him to school every morning now.
9. It's international school with local values
Being an international school student means you have the quality to compete globally, but you still hold on to your local values and tradition. It doesn't mean you speak English better than Bahasa Indonesia. It doesn't mean you know all western cultures but forgetting your own local Indonesians.
That is my perspective of being an Indonesian international school student.
Judging from what I see in this school, this is one of international schools in Indonesia that still upholds Indonesian values. It puts respect on diversity and it celebrates Indonesian cultures and national holidays. The students speak both English and Bahasa Indonesia fluently, unlike students from other international school who seem to be struggling with Bahasa Indonesia (which I find weird).
I'm also glad to know that they do teach religious subjects to students. Being a muslim, I have an obligation to teach about Islam and bring the legacy to my kids. However, being a general school, the school doesn't do any religious practice during early childhood education. Religious subject is still considered too abstract for children at this early stage. Fortunately, they do give Islamic subject starting from elementary grade. And from what I've heard, they do it quite seriously. Most elementary students who are muslims there have mastered Iqra in their early years. In higher grades, they do active discussions about Alquran and Hadist a lot in order to get deeper understandings about Islam, not only in aqidah, but most importantly in akhlaq.
10. Because it All starts from education
If you think conventional education system is fine and there's nothing wrong with it, think again. Indonesia is so ruined and chaotic because of its education system.
It's about "Knowing vs Being".
Indonesian education system is emphasizing too much on "Knowing". They push students to know and memorize lots of subjects without getting them to know the real reason behind it and experience it themselves. They solely measure students achievements by exams and scores. The students are 'smart' and know many things, but they may have no clue as to the implementation in real life. The students are often feel stressed due to the lots of pressures given to them. They also think they're only obliged to "know" and struggle up until the exams. Let alone sopan santun values.
As opposed, the active learning education system means it gets students to know things through real experience, experiment, and implementation. Students are "being" the subject, not only academically, but also socially.
For example:
- Starting from early preschools, the children learn how to socially interact, build relationship, and solve conflict by real interaction with their peers, because their daily routine involves a lot of active interaction with the teachers and classmates.
- Children get to learn to read by being introduced to many books first through daily reading session together with the teachers and classmates. This is to stimulate their sense of fun and needs of reading before they're really ready to start to learn. Unlike in conventional curriculum where students are pushed to learn letters and to read immediately without getting them realized the needs of it first, which might end up with them hating to read.
- In later grades, the students know the logic behind the science by experimenting themselves, instead of only memorize and study the theory. They learn social study by analysing real cases. And the list goes on.
Reference: Sekolah Knowing vs Being
Government have actually realized the flaws in their curriculum. They came up with "Curriculum 2013" which tried to embrace the active learning approach and add more focus to character building (moral values). Unfortunately, it was being put on hold in 2015 due to the lack of competencies of the education workforce, particularly the teachers. Many schools were still not ready. So, better find school who already has years of experience in active learning.
For me, education is not about competition. Education is not about being number one and achieving the highest academic scores that could possibly be. Education is about revealing the true potential of each child, and letting them develop to be the best of themselves in every phase of their lives. Then other good things will hopefully follow through.
So, instead of trying to feed my son with as much as knowledge that we can think of, we prefer to prepare him to be a lifelong learner and build his character.
Character is the key to success in everything, whether professionally, personally, and even religiously. Knowledge is the easy part. Character building is the hardest part. Knowledge will come along in no time, but character will persist for a life time.
I want my children to grow and spend their childhood happily, thus avoid any bit of pressures, especially during their early stages. According to research, happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.
I want a change and make the world better. Many people are still in denial, so might as well start from my family.
Those are some of the reasons why I chose this school. However, nothing is perfect. Having said the above, I'm an open-minded person who always accept inputs and corrections. It hasn't been a month yet since my son started going to school there. I wouldn't deny just for the sake of denying if some day I found some flaws and I have a new and better perspective of education. But for now, it's all just perfect.
Sumber http://ortubelajar.blogspot.com/
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