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| Photo credit : Kevin Spear |
My children are having a mid-semester test. And as usual, last night I helped them studying. The first subject to be tested is Religion. Okay, let's see the reading materials.... What? My forehead started to frown. Most of the lessons taught to these elementary school students contain subjects that need to be painstakingly memorized and only a small proportion of it touches the moral lesson.
Wait a moment, honey, Ibu needs a little time to sit back and think. Religion is supposed to be a moral compass for human’s life. If in a religion subject students only have to blindly memorize some Arabic scripts without really comprehending the implication of the religious values in their real life it will be somewhat useless.
That probably partly explains why corruption is prevalent in Indonesia, even though the majority of its citizens have religions. Religion is never properly taught. It is only presented in a form of dogmatic theory, and lack of logical interpretation. I think what the country needs at the moment is a moral education that enables students to grasp and apply the concept of honesty, dignity and integrity.
I know that the primary responsibility to educate children lies with the parents, but it would be much helpful if teachers can create a system to make students understand, using their language of course, that bribery is immoral, corruption is a big crime, cheating is disgraceful, and most importantly, greed is harmful both to yourself and to other human beings. If they decide to take religious route, those values are all there to dig up in the holy books, whatever holy book it is that they use as a reference, if the teachers are not trapped by the rigid way of teaching religions.
That probably partly explains why corruption is prevalent in Indonesia, even though the majority of its citizens have religions. Religion is never properly taught. It is only presented in a form of dogmatic theory, and lack of logical interpretation. I think what the country needs at the moment is a moral education that enables students to grasp and apply the concept of honesty, dignity and integrity.
I know that the primary responsibility to educate children lies with the parents, but it would be much helpful if teachers can create a system to make students understand, using their language of course, that bribery is immoral, corruption is a big crime, cheating is disgraceful, and most importantly, greed is harmful both to yourself and to other human beings. If they decide to take religious route, those values are all there to dig up in the holy books, whatever holy book it is that they use as a reference, if the teachers are not trapped by the rigid way of teaching religions.
Forgive me if I only have a little knowledge about Indonesian curriculum, but I think giving the young generation moral education is a good foundation to reconstruct the broken system as a whole.
All right, kids, let's continue studying. Don't push yourself too hard, though. I won’t blame you if tomorrow you get low grade in religion test. With ridiculously abundant things to memorize, who will not?
True religion is a way of life. In all forms of education religious and otherwise there is often a disconnect between theory/theology and practice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing yourself through your blog!
Thanks Christina.
ReplyDeleteMark Juergensmeyer, a professor of sociology, has identified three major aspects within nearly all world religions:
- Reverence for life and desire to avoid harm,
- The ideal of social harmony and living peacefully with others,
- The injunction to care for the other, especially for the one in need.
If only people can just connect the religion theory with the practice of the three aspects above, the world will be a better place.
Good idea. Education also play a role to influence our children. Adding moral education into curriculum is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteAnd cut down on memorizing things, please :)
ReplyDeleteThe subjects of Religion and PKN (back then we had PMP), although introduce some morality principles, still cannot accommodate the need. Students need to pursue the true learning of moral lessons in practice rather than merely memorizing concepts or sets of facts.