I

f you want to know the qualities of a nation, just look at the quality and practices of its education system. Almost all advanced nations realize this link and have thus established good education systems.

One of the goals of elementary education is to provide students with basic skills to develop their lives as individuals, members of the community and citizens of the country. These basic skills are also the foundation for further education.

The recurring social problems such as student brawls, youth clashes and other forms of radicalism throughout Indonesia are indicative of social sickness, namely the sheer lack of sensitivity and respect toward other people from different groups.

Social conflict and religious disharmony in particular are a challenge for educators in doing their best to prepare the next generation as democratic citizens with good character as stipulated in the National Education Law.

To materialize this goal, religious harmony should be developed at school at as early an age as possible. It is most urgent that we promote creative and innovative programs to support positive civil discourse among students.

Various studies have shown that school-age children prefer to interact with their peers. In the school context, it is these relationships where peers respect, help, share, and generally are polite toward one another. This concept of peer interaction is a critical component in social development theory (Rubin, 2009).

In a multicultural setting, students come from different ethnic, religious and social backgrounds and their mindset is dominantly shaped by those backgrounds. School programs should deliberately facilitate peer interactions to develop positive civil discourse.

Indicators of civil discourse include attentive listening, contributing ideas or opinions, asking questions, stating agreement and disagreement, and reaching a compromise in a respectful manner. In a practical sense, this would be applicable to any school subject.

Students should be trained in active listening by maintaining direct eye contact, standing still and taking turns at talking. They should also be taught how to contribute ideas that are relevant to the topic of discussion.

At elementary schools, classroom teachers function to oversee students for almost the whole day. Should they know how to design and facilitate peer interactions correctly, they would develop positive civil discourse as part of citizenship education.

On completing their formal education, students are entering a world where the ability to maintain good relationships is crucial for individual success. In contrast, an inability to maintain good relationships can be detrimental to the individual and can lead to a certain level of social conflict in a given society.

Evidence of such occurrences are numerous, such as the major interethnic and religious conflicts that have taken place in the regions of Sambas (2008), Ambon (2009), Papua (2010) and Singkawang (2010) to mention just a few. Without appropriate measures being taken, such conflicts will recur.

Those forms of radicalism have disrupted social cohesion and may generate mutual distrust among social groups in the society. The suicide-bombing of the church in Surakarta last month, for example, may (hopefully not) lead to a revenge and similar attack against a mosque. And this could escalate into massive religious disharmony.

A research paper by Apriliaswati (2011) concludes that peer interactions in the classroom support positive civil discourse among students. Peer interactions in social studies, Indonesian and Pancasila classes are not disruptive behaviors if the teacher manages them effectively. Being noisy is not always negative. It could be evidence of interactive and enlightening interactions.

It is, therefore, suggested that promoting peer interactions should be implemented as one of the routine classroom activities. Students should be given opportunities to interact with one another through group tasks to practice attentive listening, respectful arguing and sound compromising to prepare them to live as functional members of a democratic society.

Data from the Ariliaswati study was obtained in three-cycle action research conducted with a fourth grade class of 43 students at an elementary school in Pontianak, a city where interethnic clashes have taken place quite often. The study attests that schools should function as a laboratory to exercise a civil society.

As elementary students, the children were not yet able to give informed reasons and evidence of their arguments but could express agreement and disagreement in a polite manner. Moreover, the students seemed to trust one another, such that a compromise and consensus could be reached in a civil manner.

Aprilliaswati’s study teaches us that education should develop not only scientific reasoning, but also positive civil discourse. Scientific reasoning is indispensable in developing intellectual citizens, while civil discourse competence is critical for creating civilized citizens.

Our present education fails to provide students with civil discourse competence. Most politicians and bureaucrats have come to power because of the education they have obtained. Unfortunately, many of them do not have such a competence.

Still fresh in our mind is a shameful incident in 2010, when lawmakers exchanged harsh words in ill-mannered ways during a hearing that was televised live across the country.

Instead of educating school children, these politicians have set a very poor example of how to behave. To repeat, this incident shows that politics education has not done enough to promote competence in civil discourse.

When politicians and bureaucrats fail to educate the public, schools should be restored and empowered to function to the fullest. Elementary school teachers should provide opportunities to students to foster meaningful experiences, i.e., interactions with other students of different religion, ethnicity and from different social groups.

Ideally a policy should be enforced whereby schools are staffed by teachers and personnel of different religions, ethnicities and from different social groups. The campus should also provide places of worship for students of all religions. Students will learn how others perform religious rituals. And this would be an effective form of religious education within a multicultural school setting.

The traditional way of teaching religion has been criticized for emphasizing theological and ritual aspects, while ignoring the social aspects, namely horizontal interactions and tolerance among followers of different faiths.

American educational philosopher, Emerson (1837) once said, “A man must be a man before he can be a good farmer, tradesman, or engineer.” He pointed out the importance of liberal education to make men real or complete men. Real men have the knowledge to avoid provincial understanding.

In an Indonesian context, liberal education must include knowledge of ethnicity, religion and minority languages and cultures. Regardless of their career — politician, engineer, farmer, or businessman — students should be provided with adequate knowledge in these areas.

Thus defined, liberal education aims at liberating students from myopic and provincial attitudes toward others. Basically, it is forging insan kamil, namely an ideal person who fulfills the criteria to assume any job or appointment as a democratic citizen.

The writer is a professor at the Indonesian Education University of in Bandung, and a member of the Higher Eduction Board.