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Issue of the day: Character building through free reading
Young readers: A number of children keep busy with books in a reading room of West Javaâs Library and Archive Body in Bandung on June 6
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Young readers: A number of children keep busy with books in a reading room of West Javaâs Library and Archive Body in Bandung on June 6. The group tries to attract children to the building with various activities like storytelling.(JP/Arya Dipa) (JP/Arya Dipa)
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span class="inline inline-center">Young readers: A number of children keep busy with books in a reading room of West Java's Library and Archive Body in Bandung on June 6. The group tries to attract children to the building with various activities like storytelling.(JP/Arya Dipa)
August 2, p4
Starting this 2015 academic year, schools nationwide will oblige their students to spend at least 15 minutes prior to the start of class participating in a free-reading activity, as stipulated in Ministerial Regulation No. 23/2015 issued by the Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry. Though long overdue, the move needs to be applauded.
Culture and Elementary and Secondary Minister Anis Baswedan has initiated the in-class free reading program on the grounds that such an activity can help instill positive traits in school children. In other words, free reading is believed to be beneficial for students' character development.
While 15 minutes is considered insufficient for exhorting students to choose books they are fond of and then to read them, Anis' stupendous move to instill positive traits in students through free reading has scientific justification. (By Setiono Sugiharto, Jakarta)
Your comments:
Free reading may well be the greatest pedagogical innovation of the modern era, but seriously, a ministerial regulation?
It never ceases to amaze how Indonesian governments, at all levels, earnestly believe they can perfect the citizenry simply by pulling a few regulatory levers, and how willing Indonesian 'academics' are to go along with this. Indonesia would be so much better served if politicians and administrators focused on the fundamentals rather than policy fads, in this case sound curriculum development and resourcing (and not stealing public money).
Fidens
It's a small step for a person and a giant a leap for Indonesia's new generations. If only this could be applied seriously by the government and the schools.
Dami Rasue
Most Indonesians don't read much. I have never met an Indonesian, educated or otherwise, who actually enjoyed reading. They read when they have to, and that's it.
Charles Jarret
Perhaps the Indonesians you have personally met do not enjoy reading, but many actually do love spending a lot of time with books ' good ones, that is. Literature, time-honored quality bestsellers, inspiration, science, general knowledge ' all that is worth perusing and all that sharpens the mind.
My Javanese father, a lawyer who graduated from Leiden University in the Netherlands, was a veritable bibliophile, and so are many of my friends, both Indonesian and foreign.
For a good book is a lifelong, faithful friend. I myself like nothing better than to relax with an interesting book at the end of the day, and enjoy its contents.
At present I am reading The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden and Karel Frederik Holle by Tom van den Berge, in addition to taking immense pleasure again in that evergreen Hawaii by James Michener. Not all at once, of course! And yes, I am an Indonesian.
What happened to the entertaining children's books that the older generation among us used to not only read but practically devour?
They were old fashioned, those wonderful Indonesian translations of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, Hector Malot's Sans Famille, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, to name a few.
All these books were once translated into excellent Indonesian, among others by Abdoel Moeis. The books were mostly published by Balai Pustaka, and grade school kids enthusiastically read them.
If only someone would translate Astrid Lindgren's Seacrow Island or Mary Stewart's Ludo and the Star Horse to Indonesian! Those are great reads ' is any publisher game?
Fire P
A complication with this idea is that there may not be enough book titles in Indonesian to cater to various age ranges. There are only a handful of Indonesian children's book authors, for example.
Sudarshana Chakra
