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Letter: Bad education practice
Can anyone from the Indonesian Education Ministry please explain to this teacher why it is good and effective educational practice to expose children to 80-minute classes? Good grief, a university lecture only goes for 60 minutes, and today, many university students are incapable of concentrating for that length of time
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an anyone from the Indonesian Education Ministry please explain to this teacher why it is good and effective educational practice to expose children to 80-minute classes? Good grief, a university lecture only goes for 60 minutes, and today, many university students are incapable of concentrating for that length of time. How can we expect 12-year-old children to do better than them and endure 80 minutes at one time in a classroom?
A university lecture normally goes for one hour. Most public addresses go for one hour. In 25 years of teaching and lecturing around the world I only ever lectured or taught for one hour at a time. When I was a classroom teacher it was, and still is common practice to have classes of no more than 50 minutes’ duration. Occasionally there may be a double period, but no more than three a week — and not continuously throughout the day. Why then, in the name of reason and common sense, are Indonesian secondary students expected to remain alert and concentrate for 80 minutes at a time, period after period, day in day out? When I asked today, after months of frustration, I was finally told — this is the situation in every school in Indonesia. Apparently all classes are double periods — that is the way the timetables are blocked.
Well that is just absolutely ridiculous! Whoever thought up this idea doesn’t understand how children learn.
I have just returned from teaching four 60-minute periods at the local junior high school. It is farcical to even begin to think that little grade seven students are able to concentrate for the entire 80 minutes. At the end of the class I am exhausted — and I am a seasoned teacher. If I am worn out, the students must be too.
Whoever is responsible for the curriculum in Indonesian State Schools, I beg of you to listen to reason. A child cannot concentrate for such a length of time. Imposing continuous double periods (2 X 40 minutes), day in day out, on these young children is ridiculous. It only makes for ineffective learning and further alienates young minds from the task of education, which is something they should enjoy.
School is not meant to be just games, and classroom activity is not always fun, nor should it be. It is meant to be work and students need to learn how to concentrate and work hard and efficiently. Inflicting 80-minute periods on young minds is ridiculous, pointless and simply dumb.
Indonesian education in State Schools is sadly lacking in so many ways. When those responsible in the National Education Ministry can’t even figure out that 80- minute periods only serve to alienate children from the task of learning, then one must question their competence and intelligence.
Education is vital to the progress of this country. As it stands, education in Indonesia is by and large a dismal enterprise because of corruption, a lack of resources, bad teacher training, bad teacher attitudes and practices. Some cynically suggest it is not in the elite’s best interests to have an educated population.
All I know is that when I look at these kids, I see the future of Indonesia for good or ill. They have a right to a good education because they are human beings. For a start, their timetable should be humane. Not a badly thought-out drudge that only serves to bore and exhaust them. Whoever is responsible for imposing 80-minute periods on students, I have just marked your paper and given you an E.
You have failed!
Phillip Turnbull
BSD City, Tangerang
