Rather than being independent, students shift their focus from school to these extra courses. Some of my friends even slept during school to prepare themselves for the extra courses.

You know the gesture a boxer makes while getting ready before he jumps into the ring? This is actually how I feel when I started writing this article. I think I have done enough defend why school should have not been criticised that much, but now I'm ready to vomit all my opinions on why school, even with all the limitations, could be much better than we know nowadays.

If you know nothing about what I talked about, please take 5 minutes to read my last week's article "School Sucks. Here's Why I'm Defending Them." They are strongly correlated, so please do yourself a favour by doing so.

Okay, enough of this shenanigans. Where do we begin? 


High School Physics is Boring.

There is a lot of stuff that students need to learn every day. As I have said previously, as a mass education system, school need to teach as much as they could in a given period of time. That's why every school in the world have similar subjects: maths, science, history, language, etc. However, are all of them really necessary?

Yes and no.

I know the people behind the curriculum have a good purpose why they try to fit all of these subjects in a really short time. They want students to get to know these subjects, so they have a better understanding of what they will learn if they choose to pursue one of them in the later stage of education or career. However, in that sense, we have gone too far.

Let's take an example of what is written in the curriculum for high school in Indonesia, edition 2016. I take physics to analyse since I could bash everything out of this when this got too nonsensical and I could take the responsibility out of it.

This is what students in the first semester of the 12th grade have to learn. There are 6 chapters: DC current, everything about field theory (potential, field strength, flux, and so on), magnetic field, electromagnetic induction, AC current, and electromagnetic radiation. If you are not working or learning in this field, I could guarantee you only know around 50% of the words I have said, and I will not blame you for that.

This is a mess. Looking back during my time in high school, I'm pretty impressed on the amount we had to learn every day. Some of these topics need hours to discuss, but they are made for one week per topic to make sure the students manage to learn them all at the end of the semester. What did we lose with this? Interest. Students lose their interest in physics because all they have to do is memorising every single formula that came with it. And trust me, there are a lot. Moreover, without background knowledge, these formulae are meaningless.

If the goal is to introduce electricity and magnetism to the students, this is not the way. The way now the curriculum is shaped is that students start with background theory, then do some problems, finally learn the application of the theory. In my opinion, we have to do it backwards. Start with the natural phenomenon or the devices that we know around us, then ask the students to analyse what makes those things work. 

For example, let's take a simple one: lightning. We usually only learn that lightning occurs because of the effect of electricity, but we never know what actually is going on. From this simple example, students could learn about electric field, potential, and so on.

The same way with any other subjects. Start with something that all students are familiar with, then grow the interests on them, and then we could learn more about the theory.


What We Miss in The Curriculum

If we want to introduce these subjects while also keeping the interest, there are simply just too many things. Therefore, first, we need to reduce the complexity of each subject. Students do not need to know blackbody radiation or the complete solution of the AC current. These are already too complicated. Reduce the density for each subject, so every student could have a better and deeper understanding of each subject.

However, we still miss something. Not academically, we have learned enough in that aspect. We miss something that more universally applicable - such as teamwork, how to understand people, sex education, current politics, academics writing, and so on. There are endless things I could list that could fit the description.

These things are as important (if not more) than those scientific subjects. For example, my girlfriend (who is currently studying at a university in my hometown) told me once that there a lot of her friends that still now know how to properly write an essay. They have a lot of difficulties in just gathering material and turn it into a readable article - and this is pathetic, concerning they are a university student - something that they should know on the back of their head.

We need more of these things.


Let Teachers Be Creative

Teachers should be educators, not just information messengers. Teachers should have the right to decide how they want to "educate" the students. This role may become less urgent in high schools, comparing to elementary and middle schools, but still, they have the responsibility to keep the students' interest in their subjects, and the way to do that should be up to them.

If we want to keep the way it is going right now, we have seen the most extreme cases such as in Japan and South Korea, where students are pushed to learn by themselves in school until 7 or 8 p.m. Surely this is the best way to prepare them for the university entrance exam, but is it really what we want to achieve?

If we are looking at the situation in Indonesia, we are almost there. With students spending until 3 p.m. in the school then going to extra course until 7 or 8 p.m, I see no difference, with something worse. Rather than being independent, students shift their focus from school to these extra courses. From my own experience, some of my friends even sleep during school to prepare themselves for the extra courses.

With less pressure on the teachers on the extra course lessons to follow a certain curriculum, they are able to be more creative in the way they are teaching, and it makes the students are more excited to go. It is just a matter of time before extra courses replace school as the main education system.

Or has it?

Stuck in The Past

Time travel does already exist. Go to school and you are already travelling backwards in time. Everything we learn is so past-oriented, from the materials to the way we learn. Schools are meant to prepare students for the future, but this is not what I observed. With a curriculum that teaches the same thing as 20 years ago and a close-minded system, there is nothing of this that could reflect school purposes.

Building a curriculum is a continuous task. There is no way to write a perfect one in one year then hoping it would produce future-proof students. It has to develop from the same base, adjusting with the current trends (not changing the whole curriculum every 5 years, make some schools run the new ones, some the old ones, then create confusion among all teachers and students, create two versions of the national exam, blablablabla. oops.)

I remember from my discussion with Mikhael (the one I invited for an episode on religion education), he said that religious teaching in school should be more applicative, in a sense that what the students learn, they could use it in the real world. Not just memorising every single history of the church and every pericope from the bible, but more on analysing what the religion actually teaches. In my opinion, this should apply not only to religion but to every single subject.

What the students could do with is actually more important than what the students know. Students nowadays know a lot of things but could do nothing with it. This dynamically changing curriculum could only be achieved if there is a strong base on the curriculum itself on what is the purpose. Some countries such as Finland, Denmark, or Sweden set the goal to prepare the students with as many skills as possible for the future, so they could adapt with the vastly changing culture of the 21st century.

This is not what we found in most countries. We still verbally state that the goal is to "prepare" the students for their life, whatever their career path may be. But in reality, we are just preparing the students for the university entrance exam.

Standard, standard, standard.

Of course, grades on paper is the easiest way to judge how good an education system is, except it reflects nothing. And next week we are going to discuss one of the most requested topics of the season, which is standardised tests.

For hundred years, these tests have become the pinnacle of the quality of an education system. The better the score is, also the better the system is, which is a total nightmare if we are still going to use this reference in the 21st century.

Is there a better way to judge someone's skill other than standardised tests? Are these tests actually create more harm than benefits? We are going to discuss it next time. Until then, stay safe and keep learning.

Title image credit: (Image credit to the artist, I could not find his/her page)