Livening Up Today's Lesson

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

SENT TO THE NY TIMES...


Re: "Livening Up Today's Lesson, Courtesy of 
Uncle Sam," NY Times, August 7, 2006, p. A4:

            The article's description of the 
student-centered, active teaching methods 
promoted by US government contractors in 
Indonesian schools highlights a bitter irony for 
many of us American educators and education 
researchers.  It is heartening to know that the 
federal government pays to train teachers in 
Indonesia, and Cambodia, and Pakistan to use 
pedagogical methods that build competencies 
relevant to their students' everyday lives and 
that encourage the demonstration of knowledge and 
skills in different contexts, instead of just 
passing on facts.  Such pedagogy, generally known 
as "constructivism," has been shown to be 
effective for low income minority children in the 
US by  a strong, consistent body of research since the 1970s.

            But here's the bitter irony: 
teachers in most low income American schools are 
literally prevented from using this effective 
constructivist pedagogy, due to the highjacking 
of public education by the high-stakes testing 
juggernaut of the 1990s and the sadly misnamed 
federal No Child Left Behind law of 2001.  With 
these mandates, the education testocrats have 
turned most public schools into 
anti-intellectualist "test-prep" factories that 
emphasize "kill and drill" style lessons and the 
low level memorization of facts.  American 
teaching has reverted to retrograde, 1950s 
vintage behaviorism, more suited to training dogs 
and pigeons than to enabling children to develop their minds.

            I hope that your article serves to 
encourage readers to think about the hypocrisy of 
the US educational establishment, and then to act 
to change things so that American schoolchildren 
may benefit, like Indonesian students, from state of the art pedagogy.

Pete Farruggio, PhD
Assistant Professor
College of Education
University of Texas-Pan American
***************************************************************************************************************************************************************
August 7, 2006
Wlingi Journal


Livening Up Today?s Lesson, Courtesy of Uncle Sam

By 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/jane_perlez/index.html?inline=nyt-per>JANE 
PERLEZ

WLINGI, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/indonesia/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Indonesia, 
Aug. 3 ­ In the first-grade classroom of Wening 
Sripeni, a diminutive teacher in head scarf and 
neck-to-ankle dress, the 6-year-olds bubble over 
with answers, a show of hands at every question about an Indonesian family.

?That?s Grandpa,? said a voice from the back.

What does he like to do? ?He likes to read,? said another.

Who is this? Ms. Sripeni asked, pointing to a 
baby with a book in a bathtub. There were a lot 
of giggles at the juxtaposition of a baby and a book.

?So you can see the baby likes to do the same 
thing as Grandpa,? Ms. Sripeni said. ?Reading is very important.?

Such back and forth, and especially mirth, are 
unusual in Indonesia?s schools, where rows of 
desks, a blackboard and chalk, and a stern 
teacher dispensing strict discipline are the norm.

But it is different at this elementary school 
tucked among the rice fields here in Java, the 
most-populous island of the world?s most populous 
Muslim nation. This school is participating in a 
drive by the 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/unitedstates/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>United 
States to energize primary education here, 
starting with 1,000 schools and eventually 
increasing to more than 2,500, still a tiny 
percentage of the tens of thousands of elementary schools in Indonesia.

Contending that lively lessons, engaged teachers 
and interested parents can promote tolerance and 
counteract extreme Islamic views, the Bush 
administration has made promoting education a 
focus of assistance to friendly Muslim countries 
through the United States Agency for International Development.

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/pakistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Pakistan, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/afghanistan/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Afghanistan, 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>Egypt 
and Iraq have all received increased American 
funds in the last several years for building 
schools and training teachers and administrators.

Indonesia, a moderate Muslim country, was added 
to the list, American officials said, because of 
concerns about a growing streak of fundamentalism 
among graduates of privately run Islamic 
religious schools, known as pesantren.

The effort in Indonesia is different from that in 
the other countries, American officials said. The 
money is spent chiefly on training, not bricks 
and mortar, believing that encouraging good 
teaching strikes at a more fundamental issue.

Nearly $9 million has been set aside for creating 
a version of ?Sesame Street? with Indonesian 
characters and situations. It is scheduled to make its debut next year.

President Bush personally announced the $157 
million, five-year program during a visit to Bali 
in 2003. There was initial skepticism over 
whether the money would mean much in the 
country?s famously corrupt education bureaucracy. 
There was also some concern over the prospect of 
American meddling in the country?s schools.

To discourage corruption, no money is provided directly to schools.

At the outset, the very schools that the United 
States were most concerned about ­ the privately 
run religious schools that teach about 20 percent 
of the students ­ were declared off limits. The 
government also said that the Americans were not to change the curriculum.

But the government has allowed the Americans to 
offer their training in state-run religious 
schools, like the Tegalasri madrasa near here, 
which receives funds from the Education Ministry 
as well as the Religious Affairs Department.

For the first time, the madrasa, which teaches 
children from a poor farming community about six 
miles from Ms. Sripeni?s school, got higher 
scores on the national exam, said Syaiful Ridwan, the principal.

?We?ve gone up from 7.18 to 7.63,? out of a 
possible score of 10, he said. Enrollment at the 
madrasa was increasing, he said, as parents heard about the good results.

He said, though, that the American help was not 
the only factor in the turnaround. The teachers, 
he said, had also acquired a greater variety of 
teaching skills by attending training courses.

But teachers were motivated by better salaries, 
he said, made possible by an increase in national 
school financing. The extra money from the 
national government had allowed him to increase 
the lowest salaries from $15 a month to $30, which is still very low.

Because of the parents? low incomes, lesson 
materials were sparse at the madrasa, and it was 
difficult to pay the extra electricity bill to 
operate five computers daily for one-hour after-school classes.

In first grade, Dwi Ernawati, a new teacher 
struggled to keep the attention of students, who 
were working in groups of four and five. They 
were supposed to make simple sentences by gluing 
tiny letters to a piece of paper.

Two grandfathers of her students stood at the 
back of the class as parent helpers, but they 
seemed not to be of much assistance.

In contrast, in Ms. Sripeni?s classroom ­ in an 
economically better-off part of the school 
district and where the Religious Affairs 
Department is not involved in the school ­ two 
young mothers were on hand. They efficiently 
passed around paper and kept an eye on the rowdier children.

To organize the training of the Indonesian 
teachers, the United States hired a Washington 
consulting firm, Research Triangle Institute, 
which specializes in running American education programs abroad.

The company hired an American with Indonesian 
experience to run the teacher training, and he in 
turn hired a small army of Indonesian educators 
in the provinces to conduct the training workshops.

The training manuals deal with such basics as how 
to organize a classroom ­ in small friendly 
groups of tables rather than rows ­ to how to 
stimulate classroom discussion to how to study nature.

Ms. Sripeni, a 17-year veteran teacher who seemed 
to have a special vitality all her own, said she 
liked the ideas sprinkled through the manuals.

Her classroom had no blackboard. Instead she had 
arranged a pastiche of posters: a chart of the 
professions of the parents; a list of the five 
religions of Indonesia; the praying times for 
Muslims; the class attendance record; the ?magic tree? of family connections.

?The children are very creative,? Ms. Sripeni 
said. ?I?m just reacting to their demands. Now 
their development is very fast. It used to take a 
long time to get the children to read one 
sentence. Now they can read a page quite quickly.?

The final test of whether the $157 million has 
been well invested, educators say, will be 
whether the new ideas endure. Once the five-year 
grant is spent, local educators are supposed to 
be familiar enough with the techniques to 
continue promoting them, but the outcome is still open to question.

Mr. Syaiful, the madrasa principal, has been 
chosen by the American Embassy in Jakarta to 
visit the United States, as a reward for his good 
work. But with reviews of the participating 
schools not yet complete, there was no decision 
yet on whether the school would continue to get 
the teacher training next year.