YOGYAKARTA- One of inheritances of national education leader, Ki Hadjar Dewantara, which needs to be preserved is to bring self-sufficient life, especially to students. According to Ki Hadjar Dewantara, the spirit of self-sufficiency is the result of free soul physically and spiritually.
Education and teaching are expected to encourage students to live independently, self-sufficiently, and usefully for oneself, family, community, nation, country, and humanity. In a particular occasion, Ki Hadjar Dewantara even made a sharp metaphor about it, "Students who get certificate of higher education do not know where to find food? They lose from the lizard which does not go to school, but knows where the mosquitoes are. And no lizard becomes unemployed."
This was stated by Chairman of Expert Team of Center for Pancasila Studies, Prof. Dr. dr. Sutaryo, SP.A (K), in a discussion of Ki Hadjar Dewantara’s Thought and Today’s Education at the office of the Center on Thursday (4/8) afternoon. Sutaryo’s explanation aims to explore ideas about the concept of Ki Hadjar Dewantara about national education in the scope of national culture.
Furthermore, Sutaryo said that Ki Hadjar thought that all kinds of education should be addressed to the senses skill, subtlety, clarity of mind, clarity of feelings, fixed and also the strong will of power and maturity of character. "It is a pillar of independent life. The current popular term is ‘humanizing humans’," Sutaryo said.
Ki Hadjar also introduced the system of Among (guiding), which means liberating every human being to live according to their own nature, but requiring them to pursue a peaceful orderly public. Teachers are required to remember and prioritize students’ nature by not forgetting all the surrounding circumstances. Educational method with the command, coercion by punishment, is replaced by giving guidance and support of children in growth and development with their nature, eliminating all that hinders growth and development and bringing kids to nature and society. "The education method is by modeling, worship, and teaching, while the students get used to locate and learn on their own. In that case, the teachers watch with all the attention, they just give help when necessary," he explained.
Related to the rapid globalization and Western-style education, Ki Hadjar had predicted the impacts. In his writings, Ki Hadjar Dewantara mentioned the chaos caused by the Eastern resistance and the Western spirit. The Western spirit highly prioritizes intellectualist. Absorbing the Western spirit actually brings advantages, namely giving the advancement, but on the other hand there are losses, which according to Ki Hadjar, marginalizes 'human mind' and the development of 'mind-intelligence' (now the term is cognitive) is rampant in our soul.
To overcome this, the concept of Ki Hadjar Dewantara is psychotherapy or psychiatric education along the lines of (culture) nationalism. In order to not shake our mind, Western sciences must be aligned with our culture (nationalization) to fit our lives. "Misled intellectualist education system can be rejected with scouting, handenarbeid, sports, etc. Ki Hadjar Dewantara also recommends spiritual method, that is instilling noble and beautiful values in inner life," Sutaryo said.
Some thoughts of Ki Hadjar Dewantara, according to Sutaryo, are still quite relevant, among others, his writings in 1922 that called for Indonesia to return to taking the path of life along the lines of its own life, back to the national personality. With the national road, people will be more advanced quickly than only becoming the copycat of strangers.