Et si l’école ne rendait plus les élèves créatifs ?

La philosophie comme une solution

Nous célébrons la semaine de la Francophonie avec le thème « Créativité et Jeunesse ». Je suis donc heureux de vous présenter un exposé sur ce thème.

Avant de commencer, il nous faut construire un pont entre les deux concepts pour que nous puissions déterminer leurs définitions et faire une relation entre eux—dans cet exposé le pont s’appelle « Education ». L’éducation ici veut dire celle qui prend lieu au sein de l’école—il s’agit surtout de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage. C’est pourquoi on définit la créativité comme la capacité d’imagination ou d’invention. La jeunesse, dit le dictionnaire Larousse, signifie la période de la vie humaine comprise entre l'enfance et l'âge mûr. Alors, dans le contexte de l’éducation, les jeunes sont les élèves de l’école maternelle au lycée.

Le (seul) paysage ?

Après avoir les définitions, je voudrais vous poser une question : « L’école rend-elle les élèves plus créatifs ? » Quand vous, mes amis indonésiens, étiez jeunes et le professeur vous a demandés de dessiner un paysage, avez-vous dessiné deux montagnes avec le soleil entre elles et une rue traversant un village dans lequel se trouvaient une maison et une rizière—comme ceci ? Pourquoi avons-nous la même image dans la tête quand il s’agit de paysage, comme s’il n’y avait pas d’autres perspectives ? Est-ce que nous n’avons pas envie de l’imagination chez le narrateur du « Petit Prince », qui dessinait dans son enfance un serpent boa qui digérait un éléphant, tandis que les
adultes le confondaient avec un chapeau ?

Un serpent boa digérant
un éléphant.

Alors, est-ce que nous ne sommes pas du tout faits pour être créatifs ?

En fait, il est impossible que les êtres humains perdent toute la créativité, parce qu’elle est une faculté innée. Cependant, elle exige en même temps une certaine éducation de peur qu’elle ne s’arrête de se développer. Malheureusement, le système éducatif national nous empêche très souvent de penser de manière créative. Je vous adresse trois problèmes qui existent dans beaucoup d’écoles.

Indonesia as an autopilot state

Indonesia, an autopilot state?

My talk today examines the possibility of classifying Indonesia as an autopilot state. I would like to say that, yes, Indonesia is running on autopilot to some extent. The phrase ‘to some extent’ implies that such autopilot mode does not necessarily encompass the whole dynamics of human life within a state. In other words, there are some parts of human life that run with the state’s intervention and some that do not.

Before going any further, let me explain the outline of my talk. It behoves us, first of all, to agree on what the term ‘state on autopilot’ means—otherwise, the talk would be futile since we have got different definitions of it. Afterwards, we will compare the idea of the autopilot state with a number of examples taken from the three dimensions of human life in today’s Indonesian society, namely the economy, politics and law. Finally, there will be a conclusion drawn from the analysis.

Let us imagine an aeroplane. Suppose that an aeroplane is a republic. The pilot and the co-pilot then would be the president, the vice president—in short, the government; the flight attendants represent the state bureaucracy and the market; and the passengers are the citizens. Now, according to German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, we ought to distinguish two aspects: the System and the Lebenswelt. The System comprises the state bureaucracy and the market, while the Lebenswelt refers to the world of experience lived by the citizens.

Having this metaphor in mind, let us proceed to two kinds of situation. If the pilot strictly controls everything, then the aeroplane is a model of totalitarian state. On the other hand, if the pilot gives up everything to the mechanisms of the bureaucracy and the market, then the aeroplane is a model of liberal state, which is primarily based on a laissez-faire principle. 

Therefore, when we claim that the Indonesian government is on autopilot, we are actually saying that the government does not intervene at all in neither the System nor the Lebenswelt. In other words, the passengers cannot feel the presence of the pilot; the flight attendants are the only channel through which they express their opinions.

However, one may ask: Is such situation true?

Philosophy as a pedagogic strategy towards leadership development

Quite a few analysts say the future of Indonesia seems promising. Our economy is growing at approximately 6 per cent; we are the only South East Asian country taking part in the Group of Twenty (G20); and as the largest economy in the region Indonesia is expected to take a leading role in the ASEAN Economic Community, which is slated to commence in 2015. These are good news in macroeconomics. The bad news is, however, our society is facing ever-increasing sociopolitical challenges at grass-roots level. The media covers them all every day: corruption, inter-religious conflicts, student brawls due to petty things, separatist movements and so forth. Given these mind-perplexing challenges and problems, one can but ask: What solutions do we need? 

Obviously, since the phenomena I have described are all human activities, it is the very human being that is capable of dealing with them. The economic, political, religious, social systems, and all the drawbacks arising therefrom, are all established by human being, hence human responsibility for them. The key, then, lies in the development of human resources so that they can take initiative and lead the way. In other words, we are in need of leaders of considerable intelligence and exemplary character. By the term ‘leader’, we are not merely referring to those holding office in bureaucracy or having an executive position in enterprises, but rather we are talking about human potential residing in each person.

I have mentioned two dimensions of a leader: intelligence, which is the cognitive dimension, and character, which is the affective dimension. Now, these two dimensions ought to be nurtured if we are to have true leaders—which then raises another question: What instrument does our society employ to instil leadership qualities in succeeding generations? Plainly, education. By educating children both inside and outside classrooms, the society is investing energy and time in developing their intelligence and character to the utmost.

However, just how effective are our schools in carrying out this enormous responsibility? Ladies and gentlemen, when you were a child and the teacher asked you to draw a panorama, did you draw two cone-shaped mountains with the sun, clouds, and unidentified birds above them and a street going through a village in which are located a modest house and a rice field? Sadly speaking, you and me, we belong to the generation that considers the picture as the only valid representation of panorama.