The challenge of changing negative practices in Indonesian schools

I received a comment on my last post The Development of a Human Being and thought the question so good that it was worth writing a post on.

Ms. Neno an English teacher from Bali, Indonesia wrote:

Hi Mr Hugh. Thanks for writing this. :-)

Interesting. Though I should say that after reading it I exhaled a quite deep sigh. I am not trying to be pessimistic to my own country (considering you are writing about positive psychology), but I guess I need your opinion on this: what do you think would be the best way to implement "positive education program" when the fact is... "negative" practices are still seen anywhere in schools and educational institutions in Indonesia? This should be a huge challenge.

Ms Neno

In reply to Ms. Neno I write:

Hi Ms. Neno,

I'm sorry to hear about you're deep sigh, I obviously need to write more on the application of Positive Psychology so that you are instead, gasping for breath in excitement. The fact of the matter is most formal education around the world has been entrenched in "negative" practices perhaps since the very inception of the model our formal education is based on (something built to meet the needs of the industrialization era).

Only now in the last decade or so, thanks to the development in neuroscience are we really starting to understand, how the brain works. Positive Education is something new everywhere and it covers many things which I believe will be very useful and welcome in schools and institutions in Indonesia.

One key concept in Positive Psychology is "to flourish". Ask any one of your colleagues if they would like to flourish in all aspects of their life and they will no doubt say something to the tune of "yes, of course". Ask them how to flourish and they probably won't have a model to work from (unless of course, they already are flourishing). What Positive Education gives us is that model. If we can get more teachers experience Positive Psychology first hand and the difference it makes to their own thinking, habits and thus life, we'll have much less to deal with regarding a paradigm shift from "negative practices" to "positive practices".

What they do at Geelong Grammar School is to provide  intensive training where the first week or so is focusing on the process of experiencing positive psychology first hand. I was told that of that first week at least 3-4 days are needed for people to start opening up and going deeper into the experience. Many teachers may leave the training still having doubts even though they understand the model, this is where continual time and patience is needed from the trainers throughout the school year. If an institution was prepared to provide the initial training and then the ongoing support I see no reason why the institution's culture could not change and that a Positive Education program wouldn't be a success.

Thankfully many schools like Geelong Grammar School have done the hard yards in ingraining Positive Psychology into their culture and are happy to share their experiences in their journey and what method of development they have found works best.

I plan to provide lots of links to resources on Positive Psychology and Positive Education here on my blog in the coming months, and will hopefully be able to become more active in spreading Positive Education in Indonesia upon my return. I hope you (Ms. Neno) and anybody else reading this can assist and support the development of Positive Psychology in Indonesia.

Kindest regards,

Hugh Elliott

The Development of a Human Being

Hi there it's nice to be writing again,

Sorry I haven't written for a while a few things have changed for me recently.  For one I have taken a trip to Australia for a few months.  Here I have had the opportunity to meet with some excellent educators.  One subject that has come up a lot  since I have been here has been the development of the students character in school.

Although the development of character in schools is not a new subject it is one that is fraught with difficulties, differences of opinion and problems with measuring success. Overall with character, although it's something that everybody agrees is important, nobody has really devised a system to 'teach' it and achieve a great amount of success from it.

This is perhaps because the acquisition of character similar to acquiring a language cannot be achieved through 'teaching' but it must be discovered by the students themselves, assisted by the masterly facilitation of a skilled teacher or mentor.

With the learning of facts, one may choose to teach by giving the information or facilitate by providing the environment in which it can be learned. With the acquisition of character strengths however, the choice of telling somebody what they should think or feel is not there, it must be discovered.

Of course in talking about 'character strengths' we mustn't forget that what is strong or weak is a matter of perception and our perceptions are defined by the environment we come from (culture, DNA, upbringing etc.) and our own experiences. This being taken into consideration there are still many universal character strengths in which we can base our model of development on. Luckily a lot of work of researching the universal traits of character which are important in living a successful, happy and productive life has already been done.

Chris Peterson the co-author of 'Character Strengths and Virtues' adjusted a fairly long list of character strengths (as mentioned in Paul Tough's book 'How Children Succeed') and listed seven which he thought were particularly likely to predict life satisfaction and achievement. They were:

1. Grit
2. Self-Control
3. Zest
4. Social Intelligence
5. Optimism
6. Curiosity 

These were set out so teachers and curriculum developers in particular could use them as a model to base the competencies on for character development programs. Although they are obviously not the be all to end all they are never the less a good guide and a starting point in our quest to instill our students with strong, well rounded and beneficial character.

For a full list of character traits analysed by a research study of 117,676 adults from 54 nations by the university of Pennsylvania you can find the research report in the July 2006 Journal of Positive Psychology.

So all this leads us to the question, How can we transfer these character traits to our students in school? What the team at Geelong Grammar School has done is made sure to put all the teachers that come into their school through a two week intensive Positive Education course, not only to impart the skills of a facilitator but also to impart the skills of positive psychology onto the teachers themselves. This is because it is of course quite possible to imagine a student positively affected by a positive education program (excuse the pun) if the teacher themselves are living, breathing examples of positive psychology.

Positive Psychology as explained in Wikipedia is a branch of psychology which "...complements, with no intention to replace or ignore, the traditional areas of psychology. By adding an important emphasis to use the scientific method to study and determine positive human development." 

In short it is a branch of psychology immensely important and relevant for the teachers of today. Many say we are currently in a time of character crisis, where the instilled tried and tested values of tradition have been replaced by consumerism and the leadership of desire. Further more many concerned educators in Indonesia  have mentioned, the traditional values of the village have started to disintegrate, as the above influences and the influx of the population from rural areas to the city, have combined to make less and less room for the contemplation and implementation of character strengths.

What many fail to recognize is that in this time more than ever with all the turmoil our children are experiencing, that character strengths are really what are going to pull them through and give them the best chance in life. Studies have shown that it is not so much IQ or one-on-one tuition that determines a student's academic success, but it is character strengths. The same rings true in perhaps all areas of an individuals life.

If education is the preparation for life and we are educating our children for a future that we have no way of predicting, surely one of the greatest things we can help them achieve is strength of character!

I intend to write more articles on Positive Psychology in the coming months as I will be staying at Geelong Grammar School until the end of May. Hopefully I'll be able to participate in the implementation of more positive education programs in Indonesian schools after my return.

Until next time, keep shining sharing and succeeding.

Kindest regards,

-Hugh