Test Oriented Learning
This school experience program is the first international curriculum for me. I always wonder how international curriculum work in Indonesia, how their teaching and learning activity would be like and what makes it so different with national school. Even more the international school where I did my co-teaching phase was using one of the most famous international curriculum.
The first thing that I noticed was that the students learn mathematics further than national students at their age. I was teaching 8th grade at that time and they already learned about trigonometry which I, as a student, learned it after entering highschool. The second thing that I noticed that their teaching and learning activities are just similar with my experience. I did not see anything different neither amazed with the activity where to be honest I was expecting something more.
There could be many things affecting their teaching and learning activities. The first reason came into my mind is because the teacher was too busy to be able to focus on the teacher and learning activity. The teacher was responsible to teach 6 classes (or more) at once which means she would be busy every single day. There is no time to make innovation, to reflect, and to keep track on each students' development.
The second reason which I think might be the most crucial one is the goal of the curriculum. The end goal of this curriculum is a test. A difficult test indeed. In my opinion, it affected the whole process of learning because the goal of the learning was for the students to pass a test. It affected teacher's planning, teacher's method in teaching, and even students' mindset and behavior.
From this experience I learned that the goal of learning is one of the most important things affecting the learning process, and learning for a test will never be the best goal. It helped me to be aware of what is my purpose as a teacher, and to be able have a stance towards curriculums. One thing for sure from this experience I decide that I do not want to be a teacher if the end goal of education is only for the students to past a test.
