Kanako Kusanagi
March, 2019
Abstract
There is a growing interest for a model for social and emotional learning and the application of such in a different sociocultural setting. This interest is partly motivated by an international attempt to assess both cognitive and noncognitive aspects of education. One such example is global competence used in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This paper examines the application of such model, namely “tokkatsu” originated in Japan, into an Indonesian elementary school context.
In Japan, various non-academic activities called tokkatsu are integrated into the curriculum. Students acquire social skills through experiencing collaborative and autonomous learning activities in school life. One of the well-known application is school cleaning and school lunch. Because it is a secular model and various activities could accommodate the different need of school, there have been attempts to incorporate tokkatsu activities into the existing school activities.
In Indonesia, the interest in character education is motivated by rapid economic development and interest for national security. There has been the drastic change in society and lifestyle of people and moral degradation of young people has been an issue. This working paper examines the trend for character education in Indonesia, and how it is promoted by the local curriculum in Bandung City and West Java Province. In Indonesia, character education is closely linked to both religion and citizenship education. Then it further examines the case of school lunch implementation in one elementary school which integrated tokkatsu aspect. By examining a case of tokkatsu activity in the Indonesian school, I will both examine the potential and challenge of tokkatsu model in the foreign setting.
