I was thinking lately about this word. Sustainable. The first time I really involved with this word was when I had to teach my private student about 8 goals of MDGs. But then, it turns out that I have to use the word more often.

Several months ago I went home with my friend from school where I worked. I had a chat with her about some of my students. We were wondering why their scores in so many subjects are bad. I thought that there are three possible reasons for this.

First, the reason is unclear explanation from the teachers. But then there will be so many teachers at stake here. There is one teacher for one subject and we doubt that all teachers are that incompetent. No way. They are hired as a teacher for some reasons and the reasons must be good. Nope, I don’t think that the teachers are the reason.

The second reason is students’ preparedness of the test. It should be worked out by teachers and parents. At school they study, do exercises and they did well. They were given homework to study at home. I am quite sure that the parents were aware of the upcoming exam and asked their kids to learn. Well, at least the kids told so.

Then there is the third reason. Maybe they can’t absorb the materials and extract them when they are needed! Humans have brains, right? How can they not be able to absorb knowledge? I remembered one of my students who always gets answer for his questions easily. Whenever he is challenged, he step back and choose not to try. Maybe that is the reason. They always get the answers to their questions easily that they don’t have to think, analyze, and strive to come up with an answer.

Finally I concluded. The later reason lead me to think that maybe the schooling system which depends a lot on test scores makes children feel that learning is only a way to get good scores. If children can get good scores not by learning, then what’s the point? Maybe this is what Freire (1996) warned as the result of banking concept in education which reduce the whole educational experience into test scores. People forget the educational process. They forget, as Pranoto (2012) said, how to fall in love with learning, knowledge, and science. Education is treated as a mean to an end while it should make people to be full of resources which will benefit them in the future. Education makes people educated and educated people make what they got from education sustain in order to benefit not only themselves but other people and their environment, to make people and the world sustainable.

May 7, 2013