Innovative Mentality

Innovative Mentality

Innovative Mentality

A “revolution” brought up by the president-elect JokoWidodo is such a huge pace that it necessitates a massive and comprehensive movement.  This mental revolution should have taken place since the 1998 reform, then it could have been called a mental reform. However, it is better late than never at all.

The 1998 reform which missed the sense of mental reform has created a euphoria for the nation and the nation state, and yet foregrounded more the interest of individuals and groups than the nation. Some thoughts and wisdom have been expressed by some experts and the latter wise men, and yet, they are not wrapped within a big vision to glue differences to form a nation mindset. Thus, the main problem of the reform is the absence of the vision of the crowd to govern the role of the nation. This condition has made a national leadership, leading through continued conflicts.

The conflicts emerge as a result of the dominant culture of competition in all aspects of life, even in the field of education. Achievements in education are pursued through competition which often disregards collaboration. The culture of competition has been leading and dominating to conquer and defeat others in any possible waysto achieve a designated goal regardless of the sense of togetherness. Such a condition is so straight from the shoulder that everyone could effortlessly see it.

This kind of culture has become a virus spread out through the field of education. Competition, then again competition, continues to be the integral part in all aspects of education. Education has become the battle field for competition, if not a hobby for being likeable.

The culture of competition is not bad. However, if the competition is not converted into a culture that contributes to a long term reform in fostering people’s behavior, but to an instant behavior for victory and praise, the culture of competition will lead to the emergence of paradoxes, conflicts, and hypocrites.  This ongoing culture is not of very advantage for the nation and nation state because it helps shape a predisposition towards a lengthened unhealthy behaviors. Pedagogically, such a culture does not provide a climate which fosters learners’ maturity in thinking, and neither does it develop learners’ sense of responsibility because external influences more dominantly shape learners’ behaviors.

From the perspective of education, an expectedly ideal condition for human development in Indonesia is the climate that fosters the growth of mature individuals possessing internal competitive power to meet standardized ideal achievements and performances. In other words, this climate should foster individual awareness of and need for honesty (because people never lie to themselves), hard work, responsibility, and braveness for making choices and accepting their consequences. This climate does not allow the absence of collaboration. In this, there should be a balance between self-competition for being outstanding and right, and collaboration with others for building togetherness. By so doing, polite competition in a collaborative culture and a “mindset” for competition in peace will be brewing.

Innovative Mentality: An Educational Perspective's  

By norms, education means a process for empowerment and culture building. Fostering learners’ potentials should be based on and aimed at dynamically building a culture as a borderland through which learners possess high adaptive power.

Innovation should not be viewed as an externally enforced power, but a creative adaptive power in individuals internally to contribute to building the nation stability. That is, creativity and innovation grow on the basis of the potentials of individuals, groups, and the nation. A variety of cultures, ethnicity, and beliefs is a national asset, forming the spirit for developing innovative mentality.

Cultural differences and national potentials on one side and global competitive power on the other side are two folds which should be based on local uniqueness and potentials, all of which should be developed within a framework of competition (based on local genius) within collaborative cultures and piece (mutual symbiosis). A sort of mentality that should be developed is “living local values”. This mentality construction should be well supported by a transformative pedagogic leadership and national leadership whose spirit lies in the people’s heart and mind.

To realize this idea, it is imperative that the currently working position and local content of education be redefined to include “living local values”. This inclusion forms academic collaboration aimed at fostering learners’ vocational competence to be internationally recognized and at supporting local values knowledge based economy.