Taman Siswa Schools in Colonial Indonesia:
Looking Back to the Past, Getting Ready for the Future
Kirsten Kamphuis
In 1936, the Indonesian teacher and activist Ki Hadjar Dewantara wrote an article for Dutch women living in Indonesia. At that time, Indonesia was not an independent country; instead, it was a colony of the Netherlands. In his article, Ki Hadjar Dewantara told the readers about his Taman Siswa schools stating that Indonesian children could lose their own culture and identity if they went to European-style schools. The Taman Siswa schools were different: the education children received there was based on their own cultural traditions. What did this mean for the children on the school benches? The answer lies in a combination of old Indonesian traditions and dreams for the future of the country.
A garden of students
Like colonialism in other countries in Africa and Asia, the political system in the Dutch East Indies was based on inequality, with Indonesians not having the same rights as the many Dutch people who also lived in the colony. It was also much harder for Indonesian children to get a good education. In general, only Indonesian children from wealthy families were able to go to secondary school and, as such, most Indonesian children did not go to primary schools at all. Ki Hadjar Dewantara wanted to change that and in 1922, he and his wife Ni Hadjar Dewantara opened the first Taman Siswa school in the city of Yogyakarta, on the island of Java. In the Javanese language, Taman Siswa means ‘garden of students.’
The Indonesian men and women who became involved with Taman Siswa had their eyes set firmly on the future. They hoped that one day there would be an independent Indonesian state, which would not be ruled by the Dutch government. To realise this dream, members of the Taman Siswa organisation believed it was necessary to look back to the past, meaning Taman Siswa students learned how to perform hundred-year-old dances and how to play traditional music. Whilst they were still in kindergarten, the youngest children learnt old Javanese children’s songs and games. A photograph, taken in 1923, shows that most of the children are wearing Indonesian clothes instead of the Western-style shirts and dresses highly fashionable at the time. Ki Hadjar Dewantara and his wife, seated on the right of the picture, are also wearing Javanese clothes.
Despite their appreciation of past traditions, Taman Siswa schools did also look towards the developments being made by European schools. The foremost idea of such schools was to remove any ‘unnecessary’ Western influences which would cause Indonesian children to forget their own heritage and culture but to keep those aspects of schooling and education which were considered useful and modern. The children in Taman Siswa schools learnt about new developments and inventions in technology and the sciences, whilst making use of modern resources such as blackboards, maps, and books, just like European schools.
In Taman Siswa schools, boys and girls did not learn the exact same things, and this differentiation is also visible in the photograph. To the left, a small group of boys are showing off their gymnastic skills: their teachers hoped that they would grow up to become strong and disciplined men. Many of the girls in the picture are seen to be doing needlework. According to Taman Siswa girls needed to, first and foremost, become good mothers so that they would be able to take care of future generations of Indonesian children meaning the girls also needed basic household skills. Here, too, traditions were important: the girls learnt how to make batik, an Indonesian fabric which is made by dyeing cotton with wax. Despite this, girls were allowed to play sports as well but could not participate in gymnastics or play football with the boys as this was not considered, by their teachers, the proper thing for girls to do.
The Taman Siswa schools were very popular in colonial Indonesia. Soon after the opening of the first school in 1922, hundreds more of these schools were opened across the colony. The colonial government attempted to close them down, resulting in public uproar and protest, meaning the schools were permitted to stay open. Following Indonesian independence in 1945, the schools remained successful. Today, Taman Siswa schools still exist and in Yogyakarta you can visit the original Taman Siswa. It is now a museum which aims to remind people how Indonesian children were taught about a new future, almost a century ago.
Number: 1922
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