The Classroom Enactment of PISA-Aligned Curriculum Reform in Indonesian Textbooks
This qualitative case study reveals that while Indonesian Grade V teachers perceive the new PISA-aligned *Bergerak Bersama 2024* textbook as valuable, they systematically simplify or omit its higher-order competency tasks during classroom enactment due to structural constraints like time limits and resource scarcity, resulting in a significant gap between intended curriculum goals and actual instructional practice.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
Imagine the Indonesian government as a master chef who just designed a brand-new, world-class recipe book called Bergerak Bersama (Moving Forward Together). This recipe book was created with a specific goal: to teach students how to cook like the top chefs in the world (based on the PISA international standards), focusing on creativity, problem-solving, and using real-world ingredients, rather than just memorizing old recipes.
This study is like a food critic visiting a single kitchen in a small town to see how the local cooks (Grade 5 teachers) are actually using this new recipe book in their daily service.
Here is what the researchers found, broken down into simple terms:
1. The Cooks Like the Book, But Have Reservations (Selective Trust)
The teachers generally liked the new recipe book. They thought it looked beautiful, had better pictures, and included more interesting stories than the old books. They felt it was a big step up.
However, their trust was "selective," like a food critic who loves the appetizers but thinks the main course is a bit weak.
- Social Studies & Language: The teachers felt these sections were great. The recipes felt close to the students' lives and encouraged them to think and share opinions.
- Mathematics: The teachers felt this section was still too much like the "old book." They felt it had too many repetitive drills and formulas, lacking the creative, real-world problem-solving the new curriculum promised.
- The "Fit" Problem: One teacher noted that while the recipes were fancy, some of the "ingredients" (the students' basic skills) weren't ready for them yet. If the students couldn't read well or do basic multiplication, the fancy recipes just confused them.
2. The "Kitchen Reality" vs. The Recipe (Adaptive Enactment)
The study found that no teacher followed the recipe book page-by-page. Instead, they acted like chefs who have to adjust a recipe based on what they have in the pantry and how hungry the customers are. They used three main strategies:
- Enrichment (Adding Flavor): One teacher kept the recipe but added local examples (like asking students to talk about their own village market) to make it stick. This kept the high-level thinking alive.
- Substitution (Swapping Ingredients): Another teacher, especially in math, felt the book's exercises were too uniform. They threw out the book's practice problems and created their own or found them online to better suit their students.
- Simplification (Dumbing It Down): A third teacher, worried that students would get lost, took the complex, open-ended questions from the book and broke them down into tiny, simple, "yes-or-no" questions.
The Big Catch: The researchers noticed a worrying pattern. The parts of the recipe book that were most aligned with the world-class PISA standards (the open-ended, creative problem-solving tasks) were the ones most likely to be changed, simplified, or skipped entirely. The "easy" parts were followed, but the "hard, important" parts were often watered down.
3. The Kitchen is Too Small and Too Crowded (Structural Friction)
Why did the teachers have to change the recipes? It wasn't because they didn't want to cook the fancy dishes. It was because the kitchen was broken. The study identified four main obstacles:
- The Timer: The new recipes require long, slow cooking (exploration and discussion), but the school bell rings every 35 minutes. Teachers had to choose: finish the lesson plan or let the students explore? They often chose to finish the plan.
- The Crowd: Classes have 30+ students with wildly different skill levels. Some students are ready for the fancy dish; others are still learning to chop onions. The book assumed everyone was at the same level, which wasn't true.
- The Exam Trap: Even though the new curriculum says "process is more important than grades," the final exams still test memory and rote facts. Teachers felt forced to teach to the test, not to the new, creative book.
- Missing Tools: Some recipes required internet access or special tools that the school didn't have.
4. The Cooks Help Each Other (Collegial Resourcefulness)
Despite the broken kitchen, the teachers didn't give up. They formed a support network.
- The "Potluck" (KKG): They met every two weeks to share their own modified recipes, worksheets, and ideas.
- The "Backup Plan": They created shared digital folders of extra materials to fill the gaps in the official book.
- The Manager's Nod: The school principal told them, "The book is a guide, not a sacred rule." This permission gave them the confidence to adapt the lessons to their students' needs.
The Bottom Line
The study concludes that the gap between the intended curriculum (the fancy recipe book) and the actual classroom experience isn't because the teachers are lazy or don't understand the new system.
Instead, it's a structural problem. You can give a chef a Michelin-star recipe, but if the stove is broken, the kitchen is too small, the timer is too short, and the customers only want simple food, the chef will inevitably simplify the dish.
The researchers argue that to truly improve education, Indonesia needs more than just a better textbook. They need to fix the "kitchen": give teachers more time, smaller classes, exams that match the new goals, and better resources. Without these changes, the most important, high-level thinking skills the new curriculum promises will likely continue to disappear in the classroom.
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