Writing Drama, Nurturing Tolerance: Indonesian Teachers’ Exploration of Creative Teaching Methods

Abstract

Living in a country blessed with rich diversity, Indonesia, is both a blessing and a challenge. For one, diversity can enrich our points of view in seeing various social issues. At the same time, social cohesion is always at risk. We have seen some incidents of violence provoked by acts of intolerance taking place in Indonesia. Consequently, tolerance is one crucial soft skill that needs to be strongly instilled in the younger generation to smoothly navigate life in diversity, even tap diversity to be helpful as a social resource. Many experts have claimed that diversity can be valuable in maintaining social resilience under challenging situations. Moreover, the Indonesian national curriculum for all levels of education mandates that strongly instill tolerance in various subjects. Thus, we deem it to be timely to encourage teachers at primary education institutions to explore creative and critical methods in teaching tolerance. Our community service program engaged teachers at Islamic secondary schools in Malang to explore drama writing creatively. Through the writing process, teachers can explore contextual issues pertaining to tolerance. In addition, the method also grows social sensitivity as they pursue their imagination in developing various characters facing and attempting to solve issues of intolerance, be it religion, ability, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic background. Apart from the time-consuming nature of the drama writing teaching method, the deepening of understanding and growing sensitivity cultivated through the process are certainly worth the efforts. Thus, we expect that teachers will not hesitate in implementing drama writing as a method in teaching life values, including tolerance.