Transformative Education for Teachers:
Teachers’ Alternative Paradigm in a Global Perspective

Ulil Fuadah
Postgraduate, Language Teaching, State University of Malang
fuadahulil@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Information and technology (IT) and the quality of human resources (HR) that cannot be separated from the global impacts must be faced by every human, including a teacher in preparing for an increasingly complicated future competition. The reconstruction of paradigm in building more advanced teachers’ insight is an effort in maintaining the existence of teacher prowess for the foreseeable future. In this context, it was certainly only oriented to neither intelligence nor skill, but it needed to be directed to the global issues. Based on the results of interviews and observations, the problems faced by teachers today were tied to government policies, teaching practices, student characteristics, and rapid technological developments. These issues provided an opportunity for transformation, which is an alternative paradigm in the form of transformative education. The existence of transformative education towards teachers was believed to be able to answer the future challenges of Indonesian teachers, such as transformation of values ​​in order to generate new critical ideas and strengthen the work ethic. Therefore, there was a need for reorientation of transformative education as the alternative paradigm for teacher, namely 1) the growth of teachers’ critical awareness, 2) with futuristic insight, 3) skill enhancement, 4) orientation to humanist values, 5) quality assurance, and 6) spiritual power. Transformative education cooperatively leaded to a more innovative and creative thinking process so that teachers will be better able to compete with others in answering the real challenges of future conditions.