“I believe in good people rather than smart people. No matter how smart you are, it takes good character to build relationship with others. When I am thinking of a school for character building, Tzu Chi School came to mind straight away,” said Mr Richard Sidharta, ANPS Chairperson at Tzu Chi Secondary VIP room. 

On November 12, 2019, Tzu Chi School was honored to welcome 30 delegates from the Association of National and Private Schools (ANPS) consist of teachers and management team from a number of national plus schools across Indonesia. 

The aim of this visit was for these schools to learn further about applying humanistic culture in school education. Mr Sudino Lim, Tzu Chi School Director believes in an era of technology where children can study easily from the internet, educators are required to teach more than just basic knowledge, “Teaching children about content is easy, our job is to teach them value to build their character.” 

After hearing brief presentations about the school by Mr Antonius, Tzu Chi School Marketing Manager; Ms Wida Maryani, Tzu Chi Early Childhood Vice Principals; Ms Susie, Tzu Chi Primary Vice Principal; and Mr Dominic Robeau, Head of Tzu Chi Secondary School—ANPS delegates were divided into three groups for a school tour around the Early Childhood, Primary, and Secondary, respectively. 

Ms Sri Wahjuningsih, School Director of Harvest Christian School was amazed by how Tzu Chi School, from Early Childhood to Secondary, all speak in one voice: humanistic culture. “It’s extraordinary that you have such an integrated values across three schools, that it inspires me to revitalise my teachers back at my school.”

Tzu Chi School’s humanistic education also left a strong impression for Ms Ridwanita, Principal of Saint Peter High School said, ‘I am amazed by the school’s daily habit of demonstrating good manners, politeness, and how everyone from across the whole school are focused to reach the same goal: of establishing children with good character.”

Ms Ridwanita expressed the importance of character education for students, ‘You can be smart but without the ability of respecting and maintaining good relationships with others, you will become nothing.’

Likewise, Mr Lim said, ‘Building the school is easy, but building human’s character is another story.’ Like Master Cheng Yen said, ‘Studying does not only mean to get knowledge, but more importantly to cultivate one's self--to cultivate inner kindness and pure personality on the inside beneath the clean and neat appearance on the outside.’