The nature-based school curriculum: A solution to learning-teaching that promotes students’ freedom

This research aims to describe the nature-based school curriculum as a solution to the learning-teaching that promotes students’ freedom. The implementation of the learning-teaching is designed to be fun based on the natural characteristics of children. This research utilized a qualitative-descriptive method involving students, teachers, and parents as participants. Data were collected through observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The data analysis consisted of four stages: data collection, data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. The results of this research indicate that the curriculum developed at the nature-based school is implemented by integrating the national curriculum with the natural school curriculum consisting of four pillars: morality, scientific logic, leadership, and entrepreneurship. The positive impact of this research is that the innovation of natural curriculum has been in line with the implementation of independent curriculum by implementing four pillars in learning-teaching process and are carried out through experience-based learning and project-based learning methods. Students are facilitated to express their opinions in different activities and are given the freedom to choose a place to learn in several activities. For example, in some activities, students are free to choose learning places which can be in the prayer room, in the school yard, in the library, or in other places. The learning-teaching can increase students’ enthusiasm to go to school, be happy, feel valued and feel free when they are at schools. With this nature-based school curriculum, children develop according to their nature and grow into meaningful, independent, and beneficial human beings in the surrounding environment who have noble character, have logical abilities, have a good leadership spirit, and have an entrepreneurial spirit.


INTRODUCTION
Schools are educational institutions that aim to prepare students for the future based on their potential.The national education goals will be achieved through proper lessons in schools.This effort will run optimally if schools can develop a quality learning-teaching process.This can be realized by providing adequate facilities and infrastructure, creating a conducive situation, providing the programs that enable the students to develop their potential and abilities, quality learning-teaching, a good environment, and various other factors (Nurfirdaus & Hodijah 2018:114).
The success of the learning-teaching process in schools can be realized by developing good curriculum.The curriculum is a set of learning experiences obtained by the students during the learning-teaching process.Curriculum is also defined as a set of plans and arrangements of the objectives, content, teaching materials, and methods used as guidelines for the implementation of learning-teaching activities to achieve the national education goals (Law Number 20 of 2003).
Curriculum is also viewed as a program designed to achieve the expected goals (Fujiawati, 2016:17;Hermawan, Juliani, & Widodo, 2020:34).The national curriculum implemented in Indonesia today is the 2013 Curriculum.This curriculum can be developed in educational units based on the needs of students, the environment, society, the local community, the times and the global community.In the 21 st century, students should be equipped with 4C skills, have a good identity, and have excellent character.Furthermore, Mardhiyah (2021:29) explains that learning in the 21 st century is expected to create quality and excellent human resources by honing skills through self-habituation and life needs fulfillment based on knowledge.Some problems found in basic education include the students' knowledge which is unmatched with their existing attitudes and skills.This is in line with research conducted by Ergen & Elma (2018:120) explaining that several problems encountered in elementary school learning include developing children's attitudes and skills in the learning process.Some of the problems faced by students in elementary school are low communication skill, attitude of shame or lack of confidence, and weak skills in reading and writing.
Based on the observations, many students have successfully acquired knowledge, but their attitudes and skills are not relevant to the achievement of their knowledge.Students who have good knowledge values cannot always survive in the community and environment.In fact, they still have difficulties and cannot keep up with the competition in the global world.This is a problem that needs to be overcome in the field of education, including basic education (primary school).If this problem is not solved, the graduates produced by the schools cannot fully meet the needs of the world of work (Nisa, Prasetyo, & Istiningsih, 2019).
The problem above inspires many educational activists to provide the school experience as a fun and meaningful experience.Children go to school happily, without ignoring the essence of learning.Many school administrators develop their curriculum with the concept of a nature-based school.One of them is Alam Aqila Belitong Elementary School.The curriculum developed in this school is the 2013 Curriculum which promotes a nature-based curriculum.The concept in this curriculum is that learning doesn't have to be based on a thematic book, but the learning experience which is also very important.Education aims at developing the smart students and guiding them to have good morals.Curriculum development in this natural school contributes to the success of government programs through the independent curriculum with the hope that the learning process can liberate children to learn freely and liberate teachers to freely teach.
The school-based curriculum is designed to bring students closer to the natural environment as part of the learning-teaching process; the activities are carried out by bringing them closer to the surrounding community as a real living space based on the students' natural development, especially their psychological development (Rohmah, 2019:207).The nature -based school curriculum developed by Alam Aqila Belitong Elementary School focuses on four pillars: morality, scientific logic, leadership and entrepreneurship.The application of the curriculum offers a variety of fun activities.The natural school-based curriculum with its four pillars is correlated with the four parts of the human being.The pillar of morality sharpens the heart, reflecting pious characters, including being obedient to the God, fostering good relations among human beings, and loving the Qur'an.The pillar of leadership strengthens the hands, form and empower strong character; gives benefits to as many creatures of God as possible on earth, at least becomes a leader in the community.The scientific logic pillar sharpens the students' reason and mind, helps them to have a scientific attitude, including love of learning, being critical and daring to innovate.The entrepreneurship pillar strengthens legs, being determined to become entrepreneurs no matter what their main profession is.This can be started with the independence in the economy, relying on themselves, not worried when having trouble in seeking a job (Novo, 2017:7).
The development of this nature-based school curriculum also includes implementing positive education.Positive education is education that refers to the development of the students' welfare and is adapted to the context of the (Indonesian) environment (Wibowo et al, 2021:762).Based on the explanation above, this research describes the natural school-based curriculum developed by Alam Aqila Belitong Elementary School in integrating the natural school-based Cakrawala Pendidikan: Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan, Vol. 41 No. 3, October 2022, pp.643-652 curriculum with the 2013 Curriculum as a solution to facilitate learning-teaching that promotes students' freedom.

METHOD
This research utilized descriptive qualitative research methods.This research describes the development of a nature-based school curriculum that is integrated with the national curriculum.This research was conducted at Alam Aqila Belitong Elementary School, located at Tanjungpendam Village, Tanjungpandan Sub-District, Belitung District.The research was carried out in the odd semester of the 2021/2022 academic year.
Data sources in this research included primary and secondary data sources.Primary data sources were 22 students of grades I & II with various characteristics; student's parents; 2 homeroom teachers; Islamic Religion Education, Sports, Physical and Health Education and English teachers.These data sources are very diverse to strengthen the implementation of the natural school curriculum and the implementation of the three education centers: schools, communities, and families.Secondary data were obtained through observation on the implementation of the natural school curriculum in the learning process and interviews with students.

Table 1. Results of interviews with students
No.
How do you feel when studying here?
Of the activities we have done, which activity do you enjoy the most?
From the activities that you enjoy, are there any lessons to be learned?
1. Yes, there are. 2. For example, my dream is to become a food and ice cream seller, so I studied sales at school 5.
What activities do you dislike? 1. Nothing 2. Quizzes for not getting 100 3. Eating together because there are friends who don't eat well 6.
What activity that you would love to do, but it has never been done?
1. Selling in the roadside and in crowded places 2. Playing badminton 3. Playing football Based on the questionnaire distributed to five teachers (two homeroom teachers and three subject teachers), the teachers agreed that K13 could be integrated with the natural school curriculum, and documentations.The data were analyzed with the stages of data collection including observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation.The collected data were then reduced, presented and concluded.

Findings
Nature school is an educational concept or alternative school initiated by Mr. Ir.Lendo Novo (late) who was fondly called Bang Lendo.According to Bang Lendo, the foundation of education consists of the method or curriculum, quality books, and quality teachers.Those are the three most important things in education, rather than a magnificent building or complete school facilities.As the old saying states that "Nature becomes a teacher".God has created the universe as a laboratory where we learn anything (Novo, 2017:6).
Curriculum development in this natural school contributes to the success of government programs through the independent curriculum with the hope that the learning process can liberate children to learn freely and liberate teachers to freely teach.In its implementation, this curriculum is developed based on the needs of children in preparing their competencies in the 21st century and equipping them with superior characters.The curriculum developed at Alam Aqila Belitong Elementary School is carried out by integrating the national curriculum with the nature-based school curriculum.In practice, the learning-teaching is still adjusted to the 2013 Curriculum, where the learning-teaching is integrated with the four pillars of the nature school-based curriculum.The four pillars are morals, scientific logic, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
First is the development of the moral pillar is integrated through activities such as Iqro (reading) breakfast, dhuha (morning) congregational prayer, Hajj rituals, Ramadhan Camp, Faith and Piety Building Night (Mabit), Morning Talk, and other activities.The Iqro breakfast activity is an Iqro reading activity performed by students and teachers every morning.In this activity, students are free to request a place for doing such an activity; for example, today's iqro' breakfast is in the prayer room, and the next day is in the school yard, and so on.In the congregational prayer activities, students are given the opportunity to practice being a prayer priest.This practice instills a leadership spirit in students.Furthermore, the development of the moral pillar is also integrated through morning talk activities.Morning talk is an activity carried out after the dhuha prayer once a week.In this activity, students take turns speaking in front the audience with a free theme.Students are free to choose a theme that will be shared with their friends.This activity aims to practice public speaking and improve the courage to speak before the public.The results of the interviews with students indicate that students are very happy, feel valued in doing various activities dealing with the moral pillars.

Picture 1. Morning talk activities
Second is the development of the scientific logic pillar.This pillar integrates the materials in the national curriculum and thematic books developed with experience-based learning and project-based learning methods.The implementation of knowledge that must be mastered by students is integrated with various activities such as field trips, science fairs, literacy days, green labs, and so on.For example, in plant breeding material, students are invited to observe the plant breeding in the school environment such as visiting farmers, participating in harvesting vegetables, and so on.In the learning process, children are free to convey any ideas in the discussion activities and determination of the topics studied in the class.Also, students are free to do experiment to practice all the objects of study, especially in doing an experiment with concrete objects.This situation makes children feel comfortable in the learning process.This makes children miss the teachers, the learning processes, and their study friends.
Picture 2. The integration of scientific logic activity Third is the leadership pillar developed through various activities such as backpacker, OTFA (Out Trekking Fun Adventure), life skills, outbound, student scout, Sya'ban Camp activities, and so forth.In life skill activities, for example, this activity is integrated with market day activities.In the market day activities, students are taught to be an entrepreneur and the ability to make a product that can be sold in the market day activities.In this activity, students are free to make anything that can be sold.Such activities are designed to hone their abilities such as their ability to make pudding, their skills in making flower vases, and other skills.
Another activity that fosters the students' leadership is the sya'ban camp.The sya'ban camp program enables students to be happy and enthusiastic in welcoming the holy Ramadan month.Also, it teaches the students' various activities that can be done during the Ramadan month.The values contained in this activity include teaching students to manage activities during Ramadan month so that they can worship optimally.

Picture 3. The integration of leadership pillar
Fourth is the entrepreneurship pillar integrated through market day/business day, cooking classes, fund rising, mini internship activities, and so on.This entrepreneurship pillar aims to equip students with an entrepreneurial spirit.In this pillar, students are taught entrepreneurship skills and the values of caring for fellow human beings by inviting them to share activities with the community around the school from the results of their entrepreneurship activities.In this activity, students are also free to sell anything based on their wishes and abilities.On market day activities, children are free to be creative in determining what to sell, determine prices and share to whom they will sell the products.Likewise in cooking class activities, students are free to cook whatever they want, choose and determine the ingredients used.In this activity, the teachers' role is to motivate and facilitate students.The following is a visualization of market day activities and charity activities performed by giving donations to communities in the school environment.This donation is generated from buying and selling activities on the market day program.The food produced from the cooking class are distributed to the school community to foster student's caring spirit.

Picture 4. The integration of entrepreneurship pillar
Based on the various activities above and interviews with students, students are very happy to participate in the learning process.Some of the activities enjoyed by students include market day activities, field trips, and sports classes.The results of the interviews with students' parents show that the students are more enthusiastic about going to the nature school than their elder or younger siblings who attended public schools.Even, their elder siblings often participate in their school activities at the nature school.Likewise, parents are happier because they are involved in learning.However, the teachers did not fully understand what the nature -based school curriculum is like.This becomes task for school principals to open up the knowledge of teachers about the nature-based school curriculum.
Picture 5.The nature-based school curriculum analogy Based on the above explanation, the nature-based school curriculum not only develop students' cognitive or scientific aspects but moral, knowledge, and skills.Broadly speaking, nature-school education refers to the human function as Khalifatullah Fil Ardh (Leader on Earth).In addition, students get freedom in expressing opinions, making decisions which greatly affects their growth and development.

The Innovation of Curriculum Development of Natural School
Curriculum innovation at Aqila Elementary School is developed by integrating the National Curriculum ( 2013) with the Natural School Curriculum.The characteristics of this natural school curriculum is the integration of four aspects in each learning activity, namely logic, Cakrawala Pendidikan: Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan, Vol. 41 No. 3, October 2022, pp.643-652 entrepreneurship, leadership, and morals.The findings in this study show that natural school curriculum innovations that develop these four aspects can promote students' freedom because the learning process is designed with activity-based learning (projects).Based on these findings, the development of this natural school can be implemented in elementary schools to realize students who have good morals, good reasoning skills, and good leadership and entrepreneurial spirit.

Discussion
The activities of the four pillars developed at the natural school are highly appreciated by students because they do all these activities joyfully.Unconsciously, many important values for their lives are gradually embedded.The principle of the nature-based school curriculum is that students learn by experiencing themselves and learning happily, as the saying goes, "hearing makes me forget, seeing makes me remember, experiencing makes me understand" (Vaillancourt, 2009;Sujarwadi, 2014).
The development of the moral Pillar is integrated through activities such as Iqro' breakfast, dhuha (morning) congregational prayer, Hajj rituals, Ramadhan Camp, Mabit, Morning Talk, and other activities.These various activities enable students to freely choose a place to study, tell stories, and express their opinion.Also, these activities develop a caring spirit, respect for others, and a leadership spirit.These attitudes need to be developed from an early age, through the learning-teaching process.This is in line with the research results conducted by Saraswati et. al (2020:1) stating that the cultivation of this caring spirit can be integrated through selfdevelopment programs in the form of routine school activities, spontaneous activities, exemplary and conditioning.A caring attitude can also be integrated through learning-teaching content and school culture both in the classroom and outside of school activities.
The development of the scientific logic pillars, leadership, morals, and entrepreneurship in these activities gives very broad freedom to the students, which enables them to learn directly and provides meaningful learning.Besides giving freedom to the students, the students' creativity can be developed in these various activities.This creativity is very important for them in facing the global world challenges (Mulyati & Sukmawijaya, 2013:124;Sari & Septiasari, 2016:97).
It is also important to instill an entrepreneurial spirit from an early age to equip the students with an attitude of independence which will affect their future (Purwaningsih & Muin, 2021:34).Besides instilling a spirit of independence, this entrepreneurial activity can promote good cooperation between families and schools in facilitating the development of students (Ningrum, 2017:29).All the programs developed by the schools will not be able to succeed optimally if there is no good cooperation with the family.So, good cooperation is needed between the three education centers, namely families, schools, and communities to achieve the national education goals.
The first pillar is logic.The logic pillar is developed by designing problem-based learning and project-based learning.By implementing the two learning models, learning becomes meaningful and hone students' logic well.The implementation of project and problem based learning model can improve student learning outcomes and creative attitudes at elementary school age (Fauziah & Setiawan, 2019;Yustina et al, 2022).Critical and creative thinking attitudes can also be developed through the discovery learning model (Chusni et al, 2022).Furthermore, learning by doing can be carried out to provide meaningful learning, namely by inviting children to participate directly with the object of study being studied.This is one of the implementations of Piaget's theory in implementing the concrete operational stage (Purwadi, Sudiarta, & Suparta, 2019).
The second pillar developed in the natural school to foster a child's independent spirit is the leadership.The spirit of leadership is very important for every individual, not only for a leader (David & Lumaad, 2021).Pillars of leadership can be developed from an early age through activities such as backpacker, outbound, and various activities that can develop confidence and responsibility.Backpacker is one of the activities that can develop leadership spirit for children (Babo, Mahmud, & Ahmad, 2018) because children are trained to be independent and responsible with the tasks given.To complete the given tasks, students are also accustomed to be confident without depending on other friends.Besides backpackers, leadership spirit is embedded through outbound activities.In outbound activities, students are required to be brave in solving the various challenges.This grows the leadership spirit.
The third pillar is the moral pillar.This pillar is the most important pillar in child development.No matter how smart a child is, if they do not have good morals, it means nothing.This moral must be internalized in all activities along with the pillar development including logic, leadership and entrepreneurship which lead to morals.In the learning process, the material presented sharpens the child's logic and must be inserted with character values so that it balances between the knowledge possessed and the attitude.In leadership activities, students must be given an understanding regarding leaders who have good morals who can be role models for everyone.Also, students must be instilled with a good entrepreneurial attitude so that they are successful in the world and the hereafter.
The fourth pillar is the entrepreneurship pillar.This entrepreneurship pillar is developed through activities including market days, cooking classes, and other activities.On market day activities, students can develop various entrepreneurial values such as creative, competitive, perseverance, foresight, never give up, and other entrepreneurial values (Siwiyanti, Zultiar, & Ramdan, 2018).On market day activities, students are taught to have a creative attitude, especially in finding ideas about what to sell and looking for strategies on how to attract buyers.It is very important to instill this creative attitude in children from an early age so that they can solve the various problems they face properly (Nisa et al, 2019).In addition to creativity, students are also honed to have good communication skills so that in their buying and selling activities they can provide the best service for their buyers.This is very important because communication skills are one of the skills required by students in the 21st century (Ratminingsih et al, 2021;Kurniawan, Santoso, & Utaminingsih, 2021).In market day activities, students are required to have good numeracy skills so that they can calculate the profits obtained from the buying and selling activities, and can provide change appropriately.
In addition to market day, this entrepreneurship pillar is also developed through cooking class activities.These activities can also develop socially connected students (Luongo et al, 2018).Aesthetic spirit in decorating cooked food is also developed in this activity.All aspects are developed including motor skills in the cooking process, knowledge of cooked ingredients, ideas for decorating and tasting dishes and so on.

CONCLUSION
Based on the explanation above, by integrating the 2013 Curriculum with the nature schoolbased curriculum, learning becomes more varied so that students are enthusiastic and happy to go to school.With the experience-based learning and project-based learning methods, students better understand what they are learning.The nature-based school curriculum can complement the 2013 Curriculum in terms of character education, especially morality, leadership, entrepreneurship, and the Pancasila-Student Profile.Students have freedom in expressing opinions, solving problems, making decisions which greatly affects the students' growth and development and will be very beneficial for their lives in the future.This can be optimal if the four pillars are integrated, namely the pillars of logic, leadership, morals and entrepreneurship.This freedom makes students and teachers feel comfortable doing the learning process.Also, what is done in the learning process becomes meaningful because what has been learned in class can be applied in everyday life.