Developing the Value of “Lonto Leok” in Manggarai Culture to
Empower the Skills of Social Problem-Solving in Social-Sciences
Learning of Junior-High School
Marianus Tapung
1
, Enok Maryani
1
, Yohanes S. Lon
2
, Marselus Ruben Payong
2
and Nana Supriatna
1
1
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
2
STKIP St. Paulus Ruteng
Keywords: Value of “Lonto Leok”, the skills of social problem-solving, social-sciences learning.
Abstract: When the value of ‘Lonto Leok’ is applied in the teaching of Social-Sciences Learning of Junior-High
School, and tested, the following results were found: (1) the value of ‘Lonto Leok’ can be integrated in
teaching tools (Syllabus, RPP and Assessment Technique); (2) The level of understanding, and
achievement of student learning outcomes experienced a good improvement when deepened the material
of Social Problems; (3) The performance of teachers is in good category for the learning of the material
of Social problems. This illustrates that the value of ‘Lonto Leok’ can be developed in the learning
activities effectively and efficiently to achieve the learning objectives. This study is a combination of
two methods: (1) ethnographic method associated with the value of ‘Lonto Leok’ in the life of the
Manggarai community; (2) Research and Development (R and D) method to develop the value of ‘Lonto
Leok’ in Social-Sciences Learning of JHS. Purposes of study: (1) Reviving the spirit of Lonto Leok of
the Manggarai community to build a smart consciousness in social problem solving; (2) Integrating and
applying the value of ‘Lonto Leok’ in Social-Sciences Learning, so that it can be internalized in the life
of JHS students in school and community.
1 INTRODUCTION
One of the famous customs and traditions of
Manggarai community is Lonto Leok. In Manggarai
culture, Lonto Leok is a legacy that must be sustained
because of its crucial value for the survival of society.
Basically, Lonto Leok is in harmony with the living
space of Manggarai people; it creates a sense of
togetherness. Lonto Leok is a cultural heritage
containing values for the life of Manggarai
community to always live in peace and harmony.
The increasing ignorance towards Lonto Leok’s
local wisdoms is an important issue in the social
studies subject of junior high schools (JHS) in
Manggarai today (Costa, 2016). The marginalization
of Lonto Leok in this era of globalization should be
the responsibility of education system, including
social studies education. This is so because
essentially the content of social studies is concerned
with human relationships with other human beings,
and human relationships with the social and cultural
environments (Sudarmin, 2015; Bauto, 2013), and in
this regard Lonto Leok as a socio-cultural activity as
well as social capital should be adapted and
accommodated in social studies learning activities
(Mungmachon, 2012; Himawan, 2014). On the same
note, social studies teaching and learning as part of
social activities can be used for the re-
institutionalization and revitalization of Lonto Leok’s
local wisdoms, by integrating the tradition into
teaching and learning activities.
Herein, the research aims to: (1) Revive the spirit
of Lonto Leok in order to build an intelligent
awareness of social problem-solving in Manggarai
community; (2) Integrate Lonto Leok values with
social studies teaching and learning, so they can be
internalized in the life of junior high school and MTs
students in Manggarai; (3) Develop Lonto Leok
values in the teaching and learning of junior high
school/MTs Social Studies focusing on the topic of
“Social Problems” through ethnographic and
Research and Development (R&D) approaches.
316
Tapung, M., Maryani, E., Lon, Y., Payong, M. and Supriatna, N.
Developing the Value of “Lonto Leok” in Manggarai Culture to Empower the Skills of Social Problem-Solving in Social-Sciences Learning of Junior-High School.
In Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ANCOSH 2018) - Revitalization of Local Wisdom in Global and Competitive Era, pages 316-320
ISBN: 978-989-758-343-8
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Lonto Léok comes from two words: Lonto meaning
sitting, and Léok which means circumference
(Verheijen, 1967; Bhawuk, 2008). Thus, Lonto Léok
can be defined as sitting around or sitting in a circle.
In the context of Manggarai culture, Lonto Léok refers
to a meeting attended by the villagers to take care of
any problems. It is a way or model of meeting in
solving all problems in the village (béo) and holding
the traditional ceremony of Manggarai people. In the
meeting, the participants sit in a circle and everyone
has equal rights to participate. During the meeting
there is deliberation towards consensus. Decisions are
made by tu'a golo (village head) based on mutual
agreement.
Lonto Léok was activities do not only serve as a
model of meeting or sitting position of people
attending the various traditional ceremonies inside
the traditional house or in the lingko garden. Lonto
Léok, as an ancestral heritage, contains values
beneficial to the life of Manggarai people. Its values
are illustrated in the following points: (1) In
accordance with the philosophy of mbaru gendang
and lingko, Lonto Léok contains the value of unity and
prioritizes the value of brother/sisterhood; (2) Lonto
Léok highlights the value of participation (Jayadi,
2014; Syamwil, 2010). Everyone is obliged to
participate in the activities through their contribution
of thoughts and willingness to accept the agreement
reached in the meeting; (3) Lonto Léok also contains
the value of equality. In Lonto Léok, everyone is equal
and has the same right to express his/her opinions and
thoughts; (4) Lonto Léok emphasizes the value of
deliberation and consensus. The essence of Lonto
Léok is joint deliberation and mutual consensus
(Dagur, 1997; Mukuse, 2012); (5) Lonto Léok assigns
the leader with the role as a facilitator and guide at
every meeting. The leader always stands in the
middle, like siring bongkok (the main pillar) in mbaru
gendang. He must have such qualities as patience,
wisdom, and broad knowledge. In Lonto Léok, the
meeting leader (tu'a golo) holds a dialectical
discussion in order to arrive at a final decision based
on the principle of consensus and deliberation.
Considering the benefits of Lonto Léok for a
peaceful and harmonious Manggarai community, the
idea of re-institutionalization and revitalization of
Lonto Léok should be the concern of all parties,
especially those in education (Widodo, 2012; Berry,
2008). The author sees the structure and content of
social studies education curriculum is very relevant to
and potential in developing Lonto Léok values. The
fundamental reason for its development in the
teaching and learning process pertains to the specific
purpose of social education, where students must
acquire such competences (Danzak, 2015), as: (1)
Have a caring and responsible attitude towards the
social, cultural, physical environments through
participation in developing the life of the nation and
state; (2) Have the attitude and social skill to develop
a unity-in-diversity society; (3) Have the curiosity,
inquiry ability, decision making, and ability to
develop a dignified life; (4) Understand the struggle
of the nation and the national life and are able to
continue developing the national life towards a more
cultured life with stronger characters; and (5) Have
the ability to think critically, creatively, innovatively,
and with discipline.
Just as Lonto Léok that was born from the cultural
context of Manggarai, Sumaatmajda (2005)
explained that social studies learning content can also
be explored from certain socio-cultural contexts.
Exploration is made because social studies content
comprises of the elements such as: (1) Values and
social integration, in which students can learn to
connect knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes to their
socio-cultural life; (2) foundations of socio-cultural
values, where students are empowered to be sensitive
to social problems and able to solve them by utilizing
local cultural wisdoms; (3) Awareness of democratic
socio-cultural values in dealing with various forms
and types of social problems; (4) Challenges to
students’ critical thinking in solving social problems;
(5) Active learning, in which students empower their
critical thinking, reflection, decision-making, and
problem-solving skills during learning; and (6)
Development of a new understanding through an
active learning process by providing guidance
through modeling, explanation, and social problem-
solving (Wahyudin, 2015).
3 RESEARCH METHOD
This research is a combination of two methods,
namely: 1) ethnographic method associated with the
values of Lonto Leok in the life of Manggarai
community. In this method, the author explored the
primary data by interviewing the elders and cultural
experts, as well as searching for the literature that is
directly related to Lonto Leok; and 2) Research and
Development method (Borg and Gall, 2003:772;
Cresswell, 2005:15) to develop Lonto Leok values in
social studies teaching and learning. The subjects of
this research and development were eight grade junior
high school/MTs students in Ruteng City, Manggarai
Regency.
Developing the Value of “Lonto Leok” in Manggarai Culture to Empower the Skills of Social Problem-Solving in Social-Sciences Learning
of Junior-High School
317

The R&D method began with a preliminary study,
drafting development concepts, developing learning
media, validating the model and learning media, and
then implementing them in two schools in Indonesia.
The selection of the two junior high schools was
based on the technique of purposive sampling with
the following considerations: (1) Socio-culturally, the
schools are located in Manggarai and adjacent so as
to facilitate research activities; (2) The students in the
two junior high schools faced relatively similar social
problems so that the process of data exploration could
be done intensively; (3) Academically, these two
schools have been accredited and met the national
standard for local-content curriculum development.
4 RESULTS
Once the Lonto Léok values development learning
model and media were validated, they were
subsequently implemented in two schools: JHS A
with 37 students and JHS B with 36 students. The
implementation involved a model teacher, teacher-
observer, principal, subject supervisor, and education
expert. The implementation at JHS A took place from
May 17-19, 2017. In general, the learning process
from the first to the third meeting went quite well.
However, the model teacher still had not mastered the
class and the development stages according to the
lesson plans. Students also did not actively participate
in the teaching and learning because they were less
familiar with the presence of a model teacher,
observer, and education expert in the classroom. After
the implementation at SMP Fransiskus Ruteng,
evaluation was done by emphasizing several things:
(1) The teacher needs to be more prepared in terms of
mastery of teaching materials, mastery of learning
syntax with the development of Lonto Léok values,
and a good understanding of the assessment of social
problem-solving skills; and (2) The teacher needs to
try to stimulate students’ active participation, both in
listening to teaching materials and in discussions and
presentations.
The second implementation was conducted at JHS
B from June 5-7, 2017. In general, the second
implementation could be said to be successful.
Students seemed to be active and confident to express
their opinions and ideas. Although the assessment of
social problem-solving skills in the development of
Lonto Léok values was still difficult to do, the model
teacher had begun to master the assessment
techniques to measure students’ skills. Using the
existing assessment format, the model teacher
undertook some forms of assessment, such as
individual pre-test and post-test and group assessment
in discussion activities.
The results of observation on teacher performance
and student active participation become the main data
to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of
the developed model. In general, the results show that
the teachers in the two schools show good
performance in the teaching and learning activities.
The results of observation of student activity at JHS
A show that the average score is 81.74%, whereas the
average score of JHS B students is 82.24%. The
scores indicate that the students from the two schools
are very active in teamwork, expressing opinions and
questions, answering questions, and raising ideas for
real actions. Students from both schools stated that
they are happy to attend social studies lessons if the
learning is linked to local wisdom and social facts
around them. Social studies teaching and learning is
no longer monotonous and takes the form of rote
learning; instead, it is fun and motivating the students
to be skilled in solving social problems. Some
students revealed that the skills of social problem-
solving are very important to them in the face of
today’s rapidly changing times.
The improvement of social problem-solving skills
in social studies teaching and learning with Lonto
Léok values development is measured qualitatively
and quantitatively. Qualitatively, the measurement is
done through an observation sheet of social problem-
solving used during the learning activities. The
observation sheet was filled by the observer who
observed students’ behaviors in looking at problems,
analyzing, giving solutions, reflecting, and thinking
about concrete actions. Quantitatively, the
measurement of the effectiveness of Lonto Léok
values development is based on the results of the
social problem-solving tests given at the beginning
(pre-test) and the end (post-test) of learning activities.
The quantitative analysis of the effectiveness of
Lonto Léok values development implementation is
done to the results of social problem-solving skills
tests. The tests were given at the beginning and end
of the teaching and learning activities and analyzed
quantitatively using inferential statistics. The average
pre-test score of social problem-solving skills of the
students of JHS A is 52.43. After the teaching and
learning activities with the development of Lonto
Léok values, there is an increase in the score by 28.28,
reaching 80.71. The increase of social problem-
solving skills score is included under the “medium”
category with an n-gain value of 0.63033. Based on
this data, it can be inferred that descriptively social
studies teaching and learning with Lonto Léok values
development can significantly improve the social
ANCOSH 2018 - Annual Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities
318

problem-solving skills. Meanwhile, the average pre-
test score of social problem-solving skills test of the
students of JHS B is 51.75. After the teaching and
learning activities with the development of Lonto
Léok values there is an increase in the score by
26.89194, increasing to 78.64. The increase of social
problem-solving skills score is in the “medium”
category with an n-gain value of 0.58855. Based on
the data, it can be concluded that descriptively social
studies teaching and learning with Lonto Léok values
development can significantly improve the skills of
solving social problems.
5 DISCUSSION
Empirically, the development of Lonto Léok values in
social studies subject for the First semester Eighth
grade junior high school level has been effective,
efficient, and appealing for teachers and students.
Reigeluth (1983), says that the development of a
learning concept or model is determined by three
indicators: 1) Effectiveness: The development of this
concept has reached the goals of developing a
learning model, and in its implementation at JHS A
and B, the model has been proven to show its
effectiveness. The effectiveness is indicated by the
performance of teachers that is included under the
category of “Good;” likewise, students’ skills in
social problem-solving have improved satisfactorily,
and their learning outcomes have also improved; 2)
Efficiency: The development of Lonto Léok values
has empowered various sources of support to achieve
development goals and learning outcomes. The
development of this concept is very practical so that
it saves time, cost, energy and facilities, and
infrastructure; 3) Appeal: The development of Lonto
Léok values has established a fun and stimulating
learning process for students. In the implementation
of the learning model and concept at the two schools,
the students appear to be enthusiastic and motivated
in the teaching and learning activities. They actively
ask questions, discuss, and convey ideas and
opinions. In terms of social issues, students have been
empowered to identify problems, analyze the impacts
and causes, interpret and provide solutions, and think
about practical actions.
Data on the implementation of the learning model
illustrates the benefits of implementing Lonto Léok
values development. Thus, it can be concluded that
the development of Lonto Léok values in social
studies teaching and learning is very relevant and
potential to improve the social problem-solving skills
of junior high school/MTs students. The fundamental
outcome of the Lonto Léok values development is the
emerging dialectics between Manggarai cultural
wisdom and the ideas of critical education. This
dialectics explains that local wisdom such as Lonto
Léok culture contains the idea of in-depth critical
education. The ancestors since time immemorial have
inculcated and equipped themselves with a variety of
critical skills in solving the problems of social life
(Capra, 2009:43; Himawan, 2014;
Kongprasertamorn, 2007).). They also have
systematic and valid methods in solving various
social problems.
In addition, social problem-solving skills are one
of the four character traits that learners should have in
the 21
st
century, which include: communication,
collaboration, social problem-solving, and creativity
(Zevin, 2007:21-22). Meanwhile, solving social
problems is also a demand when the global
community in the 21
st
century is posed with great
challenges. According to Kinch (1974:13-16), this
social problem in fact has a systemic effect on the
shaky and destructive social order of society. In this
case, there is no way to get rid of these problems,
unless the nation’s stakeholders conduct studies and
take actions (McLaren, 1995; Dahliani and Setijanti,
2015). To anticipate and address these issues, the
government, indigenous peoples, and education
practitioners need to work together in a synergy to
utilize and empower local wisdoms in educational
activities from early childhood through college. Re-
institutionalization and revitalization of local
wisdoms become an important part of efforts to solve
various problems that exist in Indonesian society.
6 CONCLUSIONS
Lonto Léok in Manggarai culture is full of values
pertaining to how to solve social problems by
consensus. Furthermore, when the values of Lonto
Léok are developed in the social studies teaching and
learning activities of eighth grade junior high school
students, it is found that: 1) Lonto Léok values can be
integrated in the learning media through validation
test; 2) The levels of active participation,
understanding, and achievements of students’
learning outcomes have improved; 3) Teacher
performance is categorized “Good” in the teaching
and learning of “Social Problems” topic for the first
semester, eighth grade students. These findings raise
an argument that the values of Lonto Léok are very
relevant and potential when developed in social
studies subject. Herein, the impacts of this research
are fourfold: 1) Instructional: Students and teachers
Developing the Value of “Lonto Leok” in Manggarai Culture to Empower the Skills of Social Problem-Solving in Social-Sciences Learning
of Junior-High School
319

experience a contextual learning and improvement of
learning outcomes; 2) Nurturing: Students and
teachers have a new awareness in respecting the
values and local cultural wisdoms of Manggarai, so
that the wisdoms can be applied in the school and
community life; 3) Socio-political: The results of the
study urges policymakers to design learning
curriculum based on the content of local wisdom from
elementary school to higher education level; 4) Socio-
Cultural: The results of the present research raises the
awareness of Manggarai people to keep preserving
their cultural wisdoms in order to maintain the
balance of life in this era of global competition.
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