Indonesia today is experiencing a rapid growth in the number of international schools and what is termed, the National Plus schools. The rapid increase in the numbers of these schools in Indonesia reflects the desire of many Indonesian parents to give the best possible education to their children. These schools usually have their students sitting for high stakes international examinations like the IGCSE or the local UASBN. Recently, more schools are following the much touted Singapore model. This is done usually through an almost simplistic wholesale transfer of the typical Singapore school system to the Indonesian schools.

In addition to these, there has also been an increased clamor for schools to acquire Sekolah Berstandar Internasional (SBI) status. These are essentially schools populated by Indonesian teachers and possessing an Indonesian curriculum but with standards that match that of what is thought to be the standards of international schools in terms of facilities and the manner of the teaching and learning that takes place. But even then, there is no real agreement as to what constitutes an SBI.

Despite the seeming confusion, this period actually offers Indonesia a golden opportunity to explore alternative school models. One such model is the model of a Smart School as propounded by David Perkins of Harvard University. In Perkins’ model, thinking and understanding takes center stage in the learning processes in the school. This would produce students who are responsible and also thinking people who can contribute to a diverse world.

The Smart School (click on picture on left) as envisage by Perkins would have a clear idea of what knowledge or skill is worth learning and this would be based on the idea that education is about the teaching for understanding. It would be a shift from the largely rote-learning approach of most schools today which is the result of a teaching approach that is aimed at the examinations.  A student that is the product of this Smart School would be intellectually empowered because he would have been immersed in a thinking culture in his time in the school. He would be able to think critically, flexibly and deeply after they have left school. This means that his learning will not be surface learning that only allows him to be exam smart. The product of the Smart School would be able to display generative knowledge which means that they are able to retain knowledge for the long-term and not just for the examinations; they have an understanding of knowledge; and that they would be able to use the knowledge that they have beyond the classrooms.

In a Smart School, therefore, students would not be engaged in what Perkins calls meaningless trivial pursuit of information where learning is just the amassing of huge chunks of facts and routines, and the teacher is concerned with the teaching of quantity rather than depth. In his Trivial Pursuit Theory, Perkins also argues that the information would be truncated, disjointed and meaningless.

If we look at the goals set by Perkins for his Smart School, they are goals which I am confident anyone would agree with. If we just look at the rising voices of unhappiness with the current school systems in Singapore and also Indonesia, one of the loudest complaints is the over-emphasis on remembering and regurgitating huge chunks of facts and routines. Parents know that a lot of what is forced on the memory of their children will have little relevance later. Much of what is learned is seldom applied in the lives of their children later.

Parents (and employers too) should seek a serious change in the way schools go about their business of teaching. They should also realize that the number one reason why schools today on the whole still emphasize the meaningless memorizing of facts and routines is due to the high stakes examination system that has been adopted by schools. If there is this realization, parents should think carefully about seeking schools whose main goal is to prepare their students for such examinations because when this is the goal usually deep understanding is sacrificed. The end result in such school systems is that there is usually only a pretense at education. Worse, these schools give the ignorant a false sense of security that real teaching and learning is taking place. The good news is that this does not have to happen.

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