In the Middle Ages, what kept alchemists busy was the elusive search for the process  to create gold. The ancient Greeks had it much easier, with fables of King Midas and his Golden Touch. Today, many schools, including schools in Indonesia, are also looking for their version of the Midas Touch, a quick surefire way of creating gold. Privately-owned schools do have the goal of making financial surpluses at the end of each year. This is perfectly acceptable.

The alchemist and the search for gold

However, in their rush to make profits, some schools in Indonesia very quickly tag themselves on to foreign school models with foreign examinations or highlighting the presence of computer labs in the schools. They would look for administrative systems from abroad. Many of such schools in Indonesia try to follow the model in Singapore. But what remains key to ensure good academic excellence is often overlooked because they are harder to achieve and it takes a little more time than quick-fix measures.

The key area that all schools must look into is the quality of the teachers. Teachers define the quality of teaching that takes place in a school. It is not the curriculum or syllabus. Good teachers can more than make up for a poor curriculum. Curricula and syllabi can never fire the imagination of students while good teachers can. Good teachers can make lessons seem easy. The latest ICT hardware will not make much of a difference to the learning in school because it is only useful for education in the hands of skilled teachers.

Schools in Indonesia that rush to call themselves Sekolah Berstandar internasional (SBI) or “schools of international standards”, without paying much attention to teacher quality through investment in good teachers and their training, are deluding the parents who send their children to such schools, and themselves in the long run. This is especially true since the majority of teachers teaching in Indonesian schools do not have proper teaching qualifications. This includes the expatriates who teach there too. The lack of attention to teacher quality will eventually show. Parents and school administrators cannot afford to let this happen because the ones who will bear the brunt of poor quality teaching are the students.

To state the obvious, teaching is done by teachers, not good administration, nor a bank of computers on its own nor an international curriculum or international examinations. There is no Midas Touch in teaching. There are no quick fixes. What is required is good quality teaching by well-trained and highly motivated teachers.

The third principle upon which Davide Perkins’ Smart School concept is based on is the focus on understanding. In a Smart School, the learning that takes place is a consequence of deep thinking and and the student is able to display deep understanding as opposed to rote learning of information or routines.

This is opposed to what traditionally happens in a  school where often students and teachers are engaged in a trivial pursuit of little bits of information. Often, what happens in a classroom is not far from a TV game show where questions are asked and the right answer is supplied. Very seldom is deep mastery of a subject asked to be displayed. For example, often in schools with high stakes examinations, students may be asked to list Newton’s three laws of motion or even asked to provide the answer to mathematical question based on the three laws. However, as Perkins pointed out, how many students have been posed with a question to describe what would happen if there  are astronauts arranged in a circle facing one another, each armed with snowballs to be thrown at one another? How many students who have learned Newton’s theory of motion in school would be able to explain what happens when the snowball fight begins?

Students who can answer the first two types of questions given above only show that their level of understanding is at best superficial. The first calls for mere rote learning while the second only calls for knowledge of routines to execute a mathematical problem. But the third calls for a deep understanding of Newton’s Laws. It calls for students to deeply reflect on their conceptual understanding of the subject matter. It makes learning challenging. Perhaps, only in such an instance is the student’s mind fully engaged in deep thinking while in the case of the first two, it would be almost “mindless”. There would be little meaning-making required when students know the only kind of assessment that would be of their learning is of the trivial pursuit variety. When assessment in the classroom is of the trivial pursuit variety, teachers cannot expect their students to transfer what they have learned to other spheres of their lives.

This brings us to the fourth principle that Perkins suggest would make for a Smart School, which is the need to teach for mastery and transfer. Underlying this principle is a real belief and commitment that every student can learn anything if they are given reasonable opportunity and motivation to learn. Teachers must work harder and be prepared to give the necessary time to allow this to happen. Teaching that is centered on scaffolding, motivation and building bridges to link students’ knowledge to new contexts is important. This is because it will ensure that students will learn well and use their knowledge more actively.

Schools in Indonesia would do well to take note of these two principles. While traditional assessment that is done at the end of a term has its place, schools in Indonesia who aspire to be truly Sekolah Berstandar Internasional (SBI) must be more conscious of developing the minds of their students as proposed by Perkins. Even the so-called international schools in Indonesia,especially those following too closely the so-called Singapore model, do not have a serious focus on understanding, and the teaching for mastery and transfer. Is it a wonder then that students who graduate from such schools are often described as exam smart and little else by their future employers?