I have written about the need for students to learn to take notes as one of the vital skills that a successful student who hopes to be an independent learner. Note-taking improves the students ability to decide what is important information and what is not. It also helps him to organize the information into a proper structure most suited for his own learning. In addition to note-taking, a student must also acquire a few other skills. This includes the need to be social and collaborative; seek all possible sources of learning; reflect and evaluate his learning to make judgment about what he has learned; and apply and transfer his learning in dissimilar situations from that where his original learning has taken place.

One of the most important skills that a learner must possess are good social skills. Learning is very much a social process. The stereotype image of a learner as the lone geek is far from the truth about how learning takes place. Good social skills will assists him to be part of any learning community and participate in the active exchange of ideas. Collaboration with other learners becomes part of his learning style. Good social skills include the ability to respect any potential source of knowledge. This respect is essential because otherwise a natural mental block will be erected in his mind that will prevent any learning from taking place. Proper respect also includes respect for authoritative sources of knowledge. While this does not mean that he dismiss less authoritative sources of knowledge, it means simply that he is more discerning about where and who he is getting his information from. He also is more discerning about the quality that he is receiving from the source. It also serves as a mirror for him when it is his turn to transfer or share his knowledge with others. Those same qualities that make a source of knowledge authoritative can help him try to emulate those quality in the manner that he conveys or shares his knowledge with others. Good social skills will of course also help to open doors to new sources of knowledge too. Therefore, while it may sound like a contradiction, an independent learner is a social learner.

Another important skill is not to over rely on only one source of knowledge. Although it is important to be committed to a source of reliable knowledge, one must also be willing to expand one’s learning circle to include many other sources of knowledge. To source for other avenues of knowledge is not to be done in a haphazard manner. Again, a keen discernment of what is useful and important helps one not to go into information “black holes” where one because lost in information overload.

A good independent learner must also be a reflective learner. He is reflective with regards to what is learned; how it is learned and transmitted; what learning is important; and what learning is to be prioritized. All of these are important fro him to be more effective in his learning. He will not be a robot. He will not be someone who is just being led blindly. He becomes clearer about the direction and needs of his learning.

Lastly, an independent learner must be bale to apply his learning in different contexts. When he is able to do that, his learning has become real and meaningful. It would refelect a deeper understanding of what he has learnt because he would have to adapt what he has to lend what he has learn to fit with different environments and its challenges. Adaptation such as this can only take place with deep understanding as opposed to superficial learning that often takes place in schools.

When I was a teacher in schools in Singapore, I always make a point to teach my students to learn how take notes. I would usually teach them how to create Mind Maps. This is my favorite way of taking notes and is the way that Tony Buzan advocates. I like it because it gives me great flexibility to arrange my notes in a structure that makes sense to me. It’s arrangement reflects the way I think of the subject.

The Mind Map is a very effective graphic organizer. Graphic organizers are diagrams that represent the relationships of ideas through the use of abstract symbols and words. Graphic organizers in fact can be used to help us frame our thinking and many different graphic organizers have been designed for the specific kinds of thinking that we want to do. The graphic organizer to help someone do a comparison is different from a graphic organizer that helps someone to show how to make a proposition with reasoned arguments.

Graphic organizers help teachers and students be focused on important information. It helps students and teachers to sieve through a lot of information at a glance. Graphic organizers also helps to arrange information in a coherent manner so students and teachers can see the relationships between concepts and elements. Too often students get bits of information from their books and teachers but if they cannot make sense of the information, then it remains only as disparate bits of information and not knowledge. Knowledge is attained only when students make sense of the information. Graphic organizers help students to make knowledge out of information by allowing them to see the relationships between concepts and elements.

Teachers must make greater effort to use graphic organizers in their classrooms. They must also teach their students to choose the correct graphic organizer for each of the thinking skills that the student is going to employ. Graphic organizers help make our students knowledgeable.

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.