I have written a few posts about the directions that Indonesia’s schools should take. Sekolah berstandar internasional (SBI) seems to be the education-related idea most talked about Indonesia. This SBI idea itself is a move in the right direction, provided that everyone concerned is clear about what it should be. It is not just about getting the school certified as an international examination center. It is not just about having science or computer laboratories. It is, as I have indicated in an earlier post, not about all that glitters. It is at the end of the day the quality of the learning and teaching.

In some other posts, I have also suggested using David Perkins’ Smart School model with its emphasis on deep learning and thinking as model for the creation of an SBI. It is not to create a school where the focus is on the creation of examinations-smart students like we tend to see in countries like Singapore. It is about producing students with an attitude and the skills to fit the future that these students will live in.

For Indonesia, it becomes even more important that schools aspiring to be world-class educational institutions should emphasize on the importance of thinking among its student population. The learning of thinking skills ought to be emphasized. This is because Indonesia today is a young democracy. In democratic states, it is a requirement for the democracy to succeed that its people be able to make informed and intelligent choices. They must also be people who are actively participative in the democratic process, able to look beyond themselves. An authoritarian educational system like the traditional systems we see in schools in even countries with supposedly good education system like Singapore, will never be able to produce citizens for a democracy. The over-emphasis on competition in schools only breeds undemocratic attitudes and values because the emphasis in such competitive environments is the individual’s own success. A system that emphasizes only examinations will not encourage space for thinking either as there is usually little time for anything else except examination preparation which is the raison detre of such schools. Yet the need for a thinking population is vital for a democracy to work.

For the above reasons, Indonesian schools must avoid just blindly aping neighbours’ educational system. The values of their neighbours may differ from that of Indonesia. No doubt some of the values that these neighbouring countries represent is good, like hard work and honesty but do Indonesians really want to copy everything without thinking through the implications for her future.

Mind Trap is a game that requires the players to think. For teachers who want to teach thinking skills, the cards that comes in the Mind Trap box are wonderful teaching resources. You do not even have to play the actual game. Just use the cards.

However, the teacher must select the most appropriate cards for the class. For starters, it should not be too difficult. Look at the cards and the answers and decide accordingly if they fit your needs. When selecting the cards, also think of how you will want to guide your students to get the solution.

The teacher can use a collaborative learning approach. The teacher can divide the students into teams of fours or twos. The teacher can either read out the question or puzzle or even flash it on a screen with a projector. Tell the students to read the question and give them time to think through individually first. They should not discuss with anyone at this stage.

Only after some individual thinking will they share their thoughts with their team members. Only after they have agreed upon an answer with their team members will one member of the team raise their hand to answer the question. If the answer is incorrect, it is left to the other teams to answer. If all teams cannot provide the correct answer, then all will discuss again in their group to arrive at the answer. If the correct answer is given, the teacher may want to ask the other groups for their solutions first before confirming the answer. The teacher may want to the team that gave the correct answer to explain their thinking to the rest of  the class. Only assist in the explanation if the group has extreme difficulty in doing so.

If no one can provide the correct answer, the teacher can facilitate their thinking by asking them why they came up with the answers they had given earlier. This guiding process is essential and this is why the teacher must think through before hand how to guide the stduents before teh teacher shows them the question or puzzle. The teacher may ask them what assumptions had they made in trying to answer the puzzle. The teacher may want to ask them to re-look at the assumptions and raise other possible assumptions other than the ones that they have already thought of. Thsi process is essential if we want to teach the students to think. We are in effect modeling our thinking aloud for them to “see”. After the explanation is given, get the students to “replay” the thinking process in their minds aloud before moving on to the next puzzle.

Have you looked lately at the way that teachers in schools have been using presentation software for teaching? Do most of them look cluttered and uninspiring? Do they look like nothing more than just digitized notes instead of paper notes with the occasional graphics thrown in?

In my view, when you see a lot of this, then it is not only because the teachers do not know basics of good design but it reflects a deeper affliction among teachers in schools if you like. “Death by PowerPoint” is really the result of how teachers see teaching and learning.

The fact that their presentations usually bear a  lot of text is a reflection of the state of mind of the teachers doing them. In their mind, they see teaching as just the delivery of information. Since the examinations-based syllabi that they probably based their teaching on is heavy, the information that present tends to be overwhelming too. Just get it through and “cover” the syllabus hence we see the piling of information on single slides. What you see on screen are likely to be just rehashed versions of the textbooks. There is little time for concept building or to linger on big and important ideas.

On the other hand if the teacher is concerned with the teaching of concepts, the slides would appear differently. You are likely to see more thought put into the slides and their arrangement. The teacher would be aware that they should be communicating what Nancy Duarte (2008) says are ideas rather than just slides. They will know that their presentation is to get their audience thinking. With that in mind, the teacher will try and build concepts using multiple slides. The teacher will used meaningful and effective graphics. Text used will be very selective and impactful. Teachers must not allow themselves to become cicumscribed by the tools they used. If teachers allow their pesentations to be more deaths by PowerPoint then they have, as Thoreau says, “become the tool of our tools.”