Ammah, I'll fly you to Kidzania!

Last night I came home to my parents' house. There I met my nephew, my older brother's son: Gagah. He's the one that I always miss every time I went for travel.

I usually get the chance to meet Gagah on Friday. Gagah stays at my parents' every week days because both his mom and dad work. My mother prefer baby-sitting her grandsons on her own rather than letting them taken care by strangers. Every time he sees me, he will ask me to tell stories about the airplane.

He loves airplane. His dad once took him to Transportation Museum in Taman Mini and he was really excited. He choose to sit in the cockpit, not in the passenger cabin. When he told me about that experience, he said, "I will be a pilot," which amazed me so much because he didn't say, "I want to be a pilot."

And there we were last night. On his bedroom, he told me that his little uncle -my 10 years old brother- will go to Kidzania tomorrow. He told me this with so much envy, "You know, Ammah (Arabic, means auntie), they said that we can have jobs there! And we can get money from it!"
"Oh ya?" I said. "So what would you be when you get there? A pilot?" I asked.
"No!" he replied in instance.
"Why? I thought you wanted to be a pilot," I asked him again.
"I am a pilot!" he said in confidence. "And I'm going to go there by my airplane. So, I want to be something else there."
He paused for a while, drank his milk from the bottle.
"And you can come with me, Ammah!"

I burst into laugh. A big cheering laugh. Oh God, he's so special! He's 4 years old, and he's already becoming a pilot!

This morning we had breakfast together. Both of us had scrambled egg, and rice covered with soy sauce, not to forget a glass of sweet tea (I really ruined my diet with that menu!). After Gagah finished his meal, he grabbed his glass, put an amount of his tea to his mouth and began to shake it inside. I raised my eyebrows.
"Are you mad at me?" he asked.
"No." I replied.
"Then why are you looking at me like that?" he asked again.
"You know, your tea has sugar on it. And while you shook it inside your mouth, you spread the sugar to your teeth. Sugar is a delicious meal for the germs. If you don't brush your teeth, the germs will get fatter and fatter, and they'll make holes on your teeth."
"And I can't be a pilot if I have holes on my teeth! I go brush my teeth, Ammah!"

That time, I realized that he IS becoming what he wanted him to become. Yes my boy, please fly me everywhere you want!

Schools Kill Creativity!

These past four months, I have been inspired by various presentations brought in TED. One of my favorites is Sir Ken Robinson's. He talked about education.
As far as I remember, I didn't like school very much. The reasons that kept me going to school everyday were my school mates and the ride from home to school and back with my mother -on which I could have time to have a long conversation with her-. Somehow, I had pretty good grades on every subject i learned.

But not with my younger brother. He's 10, and he hates school. He will make up multi-various reasons for him not to go to school every morning. His grades are terrible. This worries me quite much since we're still living in the world where you can have a good education only and if only you can have good grades. Not to mention a good job with a good salary equals to a good life. I'm starting to feel an unjust in this case.

My brother is not a stupid. He is remarkable. Before he reached 1, he could point and name at least 10 colors. At the age of 1 year and 3 months, he could operate a saw and he can use hammer to nail the wood without being injured! He can spell his name and all of family members name at the age 3.5. He could do multiplication of two digits by one digit number without any tool at 5. He is genius! But sadly, those kind of things vanished, *puff!*, right after he entered elementary school.

What the hell is wrong in here?? Sir Ken Robinson explained it beautifully.

The presentation started with a word creativity. He said, every single presentations on that occasion (2006 TED Conference, Monterey, California) described various of human creativities, but every people who presented there had no idea on what's going on in terms of the future. There's where education plays its role. To answer the uncertainty of the future. And at the same spot, it needs creativity.

"Creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status," said Sir Ken Robinson as his opening statement.

The key of creativity is dare to be wrong. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. That's one thing that we can learn from children. Unfortunately, by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. As they grow up, they are dealing with the fact that mistakes are the worst thing they can make.

The national education system, everywhere, even until this moment, aims their outputs to become universities professors. As Sir Ken Robinson said, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up; and then we focus on their head; and slightly to one side. It is so pity to think that the outputs from our education system live in their head. Disembodied, as they use their body only to transport their head.

These children were us! We are the outputs of the system, and we now live inside our head! Isn't that creepy?

And do you want to know what the creepier thing than that? It's called the education inflation. It is the state that degrees aren't worth anything. People who have degree come home jobless, because the job which previously required a bachelor degree, now need a Ph.D.

That's why, we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence. We know three things about the intelligence:
1. It's DIVERSE. We think about the world in all the way we experienced what we think. There are at least 8 multiple intelligences: verbal, analytical, kinesthetic, rhythm, visual, interpresonal. intrapersonal, and natural.
2. It's DYNAMIC. Intelligence and creativity come from interactions of different disciplines. And it comes out from the connections between brain's compartments.
3. It's DISTINCT. Every person has a specific way of learning and knowing things.

In conclusion of his presentation, Sir Ken Robinson said that our education has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth for particular commodity and for the future, it won't service. The education should celebrate the diversity and richness of human capacity, the gift of human imagination. We have to see the creative capacities of others and involve their whole being.

Thanks to:
Sir Ken Robinson - for sharing this remarkable thought.
Budhita Kismadi - for sharing your passion and this link.
Tito Ikhsan Rozak - my lovely little brother, you're always my genius!
Karima Yolita - for editing this post