Young 'Einsteins' in class of their own<\/p>\n
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
It was just before noon, and every other student at State High
\nSchool No. 3 in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, was outside having
\ntheir lunch break. But one class was still full of students, many
\nstill poring over math formulas written on the whiteboard.<\/p>\n
\"These are not like regular students, these children would
\nrather go over and discuss their courses than go out and play,\"
\nmath teacher Sukino Suparmin told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
His words were later proven when a student, I Putu Banitama
\nSupartha, answered simply \"there's a test after the break,\" when
\nasked why he was not outside.\"<\/p>\n
Tests are nothing unusual for these students -- this class has
\none at the end of every lesson. But the students don't feel the
\npressure. With the average IQ in the group measured at around
\n150, Bani says all the intellectual activity is stimulating.<\/p>\n
Welcome to the Super Class, the brainchild of Yohanes Surya, a
\nnoted scientist and guiding force behind several international
\nScience Olympiad winners.<\/p>\n
The Super Class program has the support of PT BMW Indonesia,
\ntogether with the city education agency, and the Indonesian
\nPhysics Olympiad Foundation (TOFI) of which Yohanes serves as
\nchairman.<\/p>\n
Some 20 students were singled out of thousands of other junior
\nhigh school graduates in Jakarta to attend this free-of-charge
\nspecial Super Class -- which started on Monday -- with the aim of
\nspecially coaching them as international Science Olympiad
\ncandidates, and giving them opportunity to win scholarships from
\ntop universities worldwide.<\/p>\n
For this reason, the students will be taught from a specially
\ndesigned science-oriented curriculum fit for university students
\ndoing a bachelor's program, a master's program and then later a
\ndoctoral program in their third year.<\/p>\n
In this first week alone, the 20 students will have gone
\nthrough a third of the mathematics material normally given to
\nhigh school students, Sukino said, explaining that after only
\nthree or four weeks they would be ready for university material.<\/p>\n
Another student, Hisardo, said that at first he was surprised
\nwith the program, and was more than a little alarmed at the
\nprospects of studying with a class-full of geniuses.<\/p>\n
\"But now I see that the others in the class are great, and I
\nfind that I can keep up with the lessons,\" said the Warcraft
\ncomputer game enthusiast who dreams of becoming a military
\nstrategist.<\/p>\n
An intelligence quotient or IQ tests reflects people's general
\ncapacity for performing intellectual tasks, such as solving
\nverbal and mathematical problems, and about 95 percent of
\npeople's IQs fall between 70 and 130.<\/p>\n
Having an average IQ of 150 means the students belong in the
\ntop 2 percent of the population, or those considered at \"genius\"
\nlevel. Albert Einstein was measured to have an IQ of about 160.<\/p>\n
With such high scores, Sukino was sure that the students would
\nbe able to absorb the material given to them, \"the key is to
\nmaintain subject relevancy and not break up the lesson in the
\nmiddle of the material\".<\/p>\n
In order to do this, four days in the school week will be
\ndedicated to only one subject -- mathematics for this week,
\nchemistry for next week -- with Friday and Saturday reserved for
\nmore \"relaxed\" subjects such as sports, languages, and ethics.<\/p>\n
To maintain students' interest, Sukino makes sure that not
\nonly his students understand a theory, but also that they know
\nhow the theory was created and what it is used for.<\/p>\n
\"We give them the basic concept, what scientists had come up
\nwith all those years ago. Then we ask them if they can come up
\nwith a new way of looking at the concept,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Bani, a 13-year-old who wants to be a physicist, is
\nenthusiastic about the new teaching, explaining that this method
\nencouraged students to really understand what was behind a
\nscientific theory.<\/p>\n
\"We really have to be creative. It's not only one plus one
\nequals two anymore,\" Bani said, adding that in maths, the answers
\ncould be exact but the ways to get to the answers were many.<\/p>\n
\"Students get bored when they have to study the same thing
\nover and over. Here I learn a new thing every day.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/young-einsteins-in-class-of-their-own-1447893297",
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