Young 'Einsteins' in class of their own

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

It was just before noon, and every other student at State High School No. 3 in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, was outside having their lunch break. But one class was still full of students, many still poring over math formulas written on the whiteboard.

"These are not like regular students, these children would rather go over and discuss their courses than go out and play," math teacher Sukino Suparmin told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

His words were later proven when a student, I Putu Banitama Supartha, answered simply "there's a test after the break," when asked why he was not outside."

Tests are nothing unusual for these students -- this class has one at the end of every lesson. But the students don't feel the pressure. With the average IQ in the group measured at around 150, Bani says all the intellectual activity is stimulating.

Welcome to the Super Class, the brainchild of Yohanes Surya, a noted scientist and guiding force behind several international Science Olympiad winners.

The Super Class program has the support of PT BMW Indonesia, together with the city education agency, and the Indonesian Physics Olympiad Foundation (TOFI) of which Yohanes serves as chairman.

Some 20 students were singled out of thousands of other junior high school graduates in Jakarta to attend this free-of-charge special Super Class -- which started on Monday -- with the aim of specially coaching them as international Science Olympiad candidates, and giving them opportunity to win scholarships from top universities worldwide.

For this reason, the students will be taught from a specially designed science-oriented curriculum fit for university students doing a bachelor's program, a master's program and then later a doctoral program in their third year.

In this first week alone, the 20 students will have gone through a third of the mathematics material normally given to high school students, Sukino said, explaining that after only three or four weeks they would be ready for university material.

Another student, Hisardo, said that at first he was surprised with the program, and was more than a little alarmed at the prospects of studying with a class-full of geniuses.

"But now I see that the others in the class are great, and I find that I can keep up with the lessons," said the Warcraft computer game enthusiast who dreams of becoming a military strategist.

An intelligence quotient or IQ tests reflects people's general capacity for performing intellectual tasks, such as solving verbal and mathematical problems, and about 95 percent of people's IQs fall between 70 and 130.

Having an average IQ of 150 means the students belong in the top 2 percent of the population, or those considered at "genius" level. Albert Einstein was measured to have an IQ of about 160.

With such high scores, Sukino was sure that the students would be able to absorb the material given to them, "the key is to maintain subject relevancy and not break up the lesson in the middle of the material".

In order to do this, four days in the school week will be dedicated to only one subject -- mathematics for this week, chemistry for next week -- with Friday and Saturday reserved for more "relaxed" subjects such as sports, languages, and ethics.

To maintain students' interest, Sukino makes sure that not only his students understand a theory, but also that they know how the theory was created and what it is used for.

"We give them the basic concept, what scientists had come up with all those years ago. Then we ask them if they can come up with a new way of looking at the concept," he said.

Bani, a 13-year-old who wants to be a physicist, is enthusiastic about the new teaching, explaining that this method encouraged students to really understand what was behind a scientific theory.

"We really have to be creative. It's not only one plus one equals two anymore," Bani said, adding that in maths, the answers could be exact but the ways to get to the answers were many.

"Students get bored when they have to study the same thing over and over. Here I learn a new thing every day."