The most recent SFTI’s Educators Sharing Network, in collaboration with PT. Planet Edupro and SIM Professional Development, presented the mind management expert and Mind Map inventor Tony Buzan. Event was held last Saturday, April 18th 2009 at Anjungan Provinsi Lampung, Taman Mini Indonesia Indah.

As the preview for the upcoming Tony Buzan Seminar in the 3rd week of August 2009, he brought up a number of interesting points in this 2 hours sharing session. He specifically expressed his appreciation to teachers and educators community in general, and more specifically attending participants. He even presented his session as a discussion on how teachers should carry their roles in “education”. Tony has reminded all participants at the beginning of the session to set a space in their note for the definitions of a teacher that he will talk about along this session.  The following passages are key points from my note:

1.Teacher holds the biggest responsibility for the future
How far they are in utilizing this power become significant, it is a curse as well as a gift of the teaching profession.

2. Teacher is the rescuer of human creativity
Tony Buzan spoken about a research on human creativity, which assessed its differing levels at certain age groups. A very interesting result ensued; whereby average creativity scores for students in kindergarten are 95+, in primary are 75, in secondary are 50, in tertiary are 25 and adults are 10. Quite a few minuses were even found in the adult category. He held education system responsible, as opposed to the failure of education. According to Tony Buzan failure of bad education certainly is possible; but good education would not fail. He emphasized that should education and learning activities been conducted properly, human mind will progressively improve and becoming more creative as they mature.

As proven by the geniuses in our history, masterpieces were often created during their later ages. Best compositions of Verdi, Mozart and Beethoven as well as inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison just to name a few examples. The most recent fact would be Rita Levi Montalcini, the 100 years old Nobel Prize-winning scientist, who stated that she experiences a sharper memory than in her twenties and who was awarded as the lifelong senator by the Italian Government. All of them support the old saying “tua-tua keladi, semakin tua semakin jadi” (the older they get, the better they become)"

3. Teacher has the privilege of helping the students to mine the gold mind.
Tony Buzan discussed the progressive history of human development through various eras. Starting from Agrarian Era (10,000 years ago), Industrial Era (200 years ago), Information Era (50 years ago), Knowledge Era (17 years ago) and Knowledge Manager Era (the mind and human intelligences). We experienced information overload during the Information Era and seeking how to manage knowledge in Knowledge Era, yet an effective solution is still yet to be discovered until we can manage the information and knowledge manager itself (our brain!!). In this ESN, a child told his story on how Mind Map has helped him to improve his marks from 4 to 9. And how his parents were being summoned by the principal because of this “big jump” in his academic results.

4.Teacher is the person who helps students nurturing the gardens of multiple intelligences (‘kecerdasan majemuk’).
In this era of multiple intelligences, Tony Buzan emphasized the crucial needs for teachers to be able to integrate learning activities so it could be conducive for students to grow every potential intelligence aspects that they possess. Not only verbal and numerical intelligence but also their physical (how to stay fit), sensory (visual-auditory-kinesthetic), social (how to make friends), personal (how to be a good friend, to be confident) and spiritual (including awareness about the environment, awareness of moral and ethical values) intelligence potentials. A colleague of Tony Buzan projected that the challenge of schools to be able to accommodate this philosophy of multiple intelligences into their system will need to be addressed.

5.Teacher is the shepherds of daydreams who work with students to make it come true.
Daydreaming was found as one of the skills of the human right brain (as founded by the Nobel Prize-winner Prof. Roger Sparry); Tony Buzan stated that it will be worthwhile for teachers to guide students on what they daydream about, as well as on how to realize those dreams. Guided daydream could be utilized towards, and also benefit the learning process.

6.Teacher is the person who launches a child on the exploration of its own infinite universe.
Human brain parts do not work separately. Left and right parts of brain work together synergistically. Should teacher possess the know-how of how it works for a child, the teacher would be able to unleash its infinite creativity.

written by: Aditya Dharma (SFTI Facilitator)

translated by: Milka Camelia (SFTI)