PEMBANGUNAN PROFESIONAL GURU

“The graphic is a representation of the NEW verbage associated with the long familiar Bloom’s Taxonomy. Note the change from Nouns to Verbs [e.g., Application to Applying] to describe the different levels of the taxonomy. Note that the top two levels are essentially exchanged from the Old to the New version.” (Schultz, 2005) (Evaluation moved from the top to Evaluating in the second from the top, Synthesis moved from second on top to the top as Creating.) Source: http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

For further information, please visit this site Bloom’s Taxonomy

I’m regularly asked: ‘what about the child who is completely “unmotivated”; who just doesn’t want to learn anything?’ My answer is that those children doesn’t exist. There are kids who don’t want to learn particular things, in particular settings, and there are those who don’t find it easy to learn some things in some setting; but the generally lazy child who doesn’t want to learn anything is a myth. What the questioner actually mean is: ‘They don’t want to learn what I want them to learn, when I want them to learn it, in the way I want them to learn it.’

- Guy Claxton (from What’s the Point of Schools?. p.90)

Minggu lalu saya mengalami tiga peristiwa yang berbeza tetapi membawa kepada suatu tema persoalan yang cukup berkait: apakah ertinya bersekolah?

Pertama, saya berkesempatan menghadiri bengkel yang bertajuk Status of Education Financing of Lifelong Learning Programs for Sustainable Development in Southeast Asian Countries, di Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, Filipina, pada 30-31 Julai yang lalu. Selain membentang kertaskerja yang bertajuk Financing of Lifelong Learning Programs for Sustainable Development: Malaysia Country Report, saya dapat berinteraksi dengan peserta-perserta negara China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Brunei, Thailand, Filipina dan Thailand.

Kedua, dalam perjalanan balik ke Malaysia saya menonton filem Laskar Pelangi melalui komputer. Filem adaptasi novel karya Andrea Hirata yang diterbitkan oleh Bentang Pustaka pada tahun 2005. Cerita kecekalan guru Ibu Muslimah dan Pak Harfan mendidik serta mempertahankan sekolah dan sepuluh orang anak-anak didik mereka yang serba miskin. Sinopsis cerita boleh dibaca daripada pautan berikut:Laskar Pelangi

Ketiga, sepanjang bersidang dan perjalanan pergi-balik saya berkesempatan membaca buku Profesor Guy Claxton bertajuk What’s The Point of School? Buku yang mengkritik kegagalan sistem persekolahan sekarang dan apa sepatutnya yang dilakukan untuk mendidik anak-anak generasi abad ke 21.

Saya ingin merumuskan ketiga-tiga pengalaman itu dengan satu petikan daripada pendidik Harvad, Ron Ritchhart yang juga dipetik oleh Profesor Guy Claxton:

“We’ve come to mistake curricula, textbooks, standards, objectives, and tests as ends in themselves, rather than as means to an end. Where are these standards and objectives taking us? What is the vision they pointing us? . . . Without ideals, we have nothing to aim for. Unlike standards, ideals can’t be tested. But they can do something that standards cannot: they can motivate, inspire and direct our work.”

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71 years ago, the great American philosopher John Dewey  wrote in his book Education and Experience (1938; p.26):

How many students, for example, were rendered callous to ideas, and how many lost the impetus to learn because of the way which learning was experienced by them? How many of them acquired special skills be means of automated drill so that their power of judgement and capacity to act intelligently in new situations was limited? How many came to associate the learning process with ennui and boredom? How many found what they did learn so foreign to the situations of life outside school as to give them no power of control over the latter? How many came to associate books with dull drudgery, so that they were ‘conditioned’ to all but flashy reading material?

Jika saya diminta mencadangkan buku yang wajib dibaca oleh seorang guru pada tahun 2009, maka tanpa ragu-ragu saya mencadangkan salah satunya ialah Why Don’t Students Like School tulisan Daniel T. Willingham. Sebagai seorang ahli sains kognitif, Willingham menjelaskan prinsip-prinsip asas bagaimana minda bekerja dan implikasinya terhadap bilik darjah.

Selepas membaca buku ini, beberapa perkara yang selama ini menjadi tanda tanya dalam pemikiran saya, telah dapat mendapat jawapan permulaan yang baik. Umpamanya, kenapa sukar memahami perkara yang abstrak dan sesudah memahaminya kenapa sukar pula untuk mengaplikasinya kepada situasi yang baru.

Dalam buku ini Willingham menghuraikan sembilan prinsip yang menjadi asas operasi minda. Prinsip-prinsip itu ialah:

1. People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we all avoid thinking.
2. Factual knowledge must precede skill.
3. Memory is the residue of thought.
4. We understand new things in the context of things we already know, and most of what we know is concrete.
5. It is virtually impossible to become proficient at a mental task without extended practice.
6. Cognition early in training is fundamentally different from cognition late in training.
7. Children are more alike than different in terms of how they think and learn.
8. Children do differ in intelligence, but intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work.
9. Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced to improved.

Rakan-rakan guru sekalian, sekali lagi saya mencadang, bacalah buku ini. Anda pasti mendapat manfaat dalam meningkatkan profesionalisme  keguruan anda!

Untuk maklumat lanjut tentang buku ini anda boleh melawat laman web pengarang di http://www.danielwillingham.com/.

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Apabila kita mengeluh bahawa anak murid sekarang ini malas berfikir, apakah yang kita maksudkan sebenarnya? Apakah kerana anak murid kita “spoon feeding” ataupun kerana kualiti kerja mereka tidak menggambarkan kerja seorang yang berfikir?

Kurikukulum sekolah kita sebenarnya memberikan penekanan dan ruang yang cukup luas untuk memupuk daya fikir anak didik kita. Persoalannya kenapa kemahiran berfikir tidak menjadi ciri menonjol mereka.

Terlepas daripada perbincangan akademik yang pelbagai tentang berfikir, saya ingin berkongsi pengalaman sebagai guru dan trainer dalam pembelajaran orang dewasa tentang aktiviti berfikir .

Menurut pendapat saya berfikir itu sejenis perbuatan seperti makan, minum, berlari dan yang seumpamanya. Perbezaannya, berfikir itu ialah perbuatan yang tidak dapat dilihat. Justeru, di dalam Islam berfikir itu membawa nilai pahala yang cukup besar jika dilakukan dengan cara yang betul dan sesuai maudhuk yang difikir. Oleh kerana berfikir itu perbuatan maka sudah tentu ia suatu kompetensi yang boleh digilap dan ditingkatkan kualitinya.

Aktiviti berfikir itu sebenarnya berasaskan aktiviti aqal mencari jawapan kepada suatu persoalan (tidak semestinya permasalahan). Oleh sebab itulah kualiti berfikir itu bergantung kepada persoalan yang hendak dijawab dan kaedah berfikir untuk menjawab persoalan tersebut.

Implikasinya, seorang itu tidak dapat berfikir jika tidak dimulakan dengan suatu persoalan. Cuba bayangkan, bolehkah anda berfikir tanpa persoalan? Begitu juga dengan kaedah berfikir . Kaedah itu juga banyak. Daripada semudah menjawab persoalan bagaimana mengikat tali kasut sehinggalah kepada kemahiran berfikir saintifik dan persoalan tentang ketuhanan.

Suatu yang menjadi musykil kepada saya ialah;

• Apakah kita menggalakkan anak didik kita menimbulkan persoalan-persoalan dan mendorong mereka mencari jawapan kepada persoalan-persoalan tersebut?
• Bagaimankah caranya kita meningkatkan kualiti persoalan dan jawapan anak didik kita?

Kedua-dua persoalan itu penting kerana itulah aktiviti berfikir yang perlu dipupuk terhadap anak didik kita.

Accountability. The very mention of the word strikes fear in the hearts of many teachers and school leaders, leading to confusion and panic rather than improved student achievement. Author Douglas B. Reeves explains how to transform accountability from destructive and demoralizing accounting drills into a constructive decision-making process that improves teaching, learning, and leadership. Reeves encourages educators to become proactive in developing student-centered accountability systems. These systems capture the many aspects of teaching that test scores don’t reveal-they tell the stories behind the numbers. Reeves shows how educators can create accountability systems that enhance teacher motivation and lead to significant improvements in student achievement and equity, even in traditionally low-performing schools.

Accountability for Learning explains how to build a student-centered accountability system by examining key indicators in teaching, leadership, curriculum, and parent and community involvement. Focusing on the classroom, it outlines how teachers can become leaders in accountability by using a four-step process of observation, reflection, synthesis, and replication of effective teaching practices. Finally, the author discusses the role of local, state, and federal policymakers and corrects the myths associated with No Child Left Behind.

“As educators, we have two choices,” Reeves says. “We can rail against the system, hoping that standards and testing are a passing fad, or we can lead the way in a fundamental reformulation of educational accountability.” Accountability for Learning gives readers the helping hand they need to lead the way to fair and comprehensive accountability.

- [Editorial Reviews]

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