LUNCH TALK ON THINKING WITH WAN ZAHID

Approximately two weeks ago i attended a lunch talk on Thinking and the speaker was the honorable Tan Sri Wan Mohd Zahid bin Wan Mohd Noordin the ex Director General of Education at Holiday Inn Glenn Marie Shah Alam. This talk was organized by AKEPT(Higher Education Leadership Academy) and Chairman of the Board of Advisors of AKEPT. It was a lively talk and Wan Zahid was an excellent speaker with great interpersonal skills.He walked up and down the stage to interact with the audience challenging them to counter his arguments.I sat at the front table thus i could observe him very clearly. The talk was more on the basis of a critical reflection on the current issue of thinking. This type of talk spells more questions than answers.The topic was Thinking and Wan Zahid proposed that thinking becomes the backbone or core of the university curriculum instead of the background. This would mean that thinking skills are central to the curriculum while the disciplines are positioned at the sides or periphery .All these while we are accustomed to the disciplines being at the center and the thinking skills stay at the sides. I remembered how the KBKK the Kemahiran Berfikir Kritis and Kreatif (Critical and Creative Thinking Skills)was introduced and implemented in schools. However university lecturers told me that they are not satisfied with students who entered the varsity who are not able to think .These students do not like to think beyond what the lecturer communicates in the lecture halls or tutorial rooms. Most often the substance was regurgitate and one get the same material back or with the minimum of changes or additions.Wan Zahid stressed that one has to become a rebel to be creative .Thus one has to develop rebellious students?I agreed with Wan Zahid on his proposal to develop the thinking curriculum for the universities . However i posed this question to him. "Dont you think that the thinking skills should be embedded in the courses?Or dont you think the lecturer claim that these thinking skills are already embedded as required by MQA (Malysian Qualification Agerncy?)I was also thinking about the chicken or the egg . I told Wan Zahid which comes first the thinking skills as naturally developed by the experts for the disciplines or are they already inherent in these disciplines or are we going to develop these thinking skills to become the foundation or premise of the curriculum.? The question of the chicken or the egg of which comes first is a very interesting one. Universities are supposed to be very transdisciplinary in their curriculum. However much as have been propagated university lecturers tend to guard their own turfs claiming their expertise in the said areas. A common denominator of course should be the problem based or issue based curriculum which one has to develop. At the preschool level it is much easier to accomplish this because the preschool implements the thematic approach in teaching and learning which integrate all domains of development of the child . Can the university lecturers agree to develop their curriculum along this path? Wan Zahid also reflected on his experiences in postgraduate school stating that he had a very strict professor who insisted that he should think for himself and not be influenced by the writers from the references he read.I concurred with him on his proposal of the thinking curriculum but i do certainly for see that much collaboration and brainstorming as well as in depth discussions have to be accomplished at the university.It must be an exciting but manageable and rewarding journey to establish a new paradigm to enhance knowledge and thinking skills. At the end of the day we would have to establish how to evaluate students on their thinking skills and the processes they go through.At the end of the day we would want employers who will give us feedback on the thinking ability of their employees who are graduates from the universities. Thinking finally is something not everyone likes to do just as common sense in not common after all. Shall we ask Socrates or Einstein's followers to demonstrate????To be creative in thinking the teaching learning anbience must be positive flexible and rewarding. We do need thinkers who think for the 22scd Century! To sign off i must thank AKEPT for inviting me to this enlightening talk. Thank You Very Much