Pursuit Of Success

As he pulled a small black suitcase and carried a selection of laptop bags over his shoulders, no one would have paid much attention to Ed Snowden as he arrived at  Hong Kong  International Airport. But Snowden was not your average tourist or businessman. In all, he was carrying four computers that enabled him to gain access to some of the US government's most highly-classified secrets. Today, just over three weeks later,  he is the world's most famous spy, whistleblower and fugitive, responsible for the biggest intelligence breach in recent US history . News organisations around the globe have described him as "America's Most Wanted". Members of Congress have denounced him as a "defector"  whose actions amount to treason  and have demanded he be punished to the fullest extent of the law. His supporters argue that his actions have opened up  a much-needed debate on the balance between security and privacy in the modern world . So is he whis...

It was the end of term at Kirkkojarvi Comprehensive School in Espoo, a sprawling suburb west of Helsinki, when Kari Louhivuori, a veteran teacher and the school’s principal, decided to try something extreme—by Finnish standards. One of his sixth-grade students, a Kosovo-Albanian boy, had drifted far off the learning grid, resisting his teacher’s best efforts. The school’s team of special educators—including a social worker, a nurse and a psychologist—convinced Louhivuori that laziness was not to blame. So he decided to hold the boy back a year, a measure so rare in Finland it’s practically obsolete. Finland has vastly improved in reading, math and science literacy over the past decade in large part because its teachers are trusted to do whatever it takes to turn young lives around. This 13-year-old, Besart Kabashi, received something akin to royal tutoring. “I took Besart on that year as my private student,” Louhivuori told me in his office, which boasted a Beatles “Yellow Subm...

Sebuah kantor tak terlalu besar di daerah Kemang, Jakarta Selatan, dipenuhi anak-anak muda belia usia 20-30 tahun. Kantor dua lantai dengan lahan parkir yang hanya cukup untuk empat mobil ukuran sedang ini terletak di pinggir jalan. Anak-anak muda itu tampak serius menatap laptopnya masing-masing. Sebagian lalu-lalang sambil membawa barang untuk difoto. "Ini untuk contoh produk, Mas," begitu salah satu di antara mereka menjelaskan aktivitasnya. Di lantai dua, beberapa ruangan tersekat dengan kaca transparan diisi anak-anak muda lainnya. Sama halnya di lantai satu, aktivitas mereka tampak jelas terlihat tengah menatap serius laptopnya masing-masing. Tepat di atas tangga, ada sebuah ruangan khusus yang diisi empat orang. Segala aktivitas mereka juga sangat jelas terlihat dari luar. Ruangan kantor bak akuarium transparan inilah ruangan yang digunakan Nadiem Makarim bersama-sama tim board of director PT Gojek Indonesia. Nadiem adalah sosok di balik revolusi industri transp...

L ate night dates with a 600-page textbook and a multipack of Red Bull are a familiar encounter for many people. Whether in school, university or work, we all find ourselves in situations where we have to learn a vast quantity of information in a very short period of time. In these instances,  almost all of us  resort to the age-old study technique of reading through the textbook over and over again in the hope that some of it will stick. However, this study technique is not only tedious and repetitive, it’s also ineffective. It is completely misaligned with how our brains actually work, according to basic neuroscience and psychology research. Fortunately, that same research paves the way for  alternative study methods which work with, rather than against, our brain. And of those methods, spaced repetition is one of the most interesting. It can help if you’re trying to learn a new language, remember your entire musculoskeletal anatomy, or preparing for a big ex...

Let’s teach for mastery — not test scores Waktu itu lagi liburan seminggu sebelum UN, lagi gencar gencar nya gue belajar buat persiapan ujian. Personally I was struggling with Math, otak gue gak pernah begitu bersahabat sama pelajaran-pelajaran eksak tapi  nothing is unachievable.  Pelajaran kayak Matematika itu menurut gua butuh banget yang namanya dasar yang kuat. Gue suka ngiri sama temen gua yang pernah ikut Kumon atau kelas sempoa atau apa pun yang sejenis nya. Gue cenderung lebih tumbuh jadi anak bahasa karena sempet pindah-pindah sekolah di beberapa negara. Ada kalanya gue sering hopeless sama pelajaran hitung-hitungan tapi dari dulu gue selalu me-manage untuk bangkit lagi dari putus asa sesaat itu. Gue selalu berinisiatif untuk belajar matematika dari  Khan Academy , gue pertama kali di kenalin situs online learning ini dari kakak sepupu gue yang sekarang berhasil tembus Teknik Kimia UI. Jadi, ini tuh online platform yang ngasih en...