ABSTRACT
In family life and school settings, the sayingling of a child as clever or not clever becomes one of the risk factors that can interfere with students’ characters and learning experiences. This descriptive study was conducted to explore elementary school students’ views about the meaning of cleverness. A total of 67 second-graders were involved as participants. This study utilized an open-ended questionnaire. Data analysis was achieved using a descriptive analysis method. The result revealed that the concept of clever children is not only related to academic or school activities, but also to moral-related activities, strategies for self-development, orientation towards social life, and the need to obtain help from parents, teachers or significant others who are deemed to be more competent. This phenomenon is discussed in this paper.
