To provide some background, all TGC Fellows develop a question to guide our research and conversations during our international field experience. The question is used to focus our travel experience and should be relevant to our home students, school, and community. My question was "How do Indonesian schools effectively engage students & families who live in poverty in order to reduce inequalities?"
Going into the international field experience with my carefully crafted guiding question, I was hoping to come away with all sorts of new ideas that I could bring back to my school and suggest for implementation. However, during my host community stay, it quickly became evident that I would likely not find what I was initially looking for, so I considered changing my guiding question mid-way through the trip. After some thought, I decided against altering it because it forced me to dig a little bit deeper, muddle through more conversations even with the sometimes sizeable language barrier, and reflect on my observations and interactions with Indonesian students and school staff. On the surface, it appeared that the schools did not apply many strategies for reducing inequalities between the “haves and have-nots”. However, the more I talked with the Indonesian people and other TGC Fellows, the more that surfaced. One of the most evident ways that Indonesian schools try to support students and families who live in poverty is through financial assistance. If students cannot pay for field trips, extracurricular activities, etc., many schools will try to pay for those students so they can participate. There is a relatively small tuition fee for Senior High School (sophomores-seniors), and many fellows mentioned that their schools offered scholarships to help families cover school costs, such as books and lodging if the school had dorms. According to Indonesian teachers, there is no free/reduced lunch program or direct government support for students and families living in poverty, so any students who cannot afford to purchase their lunch at the school canteen (cafeteria) bring their lunch from home instead. The other financial strain on families is that they need to purchase 4-5 different school uniforms for each of their children; schools, unfortunately, cannot help cover the cost of uniforms. However, it appears that most schools financially support families in as many ways as they can in order to reduce inequalities. Some fellows said that their schools engaged students who lived in poverty through cooperative group work, visits to families’ homes, and relationship building between teachers and students, which are incredibly powerful methods of reducing inequalities in the classroom as well as strengthening home-school connections. One fellow who traveled to Sumatra shared that it was her host teacher’s dream to open a tutoring service for students living in poverty. What a beautiful idea. I hope her teacher’s dream can come to fruition someday! All of the TGC Fellows had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion with current teachers in Indonesia. Through the panel discussion, we learned that the student-teacher ratio in Indonesia is 14:1, which is the lowest in the world (ACDP, 2015). At first, I was excited to hear this statistic since student-teacher ratio has a direct correlation with student achievement, and a low student-teacher ratio is a key way to reduce inequalities for students of low socioeconomic status. However, much like in the United States, teachers in Indonesia are distributed unevenly across the country. There is an overabundance of teachers in Java but not enough in Papua, for example. Likewise, this made me think about how many of my teacher friends from the Midwest moved to Florida and Arizona as new teachers due to the overabundance of teachers in the Midwest when I graduated college in 2006. Inexperienced teachers knew that if they wanted a job as a certified classroom teacher rather than as an assistant for a year or more, they were much more likely to find a job outside of the Midwest since the Midwest was so heavily saturated with new graduates; generic elementary teachers, in particular, were a dime a dozen. I was interested to learn that this phenomenon happens on an international level. As a result of this issue, Indonesian students in Java are more likely to have quality teachers than students living in more rural areas or on other islands, which, unfortunately, probably takes the greatest toll on students living in poverty. The Indonesian government currently has programs in place to reduce these inequalities and draw more quality teachers to harder-to-staff areas of the country. In addition, SMA 1 Bae Kudus, my host school, hosted a handful of students from Papua who went to school there as a part of a government program. In my opinion, the most effective way of reducing inequalities in Indonesia was through the strong sense of community, pride, and togetherness that I observed in the school community and the broader community. The collective aspect of the Indonesian culture creates a naturally inclusive environment that emphasizes group goals above the needs and wants of individuals, which is a wonderful way of involving students from any background in the school community. Upon returning from our host communities, one fellow excitedly shared that a teacher at her host school presented about service learning projects, such as improving the community by picking up trash and helping people in need. Fostering a collectivist school community with service learning opportunities is yet another way that Indonesian schools effectively engage ALL students and help them lead purposeful lives, learn civic responsibility, and build strong communities. As I mentioned earlier in this post, on the surface, it appeared that the schools in Indonesia did not implement many strategies or programs for reducing inequalities among their student populations. However, with a little more digging and reflection, I slowly uncovered multiple strategies that help level the playing field for students in Indonesian schools. Though I recognize that both collectivist and individualistic cultures have their advantages and disadvantages, I often wish the U.S. were a more collectivist society like Indonesia, as it seems like it would foster a more peaceful, inclusive way of life for all of its citizens.
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One question that my partner teacher Elicia and I became professionals at answering was “What do you think of Kudus?” We quickly learned that Indonesian people often ask visitors for their “impression” of a school, community, museum, etc. This legitimately happened at least twice a day during our host community stay. Our response always highlighted the incredible people that live in Kudus. I truly believe that the people are what make a community special, and the people we met in Kudus were the most welcoming people I have ever met in my life. We received the absolute warmest welcome at the elementary and middle schools shown below. Upon arrival at both schools, we were greeted with gorgeous fresh flower necklaces, traditional Javanese dances performed by students, several speeches, and lots and lots of photos. Always so many photos. It is also customary to feed guests and exchange gifts to show appreciation. There is often a formal, public presentation of gifts and/or certificates. We visited many different homes, and every single host offered for us to stay at their home instead of at our hotel -- and by offered, I mean insisted. The hosts would fake-cry (in a playful way) every time we gently turned down their offer. As we approached the car to leave, they would probe again, “So… when you stay at my home? Tomorrow???” The one thing that I was told over and over again about Indonesian people before traveling here was that they are super friendly and kind. That is no lie, and I found that to be true both in Java and in Bali! A couple other observations about Javanese food… There are SO many snacks and appetizers. The snacks are often set out in the front entryway of the house around a seating area, where guests are welcomed into the home, and the majority of their snacks are beige and crispy. :) On multiple occasions, Elicia and I ate a bunch of snacks, thinking that the snacks were actually the meal, and then the host would say “Okay, now we eat lunch!” For meals, there was consistently a rather large spread. It looked like people spent hours and hours preparing every meal, but my host teacher claimed that it only takes 30-60 minutes to prepare all of the dishes; I still have trouble believing it since there was always such a great variety of foods offered! For meals, everyone sits on a mat or blanket on the floor together, and the food is served family style. It is impolite to not bring home food when the host offers, which they always do, so we quickly learned that you ALWAYS leave with some extra snacks. In addition, family is greatly valued in Indonesian culture, so extended family often all lives together in one house or at least nearby. Many families in Java live in traditional Javanese style homes that have very ornate wood carved designs on the doors and windows. Wood carving in Indonesia is such an exquisite craft. The roofs on traditional Javanese houses are made of molded clay tiles and have very unique, sparkly ornamentation on the top. The houses also sometimes have a traditional Javanese outdoor kitchen, like the one pictured below. I apologize. After rereading this post to check for typos, I realize it was a bit all over the place, but as I sit at an airport in South Korea, about to hop on my 3rd and final leg of the long trek home, I barely know what time zone I'm in or what day it is anymore. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoyed reading a bit more about the amazing community of people that make Indonesia the welcoming, friendly country that it is! Goodbye for now, Asia. Next stop, Chicago!!! During our host community experience, Elicia and I had the opportunity to observe several different classes in session at SMA 1 Bae Kudus. We were really excited to learn what instruction looks like at the school, but, once sitting in classrooms, we quickly discovered that we could understand a very limited amount of the content due to all of the lessons being delivered in Javanese or Bahasa Indonesian. Our minimal vocabulary of daily greetings, the names of some foods, and other basic survival phrases in Bahasa was not getting us very far in an Indonesian Senior High School. However, since Elicia and I are both teachers of English Learners, our experience being immersed in Bahasa served as a powerful reminder of how our EL students feel when immersed in English, especially as newcomers. In addition, we observed the incredible value of using language learning instructional strategies like visuals, gestures, use of cognates, mind maps, partner discussion, and words & phrases written on the board to increase comprehensible input. The teachers who naturally applied language learning strategies were so much more engaging for the two of us due to our increased level of understanding.
What was particularly fascinating is how much more comfortable we felt in the French class than in other classrooms due to our familiarity with European languages like Spanish. This feeling was noteworthy because it supports the theory that the closer the target language is to a student's native language, the more easily a student will acquire the language. The French teacher did a wonderful job of having students practice speaking in French to develop their oral language skills and using emotion when reading aloud to demonstrate comprehension of the target language. Though one challenge that the school faces is unreliable wifi access in classrooms and lack of school-funded student devices, the French teacher found a workaround to help her students use technology without wifi access. Most students had their own smartphones and were able to download French on Google Translate so they could still use the translation tool offline. As a result, the teacher permitted BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) in her classroom, so students had a translation tool at their fingertips to help them understand the poem that day and also the related comprehension questions. It was so neat to see students using the same language learning tool that I teach many of my elementary ELs to use in the United States. Experiencing full immersion in Javanese-only content classrooms and as well as at social gatherings where people only spoke Javanese 95% of the time inspired a new perspective because it served as a valuable reminder that ALL teachers, not just foreign language and EL teachers, should use language learning strategies in their classrooms to increase student understanding and engagement. Woohoo! My partner teacher and I found another cafe with great wifi, so it's time for a blog post before we leave Kudus tomorrow morning and head back to Jakarta, where we will reconvene with all of the TGC Fellows and reflect on our host site adventures. I know friends and family have been interested in seeing my host school SMA 1 Bae Kudus, so I am dedicating this post to the scenery and beauty of SMA 1 Bae Kudus. Here is where I have spent many hours during my host community experience. Most people ride their motorcycles to school. The motorcycle parking lot is HUGE and wraps around the field, and then there is a small spot for bicycles. :) Click here to see a video that shows just how many motorcycles there are since it's hard to tell from the photos alone! Here is the school cafeteria, which is what they refer to as the "canteen." Students (and teachers) can purchase different types of Indonesian food here. They have a really neat covered outdoor recreation area, where P.E. classes and whole school events are held. This is the school library, which will now house some books gifted to the school by Naperville District 203! The school has many beautiful gardens adjacent to their outdoor hallways. Each garden is maintained by a single classroom of students. There is a contest held every year to vote on the best garden. Based on how gorgeous the garden plots look, it's evident that the students take pride in their work and have very green thumbs! SMA 1 Bae Kudus offers an entrepreneurship class. These are some of the intricate costumes students designed as a class project. Aren't they so neat?!? These photos don't even come close to capturing the beauty of the school, but hopefully they provide you with a little window into an Indonesian Senior High School.
We had the opportunity to sit down and speak with the Director of Student Affairs at SMA 1 Bae Kudus, my host school in Kudus, which is a Senior High School for grades 10-12. (Yes, I am teaching high school students!) I specifically asked the director about parental involvement since it relates to my guiding question, and I am always curious to learn about how parent engagement and involvement in education varies from culture to culture. We learned that Indonesian parents have great respect for schools and trust the teachers, so most parents do not question teachers or have suggestions for school improvement. It struck me how this phenomenon greatly contrasts with the middle-to upper-class White American culture of “helicopter parents,” or very high parental involvement in their child’s education. However, the parents’ level of respect for and trust in teachers in Indonesia mirrors what I have seen with most of my immigrant and minority families, so I was not surprised to learn that that is also the case in Indonesia. SMA 1 holds one main event per year to welcome parents into the school, to tell about the facilities, and to introduce the curriculum.
We also discussed discipline. According to both the Director of Student Affairs and my host teacher, there are minimal discipline issues at the school, which I have also observed in my short time visiting and teaching at SMA 1. The students still have fun, laugh, and sometimes get chatty in their classrooms, of course, but it has been easy to reign them back in. The school believes in character education, teaching students any skills that they are lacking, and working with the counselor rather than punishing students and giving consequences. They hope that this philosophy will help students learn from their mistakes, correct their behavior, and develop good character. Their discipline philosophy reminds me a lot of what we try to implement in U.S. schools with PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports) and restorative justice. The more time I spend here, the more parallels I see between U.S. and Indonesian schools. This is a VERY delayed post due to lack of reliable internet where we have been staying in Kudus the past week, but my U.S. partner teacher Elicia and I finally found a cafe with great internet, so here is a reflection on a pre-host community school visit from last week... Better late than never!!! We got to visit our first primary school in Indonesia while in Jakarta. In the Indonesian public educational system, primary school spans grades 1-6. Kindergarten is only offered privately. While I loved our two high school visits in Jakarta, I feel most at home at an elementary school, so I had been looking forward to our visit ever since I saw it on the agenda. The visit was everything I had hoped it would be. As soon as we arrived, students stopped in their tracks the second they saw us and greeted us with a range of wide eyes, beaming smiles, shrieks of glee, nervous giggles, and enthusiastic waves. Many students said "hello" and demonstrated respect through a traditional Indonesian greeting, which involves the student gently taking your hand and touching it to their head or cheek as they bow their head, which is often rather sweaty. :) It's the sweetest and also the sweatiest gesture! As always, there were a handful of students who peered at us nervously and then shyly hid behind their friends. It was fun to see students practicing handwriting using the same exact alphabetic letters that we use in English since Bahasa Indonesian follows the same alphabet. The teacher explained that she writes the letters in red ink, her students practice several more lines in their notebooks, and then she checks their work. We learned that photocopy machines are not common to have in schools here. Instead, teachers go to a local store and make copies inexpensively. One of the most interesting parts of our visit was sitting in on a science experiment in the lab. The lesson involved creating a vacuum using water, an empty glass, and a lit candle secured on a plate. I was impressed by the hands-on activity, the level of student interest and engagement, and the overall lesson structure. The teacher did a dynamite job of modeling, dissecting the scientific method, asking higher-level questions, and creating an authentic inquiry environment. He had students working in cooperative groups, discussing their observations and hypotheses, recording observations, and drawing conclusions. You could feel the energy in the room, and one reason for the high level of engagement is that the teacher was not simply asking questions and calling on individual students to answer his questions. Instead, he probed students’ thinking by listing guiding questions on the board and following up his students’ questions with more questions rather than simply giving them the answers. Didn't you just love when your teachers would answer your questions with questions? ;) It's a great instructional strategy for metacognition. I was especially intrigued by the lesson because the teacher we observed happened to be the vice principal. In Indonesia, we learned that administrators not only have administrative responsibilities but also teach several classes every week. What a wonderful way to ensure that administrators never get too far removed from the realities of the classroom since they are still “in the trenches.” That practice sounds like a genius idea to me but is a structure that you rarely see in the U.S. Maybe more U.S. schools ought to test out the practice. I could see it leading to stronger collaborative partnerships between administrators and teachers and would help minimize the “us vs. them” mentality that plagues so many U.S. schools.
Here are some more photos of the precious Indonesian students at the primary school. Good luck NOT smiling while looking at these pictures. :) I apologize for not writing a new blog post for the past few days. Between adjusting to a 12 hour time change and discovering that my malaria pills were making me really nauseous, I had been feeling pretty low in energy for the first several days of the trip, but now that we have been here for close to a week and after I quit taking the malaria pills a couple days ago, I am back to my usual, energized self and hope to write daily posts. :) We spent the first half of the week building background knowledge about the country, culture, and the Indonesian educational system, which was all incredibly valuable information, but I don't feel like our international field experience officially began until the other day when we had the opportunity to interact with students and teachers at MAN 4 Jakarta, a Muslim public high school in Jakarta. As we pulled up to the school, we were immediately greeted by a gigantic outdoor banner. Here is a photo of my TGC colleagues (Wendy and Christy) and me wearing scarves for the first time! Since it was a conservative Muslim school, all of the female teachers wore head scarves to show respect to the school community's culture. It made us feel extra warm in the heat, but it was all a part of the experience. I am glad we had the opportunity to engage in this cultural practice!
The students and teachers put on a beautiful welcome program for us, including speeches, food (always so much food!), dance and musical student performances, interaction time, and a Q&A session between the students and U.S. teachers. I don't remember the last time I received such a warm welcome. Many of the U.S. teachers admitted that we weren't sure what to expect since (1) it was our first school visit and (2) the school was more conservative than most of the others we will visit, but, WOW, we were completely blown away by how welcome we felt by the school, students, and staff. Everyone was so excited to meet us, ask questions, and fully engage in an authentic cultural exchange. You could feel the energy and joy in the room. I couldn't stop smiling. The students here were absolutely incredible, just like I'd heard. So warm, kind, respectful, talented, hopeful -- I could go on and on. Students shared a cultural dance during the program. I loved their sparkly outfits! The school principal gave a welcome speech. We had time for a Q&A session between U.S. teachers and Indonesian students & teachers. TGC Fellows asked students their guiding research questions, and students and Indonesian teachers asked about study habits, international study opportunities, and our feelings about the current anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobic policies of the Trump administration. The students poured their hearts and souls into musical performances that sent chills down our spine. We had been "warned" that we may be asked to sing during our time in Indonesia. Welp, it already happened. I was mortified at first when my TGC colleagues called me out and coerced me up to the front because I very, very rarely engage in on-the-spot, unrehearsed performances. However, I am so glad I had the opportunity to create music with these three students. Music is the most beautiful way to connect, especially in such a unique, cross-cultural setting. If you want to see a clip of the performance, CLICK HERE. These three students will always hold a special place in my heart, and this shared musical experience was definitely a major highlight of this fellowship for me. The students here LOVE taking photos and especially selfies! I cannot wait to visit my host community and meet my host teacher, school, and students later this week!!!
On our 2nd day in Jakarta, we spent the afternoon at a batik textile museum, where we not only learned about batik and saw all sorts of impressive batik but also had the opportunity to try our hand at the art --- and, WOW, is it an art that takes incredible patience, fine motor skills, and talent!!! Indonesian batik is a traditional technique used to create textiles by applying wax and dye to cloth. The practice originated on the island of Java, where Jakarta is located. Read on to learn more about the process! To follow traditional batik technique, you start by melting wax over a flame. Then, you dip a batik hand tool (I think it's called a tjanting) into the hot wax and fill up the top of the tool about 3/4 full with hot wax. As you can guess, you need to be very careful so you don't burn yourself with the wax. You definitely don't want to be startled by a giant spider when practicing batik, or else you'll spill wax all over the place and make a mess of your masterpiece (or lack thereof, in my case). Next, you carefully apply the hot wax to your cloth. The cloth has a pattern or design drawn on it in advance with a pencil. Our designs were already pre-created to save time. Here are several TGC Fellows creating their batik. It came more easily to some of us than others... Even though I would typically consider myself fairly artistic, I was definitely one of the others when it came to batik! I had a rough time following the lines perfectly and not dumping giant blobs of wax all over the place. After you finish applying the wax to both the front and back of the fabric, the fabric is dyed in a color of your choice. Any part of the fabric that has wax applied to it stays the original color of the fabric (white, in our case). Many batik designs use multiple colors, which makes the whole process infinitely more challenging since the wax has to be applied and then re-applied every single time you use a new color of dye. After the fabric is dyed, it is boiled in hot water to melt off the wax. Finally, it is hung out to dry! You can see my completed batik below. Not my finest piece of work but it's my best batik yet --- easy to say when you've only tried it once! HA! My new TGC friends said to give it to my husband Brent as an anniversary gift since it is our anniversary today. I'm sure he'll just treasure it forever. ;) The design reminds me of olives or footballs. Brent enjoys football but olives, not so much, so let's just say they're footballs. Wendy and I loved chatting with this hilarious Indonesian woman named Retno (pictured below). She was cracking jokes all afternoon. Any time we asked if we could take a photo, she held out her hand and said "five bucks." She did the most amazing batik work. Check out the detail in the fabric behind her and the one she is working on in the photo below. Wow! I have a whole new appreciation for the craft after trying it myself and seeing how incredibly challenging it is. Fun Fact: Did you know that sometimes TGC Fellows dress alike and bring the same maxi skirts in their suitcases and coincidentally wear them the same exact day??? Did you notice that our shirts also both have ties on the bottom of them? What are the chances?!? Matt happened to have matching socks and has a matching shirt too (not pictured below).
Our first day in Jakarta was dedicated to rest and recovery with a little bit of sightseeing. Jakarta is big metropolitan area with the same traffic and hustle & bustle that parallels that of any large city. After sending a video to my family, they agreed that it looks a lot like Chicago but with palm trees! We are staying at a beautiful hotel in Jakarta called Le Meridien. It is much nicer than most of the hotels I am accustomed to staying at. :) In the afternoon, we went to Monas, which is Jakarta's National Monument. At 132 m tall, it towers over everything in Merdeka Square. The monument was built to commemorate Indonesia's independence and reminds me of the Washington Monument in terms of its stature and overall design. In our security training webinar, we were told to try to blend in and look like we had lived in Indonesia for 20 years. We all wondered at the time how that would be possible since we look nothing like Indonesians. It turns out we were right. We clearly stuck out like sore thumbs and legitimately felt like celebrities since everyone wanted to take photos with the giant group of Americans. The Indonesian people were especially interested in talking to and taking photos with Doug (in the teal shirt) and Matt (in the royal blue shirt). We were speculating that either Indonesian people are particularly fascinated by tall Western men or Doug and Matt simply drew attention due to their brightly-colored shirts. The jury's still out on that one. Doug was pretty thrilled that he obtained a new Instagram follower from his fame. Right beside Monas is a "food and culture park" called Lenggang Jakarta, which is basically a market where shoppers can purchase clothing, souvenirs, and food. We had a great first day while slowly starting to recover from some serious jetlag!
We have been in Indonesia for a little over 24 hours, and there is already so much that I could share. We started in Chicago with a 5:30 am flight to Houston on Thursday, where the TGC Fellows from Illinois met up with the rest of the group in Texas, with the exception of our three West Coast friends who were flying out of San Francisco. Then we took a 13 hour flight to Tokyo, followed by the final 7 hour flight to Jakarta. Taking into account the 12 hour time change, we finally arrived at our hotel in Jakarta at about 2 am on Saturday. While passing time at Narita Airport in Tokyo, we came across an opportunity to create this Japanese Ukiyo-e print, which made for a cool artistic creation to bring home. To make a traditional Ukiyo-e print, you start with a blank sheet of paper and then rotate around several stations, layering one color and design on top of one another. Each station has a different carved woodblock and a different ink/paint color. To transfer the ink to your paper, you lay your paper face down on the woodblock and then rub a circular tool around on the back of the paper. The key is lining up your paper as accurately as possible on each woodblock so that the image aligns with previously transferred images on your paper. I am grateful to the volunteers who were incredibly patient and willing to share a piece of their culture with travelers passing through Japan!
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Mrs. Kate Boyens is a K-5 EL Teacher at Scott Elementary School in Naperville, IL. She is a 2017 Fellow in the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program. She will be using this blog to share her journey during her international field experience in Indonesia in July & August 2017. ArchivesCategories |