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.
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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!
It seems as though all of the recent discussion amongst my TGC travel mates has revolved around packing and clothing. As guests in a predominantly Muslim country, we have all been consumed with making sure that we are dressed in accordance with their cultural expectations so that we don't inadvertently offend anyone in our host communities or any other Indonesian people we have the pleasure of meeting. Though the amount that women traditionally cover varies by region and setting, general guidelines we were given are that women should cover their shoulders and knees, wear modest necklines, and wear closed toe shoes. However, one TGC Fellow shared that her host teacher said that long sleeves are preferred to 3/4 length sleeves at her school. My host teacher's words of wisdom were:
I was hoping to only bring one suitcase, but I was absolutely blown away by how many gift donations I collectively received from Naperville District 203, the Naperville Chamber of Commerce, and North Central College. As a result, I filled an entire suitcase ONLY with gifts to give to students, my host teacher and her family, and other people I meet in Kudus, my host community. Thank you SO much, District 203, for your generous donations! I couldn't even manage to fit everything you gave me into a carry-on; I'll be sure to return the "leftovers" to you. I'm so fortunate to work in a district that (1) offers such great support to its teachers and (2) values global education and international partnerships. All right, I'm off to go learn some Indonesian words and phrases --- something I should have started doing months ago. How embarrassing for a language teacher, but better late than never! Other than "Where in the world is Indonesia?", some of the other questions I've been frequently asked include "What exactly will you be doing while you're there? Will you be working in a school? Will you be traveling alone? Do you stay in the same place the whole time?" Here is my best attempt to briefly answer some of those questions.
The program is structured in a way that we begin and end the experience with our entire cohort of 14 U.S. teachers in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city. In the middle of our Indonesian adventure, we branch off with one other U.S. partner teacher and travel to our assigned host site for 10 days. My partner teacher, Elicia, is an English Language Development Teacher at a high school in Portland, Oregon, so we teach comparable content but with a completely different aged clientele. You can imagine how thrilled I am to be paired with a high school teacher after finding out that SMA 1 Bae Kudus, our host school, is a secondary school! I will certainly be out of my element working with students who are double to triple the age of my beloved Scott School students. I tried to find a photo of the school that I could share with all of you today. Unfortunately, I did not have any luck finding one that would comply with fair use laws (and teachers have to follow the rules!), so you will have to eagerly wait on the edge of your seats for the photos I share after I arrive. :) Sri, our host teacher, is an absolutely lovely and gracious woman who has been so patient when it comes to answering all of our questions. Sri has carefully crafted an itinerary of what are sure to be enriching experiences for both Elicia & me as well as the educational community in Kudus. Sri is an English teacher at the high school, and I know we will learn so much from her, her colleagues, and her students. We hope that we can at least partially return the favor by helping Sri work on her professional goals of implementing new strategies for increasing student engagement and integrating technology to enhance and transform her classroom instruction. Sri's goals mirror the goals of many U.S. teachers, right?!? We cannot wait to meet Sri when we arrive in Kudus on July 21st. 3 1/2 days til takeoff... I truly cannot believe there is only one week left before I venture off to Indonesia with 13 amazingly talented, passionate U.S. teachers, several of whom are sure to become lifelong friends and prized colleagues. I feel like it was only a couple months ago that I shrieked with joy as I opened my international field experience placement letter on the last day of school before Winter Break and excitedly power walked across the building to one of my co-teacher's classrooms to gush about the thrilling news. Upon sharing my travel destination with her kindergarten class, she exclaimed, "How exciting! I am SO happy for you!!! ... And where is Indonesia located again???" For that reason, it only seems appropriate to dedicate my very first blog post to a little bit about the geography of Indonesia. As you can see if you explore the map, Indonesia is located just northwest of Australia. It borders Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other nearby countries are Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Over the course of the international field experience, I will be splitting most of my time between two main cities: (1) Jakarta, which is Indonesia's capital city and (2) Kudus, where my host school is located (indicated on the map below). Kudus and Jakarta are both on the island of Java, Indonesia's 3rd largest island. Other than questions about Indonesia's location, I've received many inquiries about how large Indonesia is. The Mercator projection world map that many of us have ingrained in our minds makes Indonesia appear much smaller than it actually is. Amazingly enough, Indonesia is wider than Canada and almost as wide as China! Check out this article if you don't believe me. Thetruesize.com is a really neat tool that allows you to overlay countries on top of one another to get a better idea of each country's true size. I highly recommend playing around with the website when you have a couple minutes to spare.
A few more fun facts about Indonesia are:
I hope you choose to follow my journey in the coming weeks and learn alongside me as I explore the Indonesian culture and educational system! |
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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 |