Students, Schools, and Trump...Oh My!

My fellowship was funded through the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (i.e. taxpayer’s money... GRACIAS everyone!).  In saying that, we were selected to represent the United States in our exchanges and work by practicing cultural diplomacy.  I love and support this form of international relationship building because I believe the exchange of ideas through various cultural interactions helps to shift one’s thinking about a certain group or country. Organizations like IREX, focus their work around building mutual understandings in the world, allowing us to work more effectively together, hence the diplomacy part.  So with that idea in mind, we were told to expect questions about the U.S. especially questions about the presidential election and Trump. By the way, Indonesians LOVE Obama, since he lived and went to school there.  Apparently, he was visiting with his family even prior to our embassy visit and they told us he speaks Bahasa very well! ​

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So Trump’s reputation was well noted, with several of my student encounters asking about how Americans feel about Trump. Tough, right?!? Some of us can barely form words to describe our feelings about him and have resorted to just sounds. ;)  So, how do we represent the entire diversity of the United States?!?  Well, now there is a huge similarity between America and Indonesia that we leaned on and they seemed to understand!  Prior to this trip, I did not know Indonesia was as a very diverse country. All we kept hearing was it was the 2nd most Muslim nation in the world outside of the Middle East. So everyone was going to be Muslim, right?? Well, no. Some quick background is Indonesia consists of over 17,000 islands, stretching the distance of the United States from west coast to east coast.  On the 750 or so islands that are inhabited, the religious beliefs and practices differ, as well as the languages. So to think that the whole country was Muslim like you see heavily in Jakarta, is like saying the entire United States is like New York City.  Obviously, not a realistic picture of our entire population and its background.  
Our answers to Trump questions pretty much went like this,
​“Donald Trump is one man and yes, the elected leader of our country. The United States is a democratic country, like Indonesia, where you have the right vote. President Trump was elected by that process, so some people our country support him and shares his beliefs. And others do not. Just like we have seen here in Indonesia, some of you are Muslim, some are Christians, and some Hindu. Some of you speak Javanese, English, Arabic and Balinese.  You have a lot of diversity in your country, like the United States. We can not judge or form an opinion of a country, based on the view of solely one person. We do not want you to do that and that’s why we are here!” (Cue the round of applause, even though I’m not 100% confident they really understood everything we said!) Then, we would move on to talk about Justin Bieber, teach them to play Uno or do the Cha Cha Slide! Hence, political crisis averted, cheers for cultural diplomacy! ​

But it was remarkable to see them thinking deeply about the global political climate and sharing concerns.  One student even asked why the U.S. always backs Israel and not Palestine...we needed a Social Studies teacher for that one!  Students and teachers were curious to know what the United States thought about Indonesia, asking us several times.  They wanted to know why we (Donald Trump) did not like Muslims.  Those were some heavy questions for 16 year olds to ask when meeting us for the first time. But these questions and stories provide an incredible representation of the caliber of students we encountered.  ​

Honestly, I was floored by the level of respect and self-motivation of Indonesian students.  In every school we visited (around 6 or 7 in total), the students were SO WELL BEHAVED!  They were sitting at their desks, in sweltering heat, listening and taking notes as their teachers lecture from the front of the room for an hour and a half!  I mean, seriously, I would never get that type of undivided attention from my students! Students do not leave the room often though, since the teachers rotate classrooms, not the students. They are mostly sitting at their desks all day.  There is not a lot of group work, station work, or physical movement like U.S. teachers tried to infuse. But students are so self-directed and STILL driven to complete their work!  It was inspiring to see their eagerness to learn and respect for school. 

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Sorry but I could not figure out how to rotate this video! So you have to tilt to the left! :)

One of my favorite things to watch was students passing by teachers, taking the top of their teacher’s hand and bring it to the top of the student’s forehead, as a greeting and a sign of respect.  Also,students only get one 15 minute and one 30 minute break throughout the day. During the 30 minute break, the entire school uses the time to either go to the school mosque for afternoon prayer, eat in the canteen, or if time permits, do both! In 30 minutes! It was awesome to watch students get released for break, wash their faces, heads, hands, and feet near the mosque and go in to pray on their own.  There were not teachers in the breezeways monitoring them, encouraging them to go, or even supervising the school wide movement.  I didn’t see any administration walking about the entire time, no one monitoring the canteen for fights or horseplay, or even all the motorbikes and bicycles so neatly parked.  IT WAS SO PEACEFUL! I kept thinking that if these students saw our school craziness at lunch they would be shocked.

Indonesian students take a lot of initiative on their own, without needing instruction.  Even when we were late for class one day with our host teacher Umi, one of her students was already writing work on the board for the others. From a teacher’s perspective, this was a dream! Students’ ambition to learn was apparent throughout our visit.  Teachers on the other hand, had different levels of enthusiasm and commitment.  That will be discussed in mroe detail later, don’t you worry! I have lots to say on that because it totally shifted my guiding research question to “How are Indonesian teachers preparing globally competent students with 21st century skills?” That’s a teaser for you to check back....
​In closing, students are and will always be my favorite part of this career.  Even half way across the world, they were still my favorite part of our school experiences.  Indonesian students welcomed us (with a bombardment of selfies and Instagram/FB friendships) trusted us, performed for us (to be seen in my upcoming post “How music and Despacito unites us all”) and made us laugh! (Check out video below of Risky teaching Anu his famous escalator trick! Had us cracking up!) They brought us their traditional foods to try, gave us gifts, and looked forward to connecting with us again. So do we.