Teaching Teachers and Other Greats of the MidYear

All of the ELFs and Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) in Indonesia had a chance to meet in Surabaya, East Java, for a midyear conference. We had a full schedule of outreach programs with local universities and high schools. With 14 ELFS and 44 ETAs, we visited 7 universities and 14 high schools, and we reached about 1,000 English teachers from all over East Java. That's something to be proud of.

These events are a big deal for the participants. Professional development for educators is hard to come by in Indonesia. And in a country entrenched in traditional lecture-style classrooms and restrained by resources and a lack of opportunity for students to practice English outside of the classroom, teachers clamor for any opportunity to learn new techniques for making dynamic lessons. The ETAs I worked with had the participants up on their feet doing the Hokey Pokey, playing games, and making up elaborate stories. We also were able to share a piece of American culture by presenting on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Mia, one of the ETAs, had an stirring presentation on civil rights in American, and it spurred a lively conversation with our participants. Some of them knew about Dr. King and some didn't, but all were moved by Mia's presentation and were curious to find out more about segregation in America then and now. Soft diplomacy. Very cool.

Some teachers getting creative with new materials

Birds-eye view of high school students eating lunch. They pile everything into either a piece or paper or banana leaf fashioned into a cone. Green and less dishes. Dig it.

The MidYear conference wasn't all work, though. Our fearless leaders at the Embassy arranged some sight-seeing around Surabaya. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia (after Jakarta), and it and the surrounding areas have lots to offer. The first place we stopped was at a place called Lapindo. We parked along side of what appeared to be a giant dirt wall stretching for miles on the side of the highway. A few bamboo stairways led to the top of the dirt wall. Once you got to the top, all you could see for miles was a vast stretch of caked and cracked mud. Then, in the distance, was a mud volcano. Eruptions of mud and steam were spewing twenty feet into the air. Read the article linked above to learn more, but basically this volcano began spitting up mud in 2006 after some oil drillers accidentally hit it (oops). Since then, it has destroyed whole villages, and it isn't predicted to stop for thirty years.

The villagers whose houses were destroyed, hover around the scene and try to sell DVDs about the phenomenon or offer motorbike tours around the area. They'll do anything to get a buck for their families struggling to get back on their feet in the government-funded refuge areas.

Next, we went around to see some candi (pronounced chandi) - Hindu and Buddhist temples that dot East Java. These impressive structures aren't used anymore beyond being popular sites for romantic strolls among the local teen population, but you can still see ancient statues of Hindu gods. 

One of the sites, called Candi Tikus (Rat temple) was named so because it was discovered after the local farmers complained about an abundance of rats eating their crops. After some investigation, they unearthed a beautiful temple and bathing pool that the rats had been using as their personal living space.

 

Finally, we stopped by a local Buddhist monastery and a gigantic reclining Buddha. Since I've never been anywhere near a Buddhist anything, this was a particularly neat experience.

Lotus

I hope you can get the scale here. The elbow point would probably hit me waist-height.

Indonesian culture is so varied from one island to the next and even from one side of an island to the next. I've decided to stay two years partially so that I can continue exploring all of it. I'm halfway through my first year, and I've barely dented all that the archipelago has to offer. This trip helped me to refocus those efforts. Until the next big discovery...