Visit to an Islamic Elementary school

This morning, Katie and I visited an Islamic Elementary school. Today is Saturday and here in Indonesia, almost all public schools run Monday through Saturday. UIN also had scheduled classes on Saturday but that changed last year, thankfully. Our connection to the school is a bit convoluted. A doctoral student at UIN has a friend whose wife is the headmistress of a newly-founded Islamic Elementary school. None of the students at this school had ever met a Westerner and she wanted to encourage the students to be more committed to learning English. She hoped that by meeting a Westerner, they might be a bit more inspired. I asked (read: forced) Katie to join me so that the students could see someone their own age, but also, and more importantly, I wanted Katie to see what an ordinary Indonesian, and Islamic, school looked like. To this point, Katie has only experienced International schools, which are quite different from Indonesian public schools.

The school has been operating for five years and so only has grades 1-5. In Indonesia, they are not called grades but classes. The school is an Indonesian Islamic public school. In Indonesia there are three streams of education. The first stream is made up of public schools that have no religious teaching included in their core curriculum. If there is religious teaching in this stream, it must include the teachings of at least two of the official religions of Indonesia, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism. So, such a class would be something like a World Religions course. The second stream is made up of special public schools that include religious education in their core curriculum and so are Christian schools, or Islamic schools, etc. These schools are not required to teach other religions. The third stream is made up of private religious schools that are devoted primarily to religious education. These schools, which are almost all Islamic, are called pesantrans, or madrassa, and are led by a kyai, a religious teacher. Those who graduate from this third stream are generally not qualified to continue their studies in post-secondary institutions since their education is almost exclusively religious. Lately, however, in the face of declining enrollment, pesantrans have been including curriculum from the public school system so that graduates can be eligible to attend university.

The school we visited is an Islamic public school that mixes a public school curriculum with Islamic education, which includes learning to read and write Arabic, as well as memorizing the Koran. All the teachers have an undergraduate degree in education from one of the main universities here in Jogja. The students come from the neighbourhood. Tuition is Rp60.000 per month which translates to about $7CDN. This tuition includes lunch. Classes begin at 7am and finish at 2pm, with two breaks. The school has just over 40 students and includes both boys and girls. The school is building a new structure nearby since the building they are in now was damaged by an earthquake two years ago. Classes 1 and 2 have their own rooms, since they are larger groups, while Classes 3,4 and 5 share a single large room separated by dividers. Also in this room is the teachers' 'offices'. There is a play area in front of the school with several play structures but not much room.

We spent most of our time with Classes 3-5, who have the most English training. We began by introducing ourselves and having each of the children introduce themselves to us. This was great fun and filled with much laughing and giggling. Then I taught the students the song 'Mary had a little lamb'. After they were able to sing it by themselves, they sang 'Are you sleeping?', which they already knew. This was a bit of an odd experience for me because I could only think of the French version of the song. After we finished with these classes, we visited Class 2, who were busy learning how to write/draw Arabic. Up to this point, the girls had been very shy, pointing at Katie from a distance. But as it became clear that we were leaving, the girls swarmed around Katie, shaking her hand, and asking her all sorts of questions about where she lived and went to school. I know Katie felt awkward and conspicuous, but I hope she gained a bit better understanding of Indonesian life.

Our hosts were very generous and welcoming and we had a wonderful time. I am not sure how much good we did for the school, but I know that Katie and I received something special.

(See Webalbum for pictures.)

Phil