Serving up plenty of local culture to students

By Maria Kegel

JAKARTA (JP): The Grade Five pupils from Bandung International School learned a lot from their recent Outreach Trip to Kampung Naga.

Academic study, challenging group activities and the opportunity to enhance intercultural understanding were high on the agenda. But the pupils also gained new perspectives on their own culture.

After three days immersed in a natural setting without any electricity, they asked their host, the head of the village, a befitting question: Why did the village not have any western amenities?

The answer was honest. The people in the village believe that those amenities bring benefits, but they do not necessarily bring harmony, the village chief replied.

The profound statement made such an impact on the children, that they were inspired to bring the chief's words back to the school, manifesting them in a two-hour musical play around that theme.

"They enjoyed the trip very much," head of school Angus Ogilvy said, adding that field trips were an integral part of study throughout the school's many programs.

Kampung Naga, which is between Garut and Tasik Malaga, is well known here for its preserved architecture and customs.

The trip was part of the Outreach program for Grade Four to Grade 12 students, which sends them out for extended periods into the environment.

Outreach is just one segment of the Hands Across the Archipelago (HATA) program, which is "all the ways the school interacts with Indonesia and its culture".

"The main thrust (of HATA) is that it is a learning program for the students," Ogilvy said, adding that it was not regarded as a charity for the community services it also does, as its activities "help people to help themselves".

Culture is featured extensively in the curriculum at the Bandung International School, and there are weekly classes in Indonesian culture for all students.

Top resource

Ogilvy said Indonesia was used as the number one resource in day-to-day activities, and experts from all over the country were invited to the school to make presentations and involve students in discussions of issues in culture and current affairs.

"Indonesia and its culture is not something that is once a week, it's spread throughout all the classes and used as often as possible," Ogilvy said.

Strong art and music programs involve Indonesian connections, as well as doing activities in conjunction with Indonesian artists, he said.

"Our music teacher is an expert in the gamelan, and the music of that instrument and other local music is featured extensively, especially in the elementary years as it works well as hands-on music for children to learn," he noted.

In art, middle and high school students from Grades Six through 12, have done performing arts in conjunction with Indonesian artists, including musicians, dancers and visual artists, Ogilvy said.

He explained that the culture course was paired with the language, as "you can't separate the two".

"But we encourage all of our teachers to have Indonesia and its culture in the curriculum," he said, adding that the Indonesian assistants that work there were an "excellent source of reference".

Finding the right teacher is crucial according to Ogilvy, and he said apart from outstanding English skills, the most important attribute he looks for was the ability to inspire children through the study of Indonesia and its culture.

There is a very strong environmental club that meets after school, and its main thrust is educating students on the environment of this country, he said.

"They go on regular outings to places around Bandung to look at things from an environmental perspective," he said.

Puppet-making

Meanwhile, after schools at the Deutsche Schule Bandung, a German school, a unique extracurricular project called Jendela Ide (window of ideas), involves students and children from different backgrounds outside the school in various workshops of pottery, theater, painting and shadow puppet-making.

There are also cultural discussions, performances, open houses and "cultural encounters" where groups are invited, such as the Chinese barongsai, traditional performers of a Cirebon topeng (mask) dance, who also held a workshop, and the wayang (shadow puppet) theater from Rapi.

"There's a real cultural exchange going on here on our grounds," Angela Tanudjaja, the principal, said.

The most popular feature is the wayang workshop, where children make shadow puppets from cardboard and also paint backdrops that are projected on a screen to aid in telling the stories that they narrate themselves.

"The students are really enjoying it (the activities) very much, and the number of people attending the project is growing. It's been a big success," Angela said. At the moment, about 60 children are participating.

She said they were very lucky to have gotten excellent teachers; two from the University Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), and Marintan Sirait, a teacher from the art department of the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), adding that it was not difficult to find qualified people through the educational institutions.

Angela said Indonesian culture was also included in the language classes from kindergarten to Grade 10.

The Bogor Expatriate School has a separate culture class that runs along with the required language course from preschool to Grade Six.

Tari Sumitro, the librarian and Indonesian teachers' coordinator at the school, said there were two culture classes: Culture Arts, which is once a week, and Indonesian Arts, which is once a month and also features cultural aspects.

Initiative

It was the school's own initiative to include the subjects, she said.

"It's (the subject) not a must, but the children are aware they need to learn about the country."

She said from the enthusiasm the students showed, they really enjoyed the topics they studied in the cultural classes.

Tari said the students enjoyed lots of activities related to the topic and they especially enjoyed Indonesian clothing, wanting to recreate the items, and making the different ornaments from the regions.

Tari also invites a woman to the class to model the traditional costumes of the Sundanese, Javanese and Sumatrans for the children.

"I'm really proud of the students. We talk about the country and all its provinces, the dancing, clothing and exhibition arts," she said.

At the end of the year, an Indonesian concert is performed at the school, and there is drama and dance, Tari said.

The Indonesian culture is also passed to students at other international schools.

Principal Ian Boxall from the Australian International School in Bali said apart from learning the language, "there were some aspects of Indonesian culture in the social studies course".

Russell Keogh, who is the head of the Australian International School in Jakarta, said in the early years of the language course, which is compulsory from kindergarten to Year 10, learning about the culture was featured.

Art is also compulsory for the same years, and Keogh said a large Garuda was on display in the art room.

Although the art program uses some cultural aspects, it is not the focus, but they do draw from this environment, he said.

"Music is available from kindergarten to Year Six, and the music teacher is Indonesian and he teaches traditional songs," he said.

Native

Keogh said the music teacher taught all forms of music, and because he was Indonesian he also taught some simple native songs.

Last year the Indonesian language teachers put on a dance and cultural exhibition at the school, with a performance in traditional costumes and a display of food and jewelry.

"The school also has a complete gamelan set purchased by the PTA a year ago, and some Indonesian nonteaching staff are using it after schools, and in time we're hoping to have them teach the students," Keogh said.

The school has a mix of Indonesian and expatriate teachers, and Keogh said it was relatively easy to find people, but that they needed to be fully trained with teacher's qualifications.

"They have to enjoy teaching students and be understanding."

At Jakarta International School (JIS) in South Jakarta, deputy head of school Jean Vahey said the school went beyond the government requirement of having Indonesian Studies, an introduction to geography, culture and language, taught in the fourth grade, by beginning the program in Grade Three with Indonesian teachers.

"The cultural instruction begins in the early prep (age three to four year olds) curriculum," Vahey said.

She said the priority of the curriculum was to help the students develop skills necessary for effective communication and culture.

Current affairs

In Indonesian Studies, students learn about the geography of the five main islands in Indonesia, its location, climate, flora and fauna, natural resources, places of interest, the characteristics of the people, including population, language, lifestyles, ethnic history, celebrations of birth, marriage and death, religions, food, as well as the current affairs of each island.

"The diversity of ethnic groups in Indonesia is discussed in a perspective of language and cultural awareness," she said.

Apart from the course, Indonesian culture is integrated into the regular program, with students studying the gamelan in the music program, the sports of Indonesia in physical education classes and making batik items in the art classes, she said, adding that there was a deliberate focus on Indonesian dance in the upper level dance program.

"Field trips in elementary school to such areas as Taman Mini, Bandung and Cirebon allow our students to learn and experience the richness of the Indonesian culture," she said.

A five-day celebration of Indonesia's diverse culture, called Indonesian Week, is featured in elementary school, while students from Grades Six through Nine spend a week in an extended study program learning about their host nation's culture.

She added that the social studies program there integrated the study of culture into each of its grade level curriculums.

Vahey said the Indonesian Studies teachers were highly educated and enthusiastic about teaching the culture and language to expatriate students, and many expatriate teachers also had a special interest in Indonesian culture and shared their knowledge with colleagues and students.

Artists

"We use national teacher aides as resources, too, and we also invite parents, guest speakers, craft persons and artists, who are experts in their field, to come to JIS and give presentations and workshops for our students," she said.

The weavers of Sumba frequently visit JIS, as do the artisans of Cirebon, she added.

Certain cultural activities, such as dancing and wayang orang are offered as after-school activities, she said.

"The school supports faculty initiated fellowship projects that continue to support a celebration of Indonesian culture by inviting local artists to spend sustained periods of time with our students and faculty in the study of dance, games, drama and music," Vahey said.

She said the students enjoyed the lively activities, such as dancing the traditional dance, outdoor adventures, Indonesian games and plays, cooking and dining, mask making and painting, weaving, playing musical instruments, creating models of housing from different ethnic groups in Indonesia, making batik, ecology of the rice field, digging the excavation archeological sites of the Majapahit Kingdom, a Balinese type of painting called pengosekan and puppet performances of wayang kulit (leather puppets) and wayang golek (wooden puppets).

"Since Indonesia's culture is so rich and varied, each school year in our elementary school we focus on a different aspect of Indonesian culture or on a different region of Indonesia," Vahey said.

"Our students are involved in many projects that help children in orphanages and street children. They support several orphanages and three houses that provide homes for over forty street children," she said.

Vahey said exchanges with various Indonesian schools allowed their students to interact with Indonesian students and teachers.