1. Purpose
The purpose of the Southeast Asia Minister of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Pre-Service Student Teacher Exchange in Southeast Asia is to provide a way for the teacher education students of the Southeast Asian nations to experience the culture of their respective receiving nations, specifically of the immediate area of assignment, and, the educational systems.
Needless to say, such mutual cultural experience not only aims to promote goodwill and friendship personally and nationally, but also to have mutual learning, and fresh perspective, which a personal foreign experience can only give in an atmosphere of multi-lingualism.
2. Procedures
The actual practicum started on January 12 – February , 2019, but the whole process has extended beyond the said time frame, before and after. After the necessary arrangements and agreements made amongst the top brasses, we have to pass two screenings: within our institution, the University of Mindanao- Matina Campus, and then the interview- screening with the receiving institution, Universitas Sebalas Maret (UNS). Then, a two-part online orientation regarding blog making, and guide to being an exchange student.
Waiting for my Dr. Nurma Indriyanti of Universitas Sebalas Maret's interview (Nov. 29, 2018) [left]. Attending the orientation (January 4, 2019) [right].
[From left picture] Davao, Manila, Jakarta ( Jan. 12, 2019)
Upon being accepted, upon flying to the soothing city that is Surakarta, we were not immediately thrust in to the battlefield, as it were, of actual teaching. First week was about welcoming, teaching assistance ,and basically “doing what the Surakartans do”, to tweak the Roman idiom.- More importantly, it was a week of to prepare our materials for the actual teaching that is within the second week and third week.
I, as the first exchange student to arrive, welcomed by Ma’am Dinni ,and Lisa Fauziah at Adi Soemarmo International Airport (Jan. 12, 2019) [left]. First time to personally meet my batch, the previous from UNS, and Ma'am Nurma Indriyanti herself (Jan. 13, 2019) [right]
Official welcome ceremonies [top to bottom] in UNS and SMA Negeri Surakarta 1, and first-ever observation at Grade XI - MIPA VIII (January 15, 2019).
It is also worth noting that in these weeks also will happen not just observations, but also the final evaluation, the most crucial demonstration. Fourth Week is about reporting the exchange students’ reflection at UNS.
We also had the much-awaited excursions during weekend to the attractions of Surakarta and Yogyakarta, the twin centers of Javanese culture.
For our first Saturday, we went to Keraton Surakarta Hadiningrat, palace of city royalty, [left] and Pasar Klewer [right], kota of batik clothes (Jan. 19, 2019).
For our second Saturday, we went to Borobudur Temple, the biggest Buddhist Temple in the world [four pictures on the far left]. The three hours travel was full of fun as we traversed the sometimes rolling, sometimes steep road to Magelang, Yogyakarta where the temple is that made tummy feel funny, and our ears pop. We also marveled at the beautiful sceneries as Mount Merapi [second picture upper right]. We also saw elephants in Borobudur (Jan.26, 2019).
For our third, and final week, we went to Sangiran, the museum of the ancient Java man [top row]. We then went to De Tjolomadoe's Sugar Manufacturing Museum after taking a sumptuous lunch in an authentic Javanese restaurant. During the night, we watched the bright and crowded spectacle for the Chinese New Year (Feb. 2, 2019).
During the Chinese New Year, we went to Yogyakarta using train to buy stuff in Malioboro for souvenirs (Feb. 5, 2019).
[From left to right] Farewell party with the UNS Dean (Feb. 6, 2019) in a fancy traditional Javanese restaurant. Waiting for the presentation of reflection session to start at UNS (Feb. 7, 2019). Farewell ceremony with Ma'am Winahyu, Pak Wawan [right[, and my colleagues from Quezon City (Feb. 8, 2019).
Beyond the fourth week, the blog, the farewell, the longing to return to Solo...
Power point use for my reflection report: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YxPFhSvkgrQquMpR06ZR62z68DgF-b_z
3. Outcomes of Practicum
My practicum experience in Surakarta granted me happy realizations. I was situated in a setting where I could play by my strengths.
As a student and as a teacher, I am a traditionalist and immensely love lecture, and as a planner of lessons, I have a propensity for long comprehensive lessons. I really felt at home, in a class eager to listen to lectures in a 90-minute weekly session per class to teach history in a more comprehensive way
and not the fragmented and compartmentalized chunks of the 60- minute session that is the case in my country. The absence of motivation as part of the lesson’s procedure delighted me because personally, I believe that motivating oneself to study is less the teachers’ task than the students. However, the lack of previous lesson’s recap puzzled me. Now acting as the teacher for the first time, I felt that satisfying sigh of validation from my students’discipline, restraint, and respect, which is contrary to what I usually see firsthand in my class observations, though in my compatriots’ defense, I usually observe classes whose students come from vastly challenged lives.
For a moment, I was confused when upon seeing my evaluation form, I have a bit lower score in the assessment part of my demonstration, though I fared highly overall. Then I realized that there something paradoxical with my situation. In my desire to transmit many juicy information to the students to attain the objective, I almost lost attaining the objective I neglected the assessment part giving it only a few minutes to answer, as if it was an afterthought part, and not the otherwise intended. Assessment judges whether you achieved your objectives.
Because I am not capable of speaking Bahasa, I have to depend utterly on English in the classroom setting. Although I have some lapses in my English, I have learned to be more confident and more natural in speaking it, because much as anybody wants to be perfect grammatically for obvious reasons, making sense is more often than not good enough, especially in practical situations.
The close proximity and pervasiveness of Bahasa in educational and daily life has brought me to a closer relationship with my national language and my national dialect through an introspection that yielded unflattering realizations. Such regard of the national language is quite new to a Filipino, in whose country English is deemed the language of the educated, the rich, and the powerful; with Filipino, and the rest of the dialects, relegated to something else inferior. Without boasting, and just for the sake of sheer sincerity, certainly I am more proficient in English than my Indonesian colleagues I have met in this program.
But, if we are compared in equal terms to our responsibility as citizens of our respective countries, I would be found wanting. My use of Filipino, and of my dialect, Cebuano,would be found severely mangled, using English terms as crutch for a lack of vocabulary, compared to their use of their Bahasa.
It certainly motivated me to polish my use of my native languages this summer.
Because I, a foreigner, have to teach Indonesians, about their independence’s history (an amusing set-up, I know), I learned more about Indonesia here, than what my school has taught me in the Philippines.
Through my first-hand experience of the Javanese Culture in its heartland, Surakarta and Yogyakarta, through the visits to their great places during the most pleasurable Saturday excursions, might it be searing sunny or soaking monsoon rain, through the food, and the hospitality, I have come to respect, and admire its gentle, graceful, and courteous people. If only the number of batik clothes I bought will testify to that: ten!
4. Challenges
To think about the appropriate level of difficulty and strategies for the students of SMA 1 Surakarta, the crème de la crème of its senior high school in Solo, is the one I was more anxious of, at first. Suffice it to say, that it was what we signed up for, and as was my wont, I took more information beyond what I would be actually teaching them, in case there are some questions who would reach those points. Other than that, the language barrier is the one I seriously regretted not addressing before going to Indonesia. It is the responsibility of the foreigner to adjust to the culture, the lesson that was tattooed in my mind during the online orientation. I should have tried learning Bahasa, but my academic responsibilities consumed my time to learn it. As a result, my experience of the culture of Indonesia as felt in Surakarta is severely limited to my English-speaking acquaintances, and to the grocery conversations of one-word utilitarian Bahasa words. As a result, there is a sharp sense that I think I’m missing something to truly know my students’ personalities and intellectual capacities. As a result, it was impossible to utilize the textbooks which would have made my lesson-making easier to be grounded in the information that their year level required. The pervasiveness of Bahasa, and the proficiency of its speakers, especially the educators, brought me to a closer relationship with my national language and my national dialect through an introspection that yielded unflattering realizations.
5. Overall Impression
The SEAMEO Teachers Exchange Student Program as experienced in Surakarta in cooperation with Universitas Sebalas Maret and SMA 1 Surakarta was nothing but great.The accommodation astounding with free food and teas, the activities systematic and organized, the tours to be coveted.I gloated on the envious oh’s and ah’s of my friends when they listened to my narration and / or saw my photographs. Mutual exchange of culture, and a gradual development of through .
But, unabashed, the pinnacle is the personal effect to me. The first time experiences are priceless. The fact that they happened almost concurrently assure that they will be difficult to forget. As a person who has a bit of literary background, I am sensitive to serendipity, as if it were figurative messages from the unseen author beneath the black curtain. Some of these are auspicious incidents. I am a bit of a lone wolf, and travelling to a place who has another name called Solo, seems suggestive of a solo journey, but also of a journey to the self in a path to enlightenment. How symbolic that upon reaching the top of Borobudur, and deciding to descend, I was greeted by a praying mantis, the name itself “mantikos” meaning prophet in Greek, a symbol of calm, patience, balance, and intuition- stuff I need in this chaotic college life of mine.
I have nothing but gratitude to SEAMEO Teachers Exchange Student Program for this opportunity.
To Universitas Sebalas Maret and to SMA 1 Surakarta, terima kasih banyak for the unsurpassed accommodation and experience. To my university, the University of Mindanao, for trusting my capacity to represent her, and for her financial assistance in this international program; and to my family whose unconditional support inspires me, dako kaayong salamat. To the people I met in Surkarta, especially the SEAMEO UNS BATCH 07, including our buddies, thank you very much to the wonderful memories we have had. When I look at our photos and the souvenirs, I always wonder when can we meet again. Is it even possible, at all? Remember jasmine tea is everywhere there in Solo?
When I drink jasmine tea, and the vapor brings the aroma to my nose, I am brought back to you, all of you, in Surakarta.
Forever grateful to you all for the gift of a blissful and rapturous month you can only imagine
.
See you again somewhere, somewhen.
Am I checking in or am I really checking out, Ibu Ritnu, our dear caretaker?
First to arrive. Last to leave.
“I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes” ― Vladimir Nabokov
6. Suggestions for Future Improvement
Personally, I do not have any major issue beyond the fact that my stay, my experience in Surakarta has been immensely happy that they made me feel bad about going home. But, I have for others who were not given the privilege of being fully financially supported by my university. I hope that the participating universities for the next batches will all agree to shoulder fully, at least partially, the expenses of the students they sent, since participation in this program benefits their school in rankings and accreditation.
For the next batches, I hope that there will be more slots for history or social studies teachers, as this program can give them the necessary cultural exposure that would grant them a greater regard for the people of Southeast Asian countries.