Friday, part two

After furiously typing for an hour, I discovered when I tried to publish my last entry that I had lost my internet connection and about ¾ of the post was lost.  Sigh.  I’m quite sure I wrote something brilliant and no one can say differently.  ;)

One of the things I was surprised by at SMP 49 was the easy camaraderie between the students and the teachers.  They were laughing, joking and completely at ease, which I thought was wonderful.  I mentioned before that the students remain in one room while the teachers travel.  We did not get a chance to ask the students (away from their teachers) how they felt about that arrangement.  I’m trying to imagine middle school students in the US remaining in the same class all day long.  I’d hate to be the last teacher of the day!

After meeting with the students, we came back to the media center for an impromptu professional development about global education.  The very fact that most of the conversation was in English tells me that Indonesia has been wrestling with global education far longer than we.  As I heard at an education seminar Saturday afternoon, a new addition to the Indonesian curriculum is character education.  This is deemed necessary because of the very effective globalization of American and European cultures and not through the usual routes of movies and television but with new social media that allows students to truly be a part of non-Indonesian lives.  I think exposure to other cultures, beliefs and thoughts challenges our own and this can be of great concern to the older generation.  The minister of education, with whom we met Saturday, said Indonesians were very concerned about the younger generation not knowing or valuing their own culture.  And that this was why character education was now being taught across the curriculum.  Funny how new ideas and technologies excite the young and force the old into conservative action.  As for the outcome of the meeting, I think teachers from both countries agreed that the core tenets of global education (investigate the world, recognize other perspectives, communicate effectively, and take action/solve a problem) make learning more relevant and meaningful to students.  I think the greatest challenge comes from the ‘recognizing perspectives’ and ‘communicating effectively’  strands.

After the meeting with all teachers, we divided into subject area groups again.  The science teachers’ biggest concern was all the material they had to cover.  They kept mentioning they had ‘lots of materials’ and at first I assumed they were talking about supplies for labs (at which thought I was quite envious!) but it turns out they had lots of materials (topics) to cover during the course of the school year.  And that every subject had an end-of-year comprehensive exam, so they were very stressed about doing a good job.  They also had what we would call PLC (professional learning community) meetings and vertical team meetings (subject area only, with district and city-wide groups).  With school starting by 6:30 AM and not ending until 4:00 PM and weekly meetings (which did occur during the school day), their plates seemed very full!  I’m sure the students felt they were overworked, too!

After taking our leave of this welcoming group, we headed over to the Carrefour Mall, where we ate at a little restaurant called Bumbu Desa.  The food (ribs, quail, two types of fish, white rice, red rice, mango and peppers, assorted vegetables and spinach) was all delicious, although I’m taking my colleagues’ words for the meat dishes (they smelled enticing enough for me to consider taking a vegetarian vacation).

Our last stop on Friday was in the heart of Jakarta, which is beautiful, modern and with lots of lush landscaping around buildings.  Our destination was AMINEF (American Indonesian Exchange Foundation).  It’s actually the Fulbright exchange program, but Indonesian law prohibits any exclusively foreign foundation, hence the combined effort of US and Indonesian parties.  Mike McCoy, the director, explained the foundation’s work, they covered the logistics of the Fulbright scholars and helped Indonesian students who wanted to study in the US.  He made the comment that Fulbright scholarships in the STEM areas just went begging, and that if we knew anyone who wanted to apply for a 10 month program they were all but assured of being accepted.  Good to know.  He also told us that the Indonesian government was currently devoting 20% of its budget to education!  That was an eye-opening figure and makes me wonder what we’re dedicating to education.

After our meeting, we were given gifts of hand-made coffee mugs celebrating 60 years of the Fulbright program in Indonesia, which was a very nice gesture.  On our way back to the hotel we encountered something quite startling: a small monkey (perhaps a macaque?) on a leash that had a DOLL face mask on with blond hair pulled up into a pony tail!  The man holding the end of the leash was lounging in the middle of the median and was accepting coins tossed his way.  Traffic was slow but unfortunately sped up just as we caught sight of this monkey so I didn’t have a chance to get photographic evidence (but one of the other teachers had a telephoto lens, so he got a picture that I’ll try to snag).

This entry is really too long, especially without pictures, so I’m going to turn the tap off for now.

School's Out For The Summer

But not for the students of 49 Junior High.  Yesterday was supposed to be a holiday for them, but it was the day we arrived to experience their school.  So many students volunteered to be there for the half the day to meet with American teachers.  I'm wondering how many of my students would have shown up on the morning of Thanksgiving for such a visit, although I'm sure some would have.

The school was about a 30 minute bus ride away, and the students were all lined up along the balcony of the third floor to greet us.  The teachers and principal were in the courtyard and seemed very happy and excited to meet us.  We were led upstairs (past both their trophy case filled with gleaming metal and another case filled with artwork made from recycled material) and led into the media room, where the principal and our IREX guide, Susanna Miller, gave brief speeches.  The principal opened with a prayer and blessings for our efforts and Susanna thanked our gracious hosts.  We were divided up into subject area groups and went up another flight of stairs to the classroom, where the students awaited.

As we entered the classroom, our host teacher, Aziza, asked the students to greet us.  One student, obviously designated the class leader, stood at attention and commanded the other students to rise and greet us.  And they did.  Just like back home.  We introduced ourselves and then they had an opportunity to ask questions.  At first a bit shy, they then eventually felt comfortable enough to ask such questions as, "Do you believe in love at first sight?" and "What about ghosts?  Do you think there are ghosts?"  Fourteen year old students seem to have similar concerns the world over!

The students were all dressed in navy blue slacks or skirts, white shirt or blouse and navy blue ties and black Converse shoes.  We thanked them for coming in on a holiday and asked what they would usually be doing (sleeping, playing video games, eating, hanging out with their family).  It seems this group was the students' family at school, as they never left their classroom, but the teachers were the ones who travelled.  There were posters that were up all over the wall (Give Peace to the World, Experience Is the Best Teacher, No Racism: We're All Family) and I asked the students if they had put them there.  They said yes, because their teacher wanted them to.  Honest bunch.

Well, after typing all of the above and then some more (about an hour's worth), I lost my internet connection but didn't know it until I tried to publish this post.  So, I'm coming back to it briefly, just to post and I'll write more later.  But, on the bright side, you didn't have to wade through my ramblings.  Now I'll have more time to reflect and condense.  What's that old saw?  "I would have written a shorter note, but I didn't have time."  :)

Breaking Dawn Over Jakarta

After a long journey, we're all safely here in Jakarta.  I was hoping to upload pictures directly from my iPhone, but I've been having some issues with that.  I just wanted to get in a quick update before breakfast and our travels of the day.

Boy, that trip across the Pacific is incredibly long for those of us in 'steerage'.  No surprises there.  But I would like to say that I really enjoyed the Airbus; it has a great configuration of seating (3-3-3), so no one is miles away from an aisle.  Our flight attendant was just an absolute doll; both in looks and attentiveness to passenger needs.  The flight was very smooth, with only a little bit of turbulence over Japan (I figured due to differential heating of land mass, perhaps) and no storms.  When I wasn't trying to catch a quick nap, I enjoyed watching our progress across the Pacific, and I could see the line between light and dark on the trip monitor.  The entire way to Hong Kong, we trailed the dawn behind us and it didn't catch up until we stopped at Hong Kong.

As we were waiting at LAX, I was looking around at most of the travelers and the majority were Chinese.  I imagined that they were going to visit friends and family and I thought of the true sacrifice immigrants make, even in these days of air travel, to live so far from family.  Of course, the internet reduces that distance, but Skyping doesn't replace hugs!

On the flight from Hong Kong to Jakarta, I was watching the in-flight monitor, with our positional information.  As I watched, I realized we had both crossed the International Date Line and the equator in the same 12 hour period.  The equator surprised me; I had looked up Jakarta's lat. and long. before we left noted that it was only 6 degrees from the equator.  But that's 6 degrees BELOW the equator!  As we flew over Vietnam, I looked down to see miles and miles of what looked like pristine beaches.  And I thought the elementary child that I was could never have imagined I'd see Vietnam in that way someday, instead of the way I saw it night after night through the eyes of Walter Cronkite.

As we approached Jakarta, I kept expecting to see something that resembled Florida.  Probably shouldn't have such expectations, but the climate and flora would seem to be similar.  But there was a great deal of haze and more brown than green.  After we disembarked, it took us about an hour and a half to retrieve our baggage and go through customs.  Our host, Lilia, greeted us outside the airport with a huge smile and bottles of ice-cold water!  What a wonderful treat!  We then bundled up all our bags into a small bus that was called 'Big Bird' and took off to the hotel.

An hour and a half later, we were checked in and I finally got to stretch out and sleep.  Not a very exciting thing to do, but I just couldn't resist.  I had a few challenges with adaptors and such, but finally got phones to charge and internet to connect.  One last observation before I head down to breakfast: the breaking dawn reference is only there to remind me to comment on the almost equal hours of daylight and darkness here on the equator.  When we arrived at the hotel yesterday, it seemed as if it were quite late in the afternoon/evening when it was only 4:30.  But that was because we were only about an hour and a half from sunset.  And at 5:30 this morning, it was the proverbial darkest hour.  But now the sun is up, the cars and motobikes are buzzing by, horns are honking and it's time to go experience Jakarta with a head cleared by a marvelous sleep.

48 Hours

More or less, and I will be in Jakarta.  Exactly halfway around the world, or at least I think so since there's exactly a 12 hour time difference.  But I'm sure I'll still be livin' on Tulsa time for a few days. 

In final preparation for this trip, I searched through my gmail account to find and print my trip itinerary.  My search parameters brought up an email that I had forwarded to myself from April of 2011: the initial application for this program!  If the journey of 1,000 miles (or 9,900) begins with a single step, that was the step.  And if changes in latitude do lead to changes in attitude, you'll be the first to know.

Tulsa coordinates:
latitude: 36° 07' North
longitude: 95° 58' West

Jakarta coordinates:
latitude: 6° 08' South
longitude: 106° 45' East

I will post pictures and commentary as I am able, so I hope you'll pack your bags and travel with me.  And please comment and let me see this journey through the lens of YOUR eyes as well as mine!

Visas and Vaccinations

Today marks the magic moment: less than two weeks until I depart for Jakarta.  I believe there's a vulgar phrase about something suddenly becoming real, and the two week point is that reality check.

My mind has been split this summer between preparing for Indonesia (visa, vaccinations, cultural presentation, gathering of gifts, finding appropriate clothing, communicating with host teacher, working on my capstone for the TGC program and reading) and my work at the University of Oklahoma Schusterman Center where I spent my days thinking about tissue culture and optical sensors.  I can feel my brain approaching overload and I can't wait to begin my journey so I can expand my mind in a different direction.

The India cohort is now in their third day of travel, and you should check the link at the top of this blog that will whisk you away to links to their blog sites (Weebly --> Resources for Teachers --> Travel Blogs --> India).  Some have already posted thoughtful stories and marvelous photos! 

One of my 15 spring break goals was accomplished during a five hour computer marathon this morning: create a companion site on weebly.com (because I find that much easier to use than Blogger) that has resources necessary to globalize curriculum and is the beginning of my capstone project for my fellowship.  There are many amazing people in this TGC cohort, but I am especially grateful to Sara Krakauer and Arlis Groves for compiling many of the excellent resources we had available to us.  Now on to the other 8 items on my list (I didn't say the weebly site was the ONLY goal I had accomplished this week!).

If you want to check out the site, just click on the banner at the top of the blog.  It's a work in progress, but I'm happy with it for now.

Fatal Vision and Myopic Views

I just looked at the date on my last post and saw that it was in January.  Time just races by when school is in session!  Two other teachers and I have been working on the curriculum for a new course in our science department: forensics. Maybe I'm only now getting into the swing of things, but it seems that the units we've been covering this semester have been more interesting.  And I think it's not just my perception; some students told me they really enjoyed our unit on blood spatter.  If you can get past the cause of the spatter, it's really intriguing how much information can be gleaned from observing the pattern and the size of the drops.  I even had to reach back into my cobwebby past to remember how to find the degrees of an angle when the sine is known.  Of course, these days one can just push a few buttons on a graphing or scientific calculator and find the inverse sine.  Back when I took trig, we had to look up the information in endless tables in the back of our book.  I definitely agree with the song, "....these ARE the good old days"!


In the course of our unit on blood (typing and spatter), we looked at two very different cases: the Sam Sheppard case and the Jeffrey MacDonald trial.  In both cases, the men eventually charged with the murders of their wives (and family, in the MacDonald one) were young, medical doctors who claimed they were sleeping when intruders invaded their home.  In the Sheppard case, the pre-trial publicity was so intense, the Supreme Court later over-turned the conviction because of the prejudicial nature of it.  Charges were brought a second time, but after having served 10 years in jail, Sam Sheppard was acquitted at that trial.  He didn't live very long, and found life quite difficult because people would still accost him in the street and taunt him by calling him wife-killer.  He turned to drugs, alcohol, and professional wrestling (!) and died at the age of 46.  The 1960s television show, The Fugitive, was based on his case.


In the MacDonald case, the husband was not initially charged, but after tireless investigative work, his former father-in-law managed to convince the DA in North Carolina that a grand jury should be called.  MacDonald was convicted almost 10 years after the murders and is now serving three consecutive life sentences.  He will be eligible for parole in May of 2020, continues to maintain his innocence, and  holds the record for appeals to the Supreme Court for a single case.  The forensic evidence in the MacDonald case is overwhelming on the side of MacDonald's guilt (each family member had a different blood type, and a strong case was made for the sequence of events told by the blood trail and spatters).  Because the Marilyn Sheppard murder occurred in 1954, only a year after the publication of the structure of DNA, the evidence wasn't handled and preserved in a way that could settle beyond doubt the guilt or innocence of Sam Sheppard.  But unlike Jeffrey MacDonald, who suffered comparatively superficial injuries, Sam Sheppard had a broken vertebra in his neck, consistent with his story that someone had struck him from behind as he raced to aide his wife.


As we studied these cases, I thought of how easy it can be to race to judgment on limited evidence.  And I also thought of the lives ruined because of this (Sam Sheppard's mother committed suicide days after he began his prison term, and his father died a few days later of a stroke).  Not only is it a cautionary tale against leaping to conclusions, but it is a motivator to be diligent in our efforts to bring the best science has to offer to insure that justice is served.  It is so absolutely amazing what small amounts of DNA can be detected at crime scenes that it is my fervent hope that miscarriages of justice will become vanishingly rare.  And I also hope, after being in my forensics class, that any of my students who become jurors, prosecutors, defense attorneys, or heaven forbid, defendants will remember those two men and understand what a decisive role forensic evidence (and the correct interpretation of it) can play.  And be grateful.