Teaching Beyond the Ashes

I arrived in Jakarta late last week for an alumni conference for the Indonesian and Malaysian teachers who have completed the International Leaders in Education Program. All of these teachers studied at US universities for a semester, learning new student-centered teaching methodologies to implement in their home classrooms. This conference is providing an occasion for approximately fifty educators, spread out across the Indonesian archipelago and peninsular Malaysia, to reunite and share stories of the progress they have made since finishing the ILEP program.

For some of the teachers, simply traveling to the conference has been a feat. Several of them live in the shadow of Mount Merapi, the volcano that has notoriously killed hundreds and displaced thousands over the past weeks. One teacher, who works at a boarding school just inside the declared ‘safe zone’ near Yogyakarta, told me,  “(I) felt tremors shaking my house in the middle of the night. So I got an umbrella and woke up my wife and said: ‘We are going outside now.’ I didn’t want to take any risks staying inside that house. We stood outside with the umbrella and the ash poured down all around us.”

Unlike some of the other teachers whose schools were closer to the volcano, his boarding school remained open. Many of his students’ families were displaced because of the toxic gas, but he has worked hard to maintain a sense of normalcy. To get to Jakarta for the ILEP conference, he had to drive hours to an alternative airport. Yet he has continued teaching and is creating a sense of order for his students. In fact, at the conference, he barely wants to talk about the volcano. Instead, he gets busy sharing ideas about problem-based learning; strategies for successful grant applications; and fostering critical thinking skills.

Last week, Indonesia celebrated Obama, an American leader who came to Jakarta. This week— International Education Week—is an opportunity for Indonesia, and the world, to celebrate the teacher leaders among us, who continue to work so hard, against great odds.

*Amy Ahearn is Program Associate at IREX