"KIRI (2 - 3 - 4), KIRI (2 - 3 - 4)"
is what will hear from the hours of 7-10am in the streets of East Java (and honestly probably the greater part of Indonesia) for the next few weeks. The students are preparing for "Freedom Day" on August 17, which is their equivalent of the 4th of July. This call is accompanied by the very structured military walking (almost marching) of groups of students. Each class is broken into two groups, girls and boys, and they form three straight lines, with a caller/ leader on the left.
At least two times this week the students have taken to the streets to practice their military marching. On both occasions my classes were canceled. This wasn't made known to me until an hour before my class on the first day (after I had stayed up an extra hour the night before to finish my lesson plans). I was forewarned of today's marching practice yesterday, so although I my plans have already been made, I knew that I wouldn't need to mentally prepare myself for the classroom today. I was also told today that the students will be walking Mon.-Thurs. next week as well.
Although they are currently practicing them for Freedom Day, schools also use military type organization and marching at all age levels for schools ceremonies. These are not as uncommon as the rare school assembly in the US. At most Indonesian schools there is a weekly flag ceremony on Monday mornings. I am fortunate to go to a school that does not uphold this practice, but I did experience them in my practicum school. To get organized there is usually a lot of yelling into the microphone military style "HU" type stuff. During these ceremonies students stand in the same formation they take for their current marching practices and there is a whole litany of check ins with students and administrators of various rankings. After some speeches and a recitation of 5 expectations of Indonesian students, the flag is brought to the pole (with military marching again) and then raised while the national anthem plays. These ceremonies usually last 1 jam (period), which is about 45 min.
There are a few things that I can never help thinking about when it comes to these military marching and ceremony practices. The schools spend so much time getting this right. They have started preparing for Aug. 17 a month in advance. When the students accidentally started to raise the flag upside-down at my practicum school the teachers got fidgety and upset as the students worked to correct it. These reactions contradict the reactions to student's behavior in class and these preparations for one day contradict the minimal preparations that went into the start of a new school year. With this in mind I have come to the conclusion that executing these practices is a source of pride for Indonesians.
I often wonder if this is how they choose to instill structure and discipline in their students. If this is the case I don't see it carry over into the classrooms. Often times students are quite rowdy in the class, but this is a topic for another day. Lets just say that the structure you see in these drills does not match the structure found in the classrooms or even the attitudes of the administration, faculty and students of the schools. Obviously there is simply a different values system here.
Although I have yet to experienced my first Freedom Day in Indonesia I can already tell that it will be more than a little different than from our 4th of July. It looks as if students will spend the day marching around our little city with their schools. This is therefore not a holiday for picnicking and watching fireworks at night. Oh yeah . . . and its during Ramadan, so there really won't be picnicking unless it is before 4am or after 6pm. It will definitely be an interesting experience to say the least.
No comments:
Post a Comment