Day 4: Meeting the kids and making our Batik

Day in emojis: 🎨💃🙇

First off... Breakfast.  This was a picture of my first plate.  My second plate was all fruit.

We have egg tarts, bacon, bread pudding, samosas, and steamed dumplings for breakfast.

Including snake fruit!

I love trying new foods but finding a whole new fruit is always my favorite! This is Snake Fruit- it looks a lot like a giant garlic clove when peeled. #indonesiaUSA70th @FulbrightTeach @usembassyjkt #newExperiences pic.twitter.com/5wK1GJcVyR

— Kaitie O'Bryan (@Kaitie_Obryan) July 25, 2019

On the agenda for today was visiting a public elementary school and a Batik museum.

Here is our group in front of the school.  Can we talk about this banner they had made?!  I am really surprised that it was so professional.  It is hard to imagine what it would take to get a professional banner made at our school!

Once we got inside they had a welcome song for us.

Welcome song at an elementary school we visited in Jakarta! ⁦@FulbrightTeach⁩ pic.twitter.com/FcqxWdpZQV

— Kaitie O'Bryan (@Kaitie_Obryan) July 25, 2019

Thursday is "Batik day" so all of the students and teachers were wearing their uniform Batik.  The government teachers wore a black and white batik uniform and the "non-government" teachers wore a red uniform.

After that, we did more song and dance.

An additional song and dance by the 5th grade class in Jakarta! ⁦@FulbrightTeach⁩ pic.twitter.com/hqkd2K7Ycq

— Kaitie O'Bryan (@Kaitie_Obryan) July 25, 2019

It is actually really interesting to check out the girls who are wearing the head scarves but still are showing "hair" in the bun (it is actually fake).  I feel like there is a good history story there about the dance/outfit and how it is a blend of cultures.

We had the "option" to dance with the students for round 2.  Since I was dancing I didn't get a video of it.  I know, you're bummed.

This is an interesting trip because we are really "citizen diplomats" meaning that there is a fair amount of things that look like this:

Semi-formal speech in front of a banner. 

No, this picture was not accidental.  We had to take off our shoes before entering the library for the staff meeting.  I would be super OK with all staff meetings being sock-footed.  I realize my more germ-a-phobic colleagues may not enjoy that quite as much.

After a little talk, we went to observe classrooms.  We saw several classrooms.

Check out the poster to the right... design thinking?!?!?!  I know it is just a poster in a library, but come on... my school is still a few steps away from really embracing this. 

"Stand up" classroom - this was a science classroom where they were labeling parts of a flower.  They all had real flowers at their table and were gluing the names in place on a worksheet.  It reminded me of Sarah Van Der Werf's "stand up math" goal.

Not all classrooms looked like that.  These students were in pods.  Most other classrooms we went in were in rows.



I also snapped a few pictures of their math books.  Practicing place value, I see!

I even took it upon myself to quiz a kid in math.  300 + 200 was too easy, so I gave him 300 + 121.  He thought about it for a while and then gave me an answer.  I was going to ask him to explain his thinking, but it was clear we BARELY had numbers down in English so explaining your thinking was a bit much.

His friend on the left wanted to join the picture.  It was also CRAZY hot in here.

I also talked to a girl in her Indonesian class.  She says her favorite thing about school is being with her friends.  Me too.

We were warned not to sign any notebooks.  Apparently people last year got mobbed with "autograph" requests.  Towards the end, there was kind of a lot of that.  They were also very well trained in greeting people - they would take our hand and put it up to their head.  Apparently it is a sign of respect to elders but we were a bit confused if that was something they WANTED to do or if it was something they were supposed to do.  It was a bit confusing for a while since I thought the kids wanted to shake our hands at first and then they would put our hand on their forehead and then walk away. 

After that we then went back to the library for a performance of music.

We had a chance to play the instruments our selves.  This lead to a jam session that spontaneously included beat boxing.  Didn't see that one coming. 

Then we left for lunch.  Lunch was amazing.  Pretty much my goal is to skip dinner each night - maybe "goal" is the wrong word, but between breakfast and lunch her, there is no reason to do dinner at all. 

The "carrot flower" is next-level "playing with your food".  I am going to show it to Eleanor and see what she can do with that!

Then we went to the Textile Musuem where we got to make our own Batik.  Batik is a process of wax-resistant dyeing (source: wikipedia).   Essentially what we did was draw on fabric with pencil and then go over our pencil with wax.  We went over it with wax on both sides of the fabric (but I am pretty sure that was redundant and lead to more drips and errors rather than a better product on my part.  If I were to do it again, I think I would just use one side. 

This was the pot of bees wax we were using along with the little tools.  They had a well for the wax that you would fill up and use until the well was empty or the wax cooled.

I am not in this picture but you can kinda get the process of it here.

This is what the pros looked like.

They dyed them for us and then boiled them in water to remove the wax.  Theoretically, with more planning and time you could do this many times with different colors and areas waxed off to make a multi color object.  It is worth googling images of the pros.  

My finished product.

Tomorrow we go to an Islamic public high school and then have a "Host Visit Best Practices" session about how to prepare for our week in our locations.  We leave for our location on Saturday!