Day 9: Music and dancing at a vocational school... and fire.

We did a lab today in Chemistry class.  No one asked for a pencil and no one forgot their notebook.

MOREOVER, they brought the actual materials for the lab themselves!  As a teacher I am not too bothered by students asking for pencils and paper.  Especially my students with special needs, it really isn't a big deal and doesn't register on my list of things that bother me about teaching.  But looking around the room today, it was sparse.  No chromebook cart, calculators, graph paper, markers, scissors, nor pencil/paper.  In fact, there was only a whiteboard (no markers, teachers bring their own into the room when it is their time to teach) and a few copies of the Quaran.  And about 36 desks.  That was it.

I will back up a bit, when we got to school this morning, they were doing their morning reading of the Quaran in their first hour class.  I asked Yulia if they had any Christian or non-Muslim students in her school and she said they did and they either excused themselves or just sat quietly during the reading.  After the reading they sang the national anthem.  It was interesting because it was a class of all boys and I have never heard a group of non-chior boys sing so loud.  Usually it is under their breath, if anything at all.  These students all seemed pretty comfortable with singing.

Some things are the same.  This kids is clearly copying something during the reading.

After all that, we started the chemistry lesson on chemical and physical changes.  Apparently, prior to this lesson, Yulia asked students to bring paper, Q-tips, candles, a fruit with a juice inside (like an orange), and lighters(!) to class for the lab.  The school doesn't have a lab like we have in the US, so they just made pods.   

In our school, and most schools in the US, there is a huge reluctance/legal issue with asking kids to bring materials to school.  That whole "free education" thing is taken very seriously which I do appreciate.  But I also appreciate that Yulia could ask her kids to bring something to school and it wasn't a big deal.  Students explored what physical vs. chemical changes occurred in this lab.

This lab involved heating up juice on paper.  If the paper started on fire, they just threw the paper on the ground and stomped on it.  I suppose that is one of the benefits of tile floor.

Afterwards Yulia "mopped up" the material and debriefed it with the class. Then some students took pictures of the board to get the notes.  Jem and I talked about how our students do similar things.  I generally encourage writing things down to remember, but if it is announcement (or page numbers of reading, etc) a picture works fine.  We hypothesized what the pros and cons of taking pictures in this class might be for students.  

Look familiar US teachers?

Apparently they have a class-wide What's App channel they will use to post the picture.

Afterwards we took a picture with the class at the student's request.  This picture was also shared in the What's App channel.

From there we went back to the principal's room which as become our home base because it has AC.  We took a tour of the "cafeteria" which contained some carts along with this food stand.

A lot of this is deep fried which makes it difficult to tell what it is.  I asked them to go through each food to describe it, but when ever they didn't know how to describe something, we took a sample of it for the road.  As a result, we had a pretty mighty snack.  Most of these things were some combination of tofu, coconut, banana, and rice.

More of the cafeteria stands.

This was a "sweet potato" ball from the stand.  It was a BEAUTIFUL color purple inside.

We had pizza hut for lunch.  Stuffed crust style.  It seemed to have less salt/seasoning than in the US and I have yet to see any pizza with red sauce on it yet, but it was a nice change.  Typically when I travel to non-western countries, the most satisfying meal I have is a PB&J.  Trying new food is GREAT, but it can become overwhelming sometimes to do it for weeks in a row.  There is something nice about having something taste familiar occasionally.

 From there we went to a music/dance club. We learned a dance that we saw just yesterday at the opening ceremony.  We also got to play the drums and bonang.  The bonang makes different noises based on the thickness of the pot.  It was pretty hot - I was literally dripping with sweat just because of the heat in the room.  Moving with dance and drums made it much warmer.

The bonang.

Here were my dance instructors for the day.  They were good teachers - I just have some homework I need to do tonight.

After the dance lesson we headed back to the principal's lounge where we tried the Rambutan below.  The fruit is named after the word for "hair" because it has the spiky hair coming out of it.  You peel it and then below is a pitted fruit that tastes a bit like lychee.

From there we took a trip to the grocery store which was very interesting!  I love going to grocery stores in other countries because you see things that you never expected to see.  This place had a lot of oil which matches with what we have seen on stands with lots of fried food.  The produce here was also massive.

Working at Target has really changed the way I see stores now.  Before I would notice what new foods foreign stores had, but now I also look at volume of food they have.  We saw PALLETS of oil - that's right more than one pallet.  That's a lot of oil.

Gotta love a grocery store trip.

Check out this date section.  This is easily 4 feet of dates.  At trader joes there is one facing of dates.

MASSIVE avocados.  I was going to buy one for avocado toast in the morning, but couldn't find one that was ripe.  I ALMOST bought a jar of peanut butter for peanut butter toast in the morning, but resisted the urge.  I am regretting not buying either though...