January 12th

January 12
Visited SMAN 1, a high school where our friend Haryati teaches. On the plane over I talked about how American schools should integrate local environmental knowledge, biology, and work by having students farm or garden at some level. (hardly, I admit, an original idea) In Indonesia many schools do this. SMAN 1 has an enormous number of plants, maintained by the students, with the plant qualities used to illustrate local conditions, biology, and botany. We visited a number of classrooms and talked about the differences between US and Indonesian approaches to religion and the schools. You can see them struggling (and the teachers, and us) with the “positive” approach Indonesia employs with the government insuring equal access to religion in schools. Access is provided by state law and funding through the ministry of religious education. Teacher boards sometimes list the religion of the teacher (Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, Christian (protestant) and so on – and also have white board counts of their student’s religious affiliations (658 Muslims; 23 Protestants; 13 Catholics; 0 Buddhists – I don’t know why they listed a “0” – maybe in case one comes along)

The principal was very happy that his teacher went to the US and is willing to support American students who might come on exchange; even for short cultural visits. He knows a number of potential home stay opportunities and is very excited that we brought email addresses of American students who subsidies with a religious ministry and school.

It always fascinates me how much people want to improve their English. One teacher pulled me aside and asked a number of cultural and “slang” questions including:

-Is it ok to ask a woman her age?
(answer: many don’t care but safer not to if you can avoid it)

-Is it ok to say “hanky panky”
(answer: not many people say it anymore and it has vague meanings hidden and orchestrated bad-doings with historically remote sexual overtones. So, if another word works, and it is hard to imagine one couldn’t be found, he should avoid it.)

-Is it ok to ask people how much money they make? (answer: less of a taboo than it used to be but still best to be avoided unless asked the same question first)

In between school visits we visited the Mayor of Balikpapan. While in the waiting room there was an emotionally arresting painting (I can’t judge the style) of a Dyak (native people to Borneo) on a hill looking at the city. His back is turned to the viewer and you can see he is at the place where the forest ends at the clear cut logging line. The city looks as if it is growing toward him and, if you look closely, you can see that the bottom part of his leg is beginning to mesh with the ground underneath, like they are growing into each other. All of the US visitors saw this as an analogy of encroaching civilization driving out people more closely connected to the earth – maybe because of our own current understanding of the America’s but the Indonesians had a variety of opinions and didn’t inevitably see the man as I did.

The mayor turned out to be a very practical, experience operative who spent almost a full hour with us. He is very interested in exchanges and pledged his full support at finding accommodations for students. He is keenly interested in technical teaching help – Balikpapan is an industrial place with oil rigs off the coast. You can see them from the hotel. I was very encouraged with the meeting – and it was very refreshing to talk specifics.

SMKN 4 Nurul’s school HRM vocational debate club on sex education
In addition to meeting with students and talking about the things they picked up from the Democracy and Tolerance discussions with the students we also watched a debate on Sex Education (in English). This is a vocational school which specializes in Hotel and Restaurant management. The kids (seniors I think) were in two teams of four and they debated the motion “should sex education be taught in the schools”. They did a very nice job. The arguments were exactly the same as they are in the US. The pro side argued it would prevent the spread of disease; reduce unwanted pregnancy; and help to prevent sexual harassment. This last argument seemed their weakest and, during the question period, one of the audience went right after it. It was a more aggressive debate than I have witnessed in Indonesia before.

The “no sex ed” side had about one argument “more sex ed would lead to more sex”. They cited some arguments. First, the referred to a study in Dallas that suggested sex ed leads to earlier and more frequent sex. They also used the somewhat off-topic example of a science book in one of the local school libraries that contained “inappropriate descriptions.” Finally, they argued that 75% of the teens in Balikpapan have had sex. Some said “7500” others “75%” so we weren’t able to get a handle on that one. In all, the pro side had the better argument.

The similarity of the arguments (you can almost hear a conservative school committee member lamenting a lascivious book or an earnest liberal describing the brave new world of disease free happiness that would accompany government efforts) obscures and important institutional difference. In Indonesia, these kind of decisions are made at fairly high levels (even federal) while at the US the debates are often local. The localness seems right to me on this one. One function of federalism is to fob off these hot topics and let local standards serve as a basis for argument. It seems silly to me to not teach sex education in some manner but it seems even worse for the federal government to send people into conniptions by demanding they teach something they don’t want to. I admit this pro federalism argument could be thrown back to me in the extreme “well what is someone didn’t want to teach evolution”. I suppose I would say they are choosing to make their kinds non-competitive in science and that is their choice. A more difficult issue might be “what if they want to teach racism?” That is a much harder question. It is hard, but not impossible, to imagine it now. But an argument for federalism is not an argument for no standard setting at higher levels; it is an argument for making prudent choices about what merits such an effort.

Our friend Nurul was very proud of her students and I committed to looking for some Hotel and Restaurant books. The school has rooms where people can stay, and it has a practice bar and restaurant. People who have a particular view of Islam should take note that a frank (and detailed) debate on Sex Ed took place around the corner from a school with a practice mixed drink hotel bar.