Mi Keji – My Opinion About This School

I’m here as a volunteer to teach English at this school. I’m from Switzerland and I came to Indonesia to learn more about this country and its customs.
I like this school very much. The children seem to be extremely happy and lively here. The classes have not more than 24 children, what is good for teaching. In the library, the children can use the computers and read books in their free time.
After three weeks, I already feel at home, even if I’m sometimes still confused with my schedule. When do the lessons start and when do they end? I’m never sure about that. Sure, I have my schedule and know when my lesson would start and end. But the teachers don’t really follow this schedule. =)

The teachers in MI are like a huge family and I’m glad to say, that they welcomed me in a very nice way and let me be a part of this family.
Sometimes it is difficult for me to teach the children, though I can’t explain them in Bahasa Indonesia what I meant. But if there is always one of the teachers with me, it mostly works pretty well.
But sometimes I would prefer to work more creatively, with more games and more fun for the children. Because of that, I will try to work out some games and teaching methods that make it easier for the children to remember what I taught them.

I’m still not used to the religious schedule of this school. In Switzerland, we don’t practice religion at school, so it is sometimes strange for me, to pray in the beginning and end of a lesson. The same feeling I had with the weekly ceremony on Monday morning. In Switzerland there exists nothing like this.

Really strong of the teachers here is that they integrate the students with learning difficulties into the normal classes. That’s why the teacher has to give special attention to these students and at the same time watch out, that the good students aren’t bored.
This is very difficult for me: If I’m teaching, there are always students that finish the exercises very fast and are bored, because there are other students, too, that have difficulties with the exercise. So it always gets very loud in the end of the lesson. I think I have to work out some extra exercises for the smart students.

So far I had a lot of fun at MI Keji and I look forward to teach here the (way to short) time until I have to go back to Switzerland.
Here, I’m not only teacher; I’m student too. I’ve already learned a lot about the Indonesian culture and language and even more about myself…
I will definitely miss every one of you!!!