Support Teachers in Remote Village of East Bali

EBPP teachers have always committed to giving the best education for students in the most remote area of Eastern Bali where the best quality education is needed as well as to improve their living standard towards a better life. One of the principal goals that many teachers set for themselves is to be the best educator they can beand to ensure students understand not only concepts, but practices as well. One of the ways to attain their goals is to continually strive to develop improved teaching methods by sharing and brainstorming with their peers, to engage, motivate and inspire their students to broaden their knowledge – often by creatinggames and other fun learning activities as icebreakers.

In addition to academic subjects, our teachers also assist students in developing creative activities, such as for Independence Day, assisting them preparing for annual Celebration on August 17^th, with a variety of stage performances including music, art, culture, dances, and a drama play.This year, the teachers also collaborated with a professional piano teacher from Jakarta, who introduced piano playing to the students and trained them to perform one of their songs, accompanied with piano, on Independence Day.

Some of our teachers are focussed fully on extra-curricular youth empowerment programmes we started in July 2015, sponsored by a USA-based NGO, EMpower – The Emerging Markets Foundation, where the students are able to have dedicated computer skills training, among other topics, as well as hone their leadership and communication skills. These teachers are not only instructors but also as‘facilitators’ when they encourage the students to upgrade their critical and analytical thinking skills and finding the solution together for any problems they find during their learning process. The facilitators ensure that these character-building activities will help the students to be ready to deal with challenges in their life after graduating.

The EMpower modules are designed and developed to enable our students to have experience, interaction and comparison with other communities outside their surroundings, and recently, our EMpower team arranged for all high school students to join a field trip as part of their development. On June 28^th 2019 they arranged a trip to Kopernik Foundation and ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Art) Ubud. After the Kopernik team explained what they have done for last mile communities and simple technologies they used to reduce poverty, our students had a chance to present products they’d designed and made of bamboo in order to diminish the used of plastic. In ARMA, the students experienced extraordinary masterpiece of art from famous artists in Bali. What a great experience!

On the second week of August 2019, the EMpower teachers held Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with our students who were equal partners with teachers, experiencing taking part in a real discussion. All teachers and students sat together with commitment of the learning process so they will be able to create more comfortable and fun classes in the future. This activity also gives students confidence to express their feelings and ideas; for teachers, this activity was a reflection to improve our teaching methodology.

Many thanks to all donors through GlobalGiving's creative crowdfunding campaigns, providing funding that enables our teachers to keep doing our important job in educating our students and we try to keep on innovating and updating our teaching methodology to make students more enthusiastic in learning. 

Being a teacher and educating children in our own village is something that is very pleasant and rewarding for those who like this job: teaching in the classroom whereas some people prefer learning than teaching. As a teacher at EBPP, supported by GlobalGiving donors, we must have extensive teaching insights and understand the learning characteristics of her/his students, so that teachers can be creative and use different methods in teaching. As time goes on, EBPP teachers keep innovating their teaching techniques, such as: learning through research in libraries, learning through games, learning English through art - as inspired by one of our volunteers, making artwork utilizing nature’s potential, composing songs related with nature and human life, and many other techniques.

Computer-based National Exams

One of the teacher’s most important tasks is assisting students to prepare and be ready to face the national exam as the real challenge in their school life. Starting this year, the exams are no longer answering question on paper but by using computer! The teacher always put their best effort to help them to be the best they can be and be able to pass the exam.

National Education Day, annually on 2nd May

This year, we held our National Education Day celebrations in EBPP’s Daya Bamboo Centre. The teachers, in collaboration with all our students, prepared many activities such as the opening ceremony to commemorate education heroes, creative art performances, Balinese and modern dance, music performances, poetry reading, and also – for the first time - the fantastic fun competitions of junior high school students creating English words through letters, the winner making the most words in 10 minutes; and the other one was creating English sentences through words for senior high students in 10 minutes. The most fun competition however was the general knowledge quiz for all levels: elementary, junior and senior high. All students enjoyed the celebrations, assisted by EBPP teachers.

“Extra English classes – Please!”

Students’ motivation in learning English encouraged our teachers to offer them extra time to learn English after classes finish – BUT they would have to come down to EBPP staff rooms in Ban office. It was then a wonderful surprise when, without prior notification, EBPP’s Manikaji and Darmaji students came the 5 and 7 kilometres respectively to EBPP Ban office last Thursday, 16th May! They committed and agreed to study after school ended and hopefully their English language skills will rapidly improve.

Many thanks to our GlobalGiving donors for supporting our teachers in our mission. By developing and creating different teaching methodology we as teachers are able to give the children the best start in life. Adapting curricula that work for the children helps them to enjoy learning and we hope they will continue to learn throughout their life.