Sharing About Environmental Educations With Teachers at 2 Schools

Surabaya- Today there were scheduled another two presentations regarding Environmental Education taking place at two separate schools in Surabaya. The first presentation in the morning was taking place at SDN Pagesangan. Honestly speaking, this school was a big surprise right from the beginning. Immediately after my arrival, this school organized a truly warm invitation ceremony, a group of students were singing Indonesian songs together with another group of students dancing traditional Indonesian dance. All these arrangements were just in honour of our arrival. It was definitely the most beautiful welcoming ceremony I have ever witnessed, it was very warm hearted, honest and very well prepared, all resulting in such an exquisite feeling. These guys at this school just made my day, no doubts.

After a short preparation phase such as getting computers, overhead projector and appropriate equipment ready, we moved into the room where all this presentation was taking place. Another surprise that I experienced as soon as I appeared in this room was how beautifully decorated the room was. Everything was very clean and neat, decorated tables with even more beautiful tablecloths with a glass of water on it, decorated chairs, glasses and even plates with some refreshments were decorated as well. My audience was even nicer and well behaved, these teachers were obviously hungry to obtain some knowledge and hence their frequent questions were very welcome.

The entire presentation was going in a smooth way and was concluded by a group discussion. These teachers who came from other schools from the whole district enjoyed this presentation and hopefully the knowledge gained will help them develop similar techniques in their schools where they are employed. Besides this presentation, during my tour around this school I was really pleased to observe how they planted many flowers around the pathways or windows. Everything was very clean and neat again. I guess that to look after these plants is a students’ responsibility, which represents a great commitment to them and teaches them to be sensitive to our environment. A compulsory concluding moment of this 3,5-hour presentation consisted of tons of group photos and contacts exchanging. I do not hesitate to state, that this school was definitely the best one I have given a presentation to throughout my entire internship here in Indonesia. One huge thing I regret though is that I forgot my camera in the office.

The second school where our “environmental education” tour continued was the smallest ECO School in Surabaya called SDN Petemon 13. Our presented topic was exactly the same, however with a different audience. These teachers were to a certain extent not interested in the topic and their non-interests were clearly tangible throughout the entire atmosphere in the presenting room. They really behaved like naughty students; it was actually nice to see that irrespective of our nature, age or job position, in our deep soles we are going to be kids forever. I even had to remind them that somebody was making such effort to give them this presentation and they could pay attention until it finishes.

Well, after this little remind they managed to pay attention and reduce their naughty talks whist my presentation. This audience was not as well behaved as the one in the morning school and it was also reflected in their inability answer my questions and also to ask me questions. The morning school asked me investigative, descriptive and informative questions, whereas the afternoon school asked such primitive and simple question just to tick this objective off. When I finished my presentation, I did not hesitate to inform them that their behavior was inappropriate and if there is any other workshop at this school, they had better change their behavior. This interest has to come from both sides and therefore necessary cooperation has to be in place.

When this day was coming to an end, Michael and me were driven to my place, where we could visit the Royal Plaza Supermall. We just wanted to roam around aimlessly and have some great food. This day represented great success in terms of the morning presentation, however big failure in terms of the afternoon presentation. The former happened in such a friendly environment that literally pleased me, however the latter was taking place in a slightly hostile environment, where these teachers were not much interested in what is going on in the world regarding environmental education. Hopefully there will be more presentations at schools like the one today in the morning. It pushes me to be even more responsible for my presentation.