If you have ever heard the word Madrassah, I am sure it carries a nasty connotation - maybe Saudi funding schools in the third world with the idea of creating terrorists.
My boss was planning to visit a Madrassah today for outreach and asked if I wanted to come along. I am always game so of course I said yes. Since it was Saturday, Tom wanted to come along, and, since Tom was coming, her husband Thomas also joined us.
We headed off at 8 AM for our two hour drive into the country. The setting was quite lovely, high in the hills with terraced rice padis trailing down the slopes. I have long known that Madrassah is a generic word for Islamic school, and, although this school has Madrassah in its name, it is more correctly known as a "peasanteren" which means Islamic boarding school. We were visiting to prepare the students to take the TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language)in a couple of weeks. It was impressive to learn that the entire senior class would be taking the test, which, by the way, strikes terror into the hearts of most Indonesian students. It was even more impressive to learn that 98% of the students would go on to college.
After the initial greetings, we were ushered into a sitting area in the principal's home. (shoes off folks) We sat on the floor and were served tea, steamed cassava, peanuts and a local type of sweet potato. The principal grimaced when I tried to shake his hand and gave me a sort of no touch handshake. I know Muslim men are not supposed to touch women unrelated to them, but in all my years of living in Muslim countries, this was only the third time I have had any problem, and the other two were in Iran. (One of those told me he would be happy to shake my hand in private, but since we were in a public place, he'd rather not.)
The principal's English was very good and we pressed him on the source of the funding. The students pay $80 per month for tuition, room, and board, which is quite a bit of money in this part of the world. But he said a wealthy Indonesian had started a foundation which gave them a lot of support. He allowed as how there were some donations from abroad, but that is as far as we got into any possible Saudi funding. There are 600 students in grades 10-12. They get three days off every two months and otherwise study 7 days a week, with a three week summer break. They compress the normal three year high school curriculum into two years so they have an additional year for more advanced studies. For the two years previous to this, they had Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETA) assigned to the school and were very interested in getting another one.
We went off to meet the students in a new classroom building ( there is also a new mosque under construction). Boys and girls, in uniforms, were seated on separate sides of the large room. After introductions we started to show the video which we use to show about college life in the US. Not sure if I have mentioned this, but my boss uses the Ohio State video because she likes it. We had technical problems and had video, but no sound, so I narrated the video. Tom did a short talk on the importance of knowing English in the global society today, whether it be science or business, or travel.
My boss talked about taking the test and then began the practice test. They had to listen to people speaking English and then answer questions about what they heard. Sometimes they listened to a cassette player and sometimes Tom and I read the script. The last part was picking out errors in sentences. All in all, pretty challenging.
After exchanging tests with other students and going over the answers, I tried to do a little Q&A. It's usually hard to get them asking anything and this was no different. I did get the common question from a female on what it would be like to wear the hijab on a college campus. After we wrapped up, then(!) they all came up and wanted pictures, or asked questions. One guy wanted my autograph! Tom got besieged by a group of chemistry students preparing for the chemistry Olympiad. There was a very chatty boy who had lived for a year in Oregon as an exchange student. He wants to go back to the US for college, but thought it rained too much in Portland.
We finally got the four of us corralled and thought we were going, but found out we were invited for lunch. We had the lunch in an open-sided pavilion with the two English teachers and the principal. (Also a cat which kept sneaking onto the pavilion.) We sat on the ground (again!) and I can tell you that at our age, it is really rough. Also I was wearing my snuggest trousers which made it even more difficult. At one point Tom jumped to his feet and explained that he had a leg cramp.
The food was not bad, chicken, fish, rice, veggies. They did realize that we would prefer utensils to using our hands.
Once we started home, Thomas said if we didn't mind an extra hour travel time, we could take a more scenic way home. That was fine with us and we stopped at a very nice resort in the hills with lovely grounds we could stroll in. Then we did have a scenic drive, with one stop to buy some fruit from a roadside stand-avocados, mangosteens, and oranges. Back home by 5 PM.
So I hope I have given you a different idea about madrassahs. These students were like teenagers anywhere. They laughed a lot and teased the teachers and were even a bit sassy. I look forward to seeing them again when they come into our office to take the TOEFL in a few weeks. Maybe the ice has been broken a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment