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BANYUMAS: The Long Awaited Training
It seems that the MBE partners schools have been waiting a long time for the fourth training package. When the fourth round of training took place this September it was like a breath of fresh air. The training consisted of two parts: SBM and Community Participation training for school principals, committee members and teachers as well as PAKEM training for school principals and teachers.
The SBM and community participation training took place from 11 - 14 September 2006 for the two partner subdistricts. The PAKEM training took place from 18 - 23 September 2006. The training aroused the enthusiasm of the participants from the schools to make changes.
Both the facilitators and the participants were active during the training. The school supervisors were very active in discussions. The participants always displayed the notes of their discussions, so that they could be seen and read by the other participants, in the hope that they would receive advice and criticism.
English Teachers Working Group (KKG) in Kebasen
On 5 September an English teachers working group meeting took place to which a native speaker was invited, namely Stuart Weston, the MBE program director. The aim of this activity was to have the opportunity to listen and take part in conversations in English language with a native speaker.
About 40 English teachers from primary and junior secondary schools in Kebasen Subdistrict attended the meeting. The participants were very enthusiastic and asked for these kinds of activities to happen more often. We hope will be able to get assistance from MBE on another occasion to invite another native speaker.
This activity was the initiative of Bpk Misbach (photo below right), the leader of the English Teachers Working Group. Bpk Misbach is a teacher (in fact he's now become a school principal) committed to English becoming a subject of choice, especially for primary school students.
Some time ago, Bpk Misbach invited his pupils to practice their English by taking them to Yogyakarta. He hoped the pupils would have the opportunity to practice their English skills with tourists in the city. In the picture top Bpk Misbach's students can be seen practicing English in front of the participants of the teachers working group meeting.
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SD Bentul Has Yet More Visitors
On Saturday, 16 September 2006 in the middle of the fourth training in SBM, Community Participation and PAKEM, SDN Bentul received two study visits at the same time. 57 participants came from SDN Lubang Kidul, Butuh Sub-district in Purworejo and 100 from Karang Moncol Subdistrict in Purbalingga.
The participants included school principals, teachers, committee members, village heads and representatives of the Subdistrict and District Education Offices.
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Left: Ibu Suparni, a teacher at SDN Bentul and MBE facilitator, giving an explanation about KKG activities to the visitors from Karang Moncol Subdistrict.
Right: A school committee member from SDN Lubang Kidul having discussions with Bpk Aris, a school committee member from SDN Bentul
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SUKOHARJO: Mentoring in PAKEM
An important factor to be taken into account during training is the follow-up to the training, as the training alone is often insufficient to enable participants to implement the activities satisfactorily in their own schools.
Teachers who have taken part in the PAKEM training do not find it easy to apply what they have learned in the training without intensive mentoring from the district facilitators.
The Sukoharjo district facilitators are very aware of this part of their duties. They mentored in the MBE partner schools, shortly after the second round of PAKEM training. The mentoring activities took place with a great deal of enthusiasm and enjoyment.
This was because each time they did mentoring the facilitators acted as peers to the teachers that they were helping, so that no one felt they were being patronized or patronizing.
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Above: Ibu Endang Sulistyowati, a social studies facilitator having discussions with Pak Mulyono in the middle of his grade 3 students at SDN Pucangan 4 Kartasura, who are getting on with their work.
Below: Pak Wukir Purnomo, a science facilitator giving advice to Ibu Novi (center) during mentoring at SMPN 2 Kartasura.
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In many cases, the activities provided an opportunity for the teachers in MBE partner schools to exchange experiences. This included the teachers being mentored and the facilitators doing the mentoring. In this way each of the teachers will be encouraged to implement PAKEM in their schools.
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