Field Trip with SMKN 6

This past Tuesday I was invited to accompany some of the tenth grade SMKN 6 students on a field trip to several museums. The students are studying tourism so it was not only a fun outing but a chance for them to check out some sites that tourists from other countries may frequent when visiting Jogja. The first stop was a sort of science and history museum for people of all ages. It had a dinosaur exhibit, batik exhibit, gamelan exhibit, and several other exhibits about famous physicists and other scientists.

All of the exhibit explanations were in Indonesian, but I was able to catch on to some things and Bu Sari helped explain other things to me : )     Below, some SMK 6 students check out how a helicopter works.

Everytime I turned around I was asked to take pictures with the students, but I didn't mind at all! They are all super friendly and I am happy that they use English to ask me and to converse with me outside of class. Several students from other schools even asked to take a picture with me at the museums as well.

                Note my new Batik dress... everyone wears Batik here and Jogja is a great place to find just about any kind of Batik object you could imagine!

The museum also included a section about Indonesia's natural resources with emphasis on oil supplies. Also there were areas where students could interactively see how an airplane flies or read about other common vehicles in Indonesia, such as the motorbikes that many people own. Motorbikes are a relatively "Green" and cheap alternative to cars and the majority of people, from students to teachers, ride motorbikes to school.

The second museum we visited was a history museum that included displays of momentous events throughout Indonesia's history. It was pretty dark in this museum so I did not take many pictures, but I thought this old typewriter was pretty sweet. Dedicated to Brett and Christian:

The school field trip was a lot of fun. It is nice to interact with students outside of the classroom, even though they are technically still in class they seem more willing to try out their English and it is very motivating for me! It is certainly a challenge to get the students to talk inside of the classroom so I truly value experiences like these that are both informative for both sides and also create a more easy-going atmosphere for language exchange.   

For those of you who don't know, Yogyakarta is always incredibly warm so I am usually tired and sweaty at the end of the day. The picture above is a few children enjoying the warm weather outside the musem in a fountain.

Though getting the students to talk is always a challenge, especially inside the classroom, I am really motivated after outings such as this. Everyone honestly is incredibly nice and respectful and it makes me feel comfortable, safe, and at home. Jogja and it's people are making me feel very lucky!