Yogasmara Special Needs School

Well, here it is folks.  The halfway mark.  I've been in Indonesia for exactly six months, and will be here for roughly another six.  In my past six blog posts, I've tried to paint for you, my lovely audience, a picture of various aspects of this country.  I've talked about the weather, the traffic, the food, the customs, the weddings, the volcanoes, the motorbikes, and so on.  However, I've yet to touch on much of my personal life, or my project here in Semarang.  I figure that's kind of important, seeing as it's the entire reason I'm here.  So, today, I want to tell you about the school where I work, Yogasmara Special Needs School.

Field trip to a train museum

It's a very small school; we only have about 20 students.  The most we ever have at one time, however, is eleven.  That's because we have eleven for the first two hours of the morning.  Other students come at 10:00 for two hours, or at 1:00 for one hour, or only on Tuesdays and Fridays.  The students range in age from about five years old to sixteen, but the majority of them are between five and ten. 

Now, I've never worked with kids in a scenario like this before.  Sure, I've been a camp councilor, but this is my first time teaching in a school, and especially my first time working with this particular population.  Most of our kids are diagnosed autistic.  I don't know how other special needs schools run in America, or even in Semarang, but this is the way our program works.  Ideally, there is a 1-1 ratio of teachers to students.  That way, each teacher spends an hour at a time with one student, and is able to work on their specific goals.  There are two parts of the program: occupational therapy and  behavioral intervention therapy.  

Occupational therapy is designed to hone gross motor skills; in other words it involves physical activity and moving around.  Different kids have different abilities, but a lot of them do activities like climbing a ladder, bouncing on a trampoline, crawling, hopping, throwing a ball, and pushing a wheelbarrow.  Also included in this section is a certain type of massage that we give to the kids’ arms and legs.  I have found this to be a nice, calming way to start the day.  I usually sing or whistle to the kids while I do it, it keeps me attentive, and most of them seem to enjoy it. 

Behavioral intervention therapy involves mental learning and fine motor skills.  This part of the program varies dramatically with each child.  Some are learning to recognize letters, or colors or animals.  Some practice picking up and moving beans with large tweezers.  Others trace lines and patterns or numbers and letters.  A common task in many of their programs is to learn to match items that are the same, like a doll or a pencil.  Some of the kids practice ripping paper, or balling it up, or cutting it with scissors.  A few of them have personal skills built into their program, like learning to wash a dish, sweep the floor, button their shirt, or put on sunglasses.  We guide the children in different ways, depending on what's necessary.  Sometimes it's verbally, sometimes it's physically.  Sometimes they have to watch what we do and imitate that.  It all depends on the child’s capability, and where they are in their development.  As they progress, some of the activities require a growth in difficulty.  So perhaps instead of choosing between two different items to match the identical one, they have to choose between three, and later four.  Or once they learn to cut the paper along the line straight across, then they learn to cut it diagonally.  Sometimes the progression is quick, and it only takes them a few days to learn a new letter.  Sometimes not so much, and that particular activity spans several weeks.  Usually, if a few months pass and we see no progression, we change the program and try something different.  Having been here for half a year, I've seen both cases happen.  Fortunately, it is more common to have a gradual progression and then see recognition after maybe a few weeks of constant practice.  This, of course, that's always very encouraging, for both the teachers and the students. 

And sometimes we just play Snakes and Ladders

So, having explained how the school day works, let me introduce you to some of the students.  Obviously this won’t be all of them, but these are the kids I interact with the most on a weekly basis.

First, we have Rara.  Rara is usually very quiet, and very compliant.  She is non-verbal, so she doesn’t say much, but sometimes she’ll make a sort of vocal rhythm, like her own version of beat-boxing.  Sometimes she’ll even do a stomp pattern along with it.  I like to think she has music in her head, and occasionally lets us in on it too.

Then we have Veno.  Veno is one of our most active students.  He loves running around and investigating pretty much everything there is to investigate.  If there’s something he can pick up or move or open or shift or pull or push, he’s on it.  He’s also developed a fascination with my digital watch.  I’ll set it to the stopwatch mode, so that it beeps when he hits the center button.  He gets so happy when he does it that it’s like he hits the lottery over and over and over (and over) again.

This is Anang.  Anang is one of our oldest students.  He is extremely friendly, and very often wears a huge grin.  He knows everybody’s name and will always greet you repeatedly.

Next there’s Didi.  Didi is also a very happy child.  He’s also very affectionate; sitting on laps is one of his favorite pastimes.  He loves to giggle, even when he knows he’s in trouble.  Pretty much everything makes him giggle, actually.

This little girl is Nadia.  Nadia is one of the students with whom I have one of the best relationships.  When I first arrived, she was very shy, and wouldn’t even lift her head off her desk when I came into the room.  Then one day she climbed onto the see-saw, and I started bouncing her up and down.  Since then, we’ve developed a great rapport, and she’s always willing to come with me, even if she wants to keep swinging.

Finally, we have Bagus.  “Bagus” means “very good” or “excellent” in Indonesian.  There are indeed times where he holds to his namesake, sitting very quietly, repeating whatever you say, or doing his vocab words.  Other times, he somehow gets super-charged with energy and cannot contain it.  He explodes into a flurry of energy, which while making a big mess, is also kind of hilarious.

So, that’s a sample view of my school, and my daily life.  It has plenty of challenges, but also plenty of learning experiences.  I promised myself I would step out of my comfort zone by coming to Indonesia, and do something I’ve never done before, and I certainly have done that.  And I’m also learning about myself and the rest of humanity in a way that may not have been possible anywhere else.