This morning I got up bright an early so that I could accompany a young hard of hearing boy and his dad to school. Willem is eleven years old and until this school year had never before attended school. Willem’s dad, Ori (Oree) works for MAF as an assistant mechanic. Ori is a true blue Papuan from Sentani. When Willem was a little boy his parents took him to the doctor because they noticed that he couldn’t hear very well and one of his ears is somewhat deformed. The doctor looked at Willem and pronounced that they would have to go to Jakarta if they wanted to do anything for their son. Ori and his wife are simple people who live a very simple life in their tiny rented home and could never dream of having enough money to make the trip to Jakarta. So they just kept Willem at home with them. I neglected to ask exactly what prompted them to finally enroll him in the Sekola (school) Luar Biasa (out of the ordinary) for the deaf and hard of hearing. The school is located in Abepura, about a half hours drive by car away from Sentani. However, Ori and his wife don’t own a car and would never dream of owning one either. So each week day Willem and his mom take a taxi to his school. It can take them up to 2 hours before they are there! That is because the taxi’s here are more like a city bus, they have a route and they pick up whoever is by the side of the road and wants to ride along and they will stop at any point along their route to let people off.
Today is Saturday so Ori gives his wife a break and he goes along with his son. I drove them so they saved the cost of the transportation there for today; probably about 10,000 rupiahs ($1.10 CAD), which to them is a lot of money.
The school is actually 23 years old! I spoke with one teacher, who happens to live on the “campus”, and she has been there for 22 of those years. She said that there has been a lot of progress since the beginning. However, the only universities you can go to to study to be a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing are in places like Java. There is no education here in Papua for that sort of thing.
Since I’ve been here a while already, I thought that the school buildings were actually quite nice. They are rectangular buildings around a square inner courtyard. The school is also located right next to the main road with only a small parking lot in-between. There is no special lighting (just fluorescent tube lights here and there) or special wall panels to keep down noise or echo or tennis balls on the bottoms of the chairs to minimize the sound of scraping chairs... The outside walls are all concrete but many of the interior walls are made of plywood. There is one section for lower elementary where there are separate classrooms. For the higher classes, there is a long building with a high ceiling and plywood walls inside that do not nearly reach the ceiling. These walls divide the “class rooms” from eachother. So one class could in theory here the teacher of another class “yelling” at her students. (some of the teachers spoke quite loudly to their students) I don’t think it really matters though as none of the children in this school wear hearing aids. There is no audiologist and there are no hearing aids available on the island of Papua. The school has some type of FM systems that they use when teaching children with residual hearing how to properly enunciate words. I suggested that the children should always use these systems but there simply aren’t enough of them to go around in spite of the fact that there are only a few students per class. There is in the courtyard a badminton court and in one of the buildings there is a pingpong table. Behind the high school building is a tiny playground with a slide and teeter totter.
I observed Willem’s kindergarten class for a while. There are four students. I think that three of them are either deaf or extremely hard of hearing. The teacher was new and so she didn’t really know the capabilities of her students yet. She was hitting a large Chinese gong and if they heard the sound they had to bounce their balls. She kept score on the blackboard as to who “heard” and who didn’t. I often saw them watching each other so I wondered at the effectiveness of that exercise. She had them say the words bola (ball) and gong and then the numbers 1-4. Only Willem moved his mouth exactly the right way only he was too shy to actually use his voice box. The other children required help such as feeling the teachers voice box and putting their hands in front of their mouths to get the letter “s” right. I found the teacher talked quite a bit and the kids wouldn’t have picked up any of it. However, by the end she did have most of them saying “bola” and “ada”(there is) fairly well.
Then I went on to the next class and visited with a bunch of teenagers who didn’t seem to have a teacher. They were mostly hanging around and making beaded eggs. They are on the photo with me. Afterward a few of them asked me for my cell phone number. I gave it. Three of them have already smsed me… What I discovered fairly quickly is that they do some signing at this school, although the focus is on speaking and reading lips. The sign language that they use seemed fairly similar to ASL (American Sign Language). I asked them what the sign for “father” was. You use your pointer finger and draw a mustache on your upper lip. This is a cultural difference between ASL and the Indonesian version. Quite cute I thought.
I visited a few other classes, some with only one student. Some of them were learning to read, others were learning about the different kinds of sentences, and one guy was doing a science workbook. As we are in the month of Ramadan, the school only operates for 2 hours on Saturdays and some of the students didn’t attend because they are fasting. I met a Papuan girl who told me that she can hear a tiny bit with one ear and she spoke with a very high pitched tone. In the photo she is sewing something. There is either sewing or computers for kids her age, depending on how smart they are. I guess the school decided that she wasn’t smart enough for computers so she is learning to sew. Recently this girl competed in an athletics competition for disabled athletes from all over Indonesia. This event is held once every four years. She placed third in the 100 meters, second in the 200 meters and fourth in the 400 meters. According to the teacher she is a “luar biasa” runner. I asked the teacher if this girl could go on being an athlete and she said that after high school she will probably go to a special organization for girls with disabilities and learn a trade. There is no such organization here for boys, only one for girls. So I guess no athletics in her future…
Then I met Charles. Charles is a university educated Chinese-Indonesian deaf man who really, really wants a cochlear implant. He was asking me all kinds of questions about them and if adults can get them and if he could hear the piano if he had one. Then he asked me how much it costs… Mostly he typed out his questions in Notepad with great speed. He is the computer teacher at the school only right now there are no students ready to learn the computer. We communicated for a fair bit in his dimly lit corner of the school. I really feel for people like Charles because as long as they are here, they will not have the opportunity to hear.
I am thankful that there is at least a school here that kids like Willem can attend where they can learn to communicate. And the teachers seem to really care about the kids and helping them. The school uses the MMR (Metode Marternal Reflektif) way of teaching. They observe the childs body language and expressions and then ask the child why they are saying or doing whatever it is they are saying or doing. I’ve never heard of this before so I’m curious if anyone in a Western country has heard about this. If you have, please comment!
I would love to help Willem out and get him some kind of amplifying device. As one of his ears is somewhat deformed, I’m not sure if he needs a bone conductor or a hearing aid. I’m afraid we’d need to go to Jakarta to find that out for sure….
Today is Saturday so Ori gives his wife a break and he goes along with his son. I drove them so they saved the cost of the transportation there for today; probably about 10,000 rupiahs ($1.10 CAD), which to them is a lot of money.
The school is actually 23 years old! I spoke with one teacher, who happens to live on the “campus”, and she has been there for 22 of those years. She said that there has been a lot of progress since the beginning. However, the only universities you can go to to study to be a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing are in places like Java. There is no education here in Papua for that sort of thing.
Since I’ve been here a while already, I thought that the school buildings were actually quite nice. They are rectangular buildings around a square inner courtyard. The school is also located right next to the main road with only a small parking lot in-between. There is no special lighting (just fluorescent tube lights here and there) or special wall panels to keep down noise or echo or tennis balls on the bottoms of the chairs to minimize the sound of scraping chairs... The outside walls are all concrete but many of the interior walls are made of plywood. There is one section for lower elementary where there are separate classrooms. For the higher classes, there is a long building with a high ceiling and plywood walls inside that do not nearly reach the ceiling. These walls divide the “class rooms” from eachother. So one class could in theory here the teacher of another class “yelling” at her students. (some of the teachers spoke quite loudly to their students) I don’t think it really matters though as none of the children in this school wear hearing aids. There is no audiologist and there are no hearing aids available on the island of Papua. The school has some type of FM systems that they use when teaching children with residual hearing how to properly enunciate words. I suggested that the children should always use these systems but there simply aren’t enough of them to go around in spite of the fact that there are only a few students per class. There is in the courtyard a badminton court and in one of the buildings there is a pingpong table. Behind the high school building is a tiny playground with a slide and teeter totter.
I observed Willem’s kindergarten class for a while. There are four students. I think that three of them are either deaf or extremely hard of hearing. The teacher was new and so she didn’t really know the capabilities of her students yet. She was hitting a large Chinese gong and if they heard the sound they had to bounce their balls. She kept score on the blackboard as to who “heard” and who didn’t. I often saw them watching each other so I wondered at the effectiveness of that exercise. She had them say the words bola (ball) and gong and then the numbers 1-4. Only Willem moved his mouth exactly the right way only he was too shy to actually use his voice box. The other children required help such as feeling the teachers voice box and putting their hands in front of their mouths to get the letter “s” right. I found the teacher talked quite a bit and the kids wouldn’t have picked up any of it. However, by the end she did have most of them saying “bola” and “ada”(there is) fairly well.
Then I went on to the next class and visited with a bunch of teenagers who didn’t seem to have a teacher. They were mostly hanging around and making beaded eggs. They are on the photo with me. Afterward a few of them asked me for my cell phone number. I gave it. Three of them have already smsed me… What I discovered fairly quickly is that they do some signing at this school, although the focus is on speaking and reading lips. The sign language that they use seemed fairly similar to ASL (American Sign Language). I asked them what the sign for “father” was. You use your pointer finger and draw a mustache on your upper lip. This is a cultural difference between ASL and the Indonesian version. Quite cute I thought.
I visited a few other classes, some with only one student. Some of them were learning to read, others were learning about the different kinds of sentences, and one guy was doing a science workbook. As we are in the month of Ramadan, the school only operates for 2 hours on Saturdays and some of the students didn’t attend because they are fasting. I met a Papuan girl who told me that she can hear a tiny bit with one ear and she spoke with a very high pitched tone. In the photo she is sewing something. There is either sewing or computers for kids her age, depending on how smart they are. I guess the school decided that she wasn’t smart enough for computers so she is learning to sew. Recently this girl competed in an athletics competition for disabled athletes from all over Indonesia. This event is held once every four years. She placed third in the 100 meters, second in the 200 meters and fourth in the 400 meters. According to the teacher she is a “luar biasa” runner. I asked the teacher if this girl could go on being an athlete and she said that after high school she will probably go to a special organization for girls with disabilities and learn a trade. There is no such organization here for boys, only one for girls. So I guess no athletics in her future…
Then I met Charles. Charles is a university educated Chinese-Indonesian deaf man who really, really wants a cochlear implant. He was asking me all kinds of questions about them and if adults can get them and if he could hear the piano if he had one. Then he asked me how much it costs… Mostly he typed out his questions in Notepad with great speed. He is the computer teacher at the school only right now there are no students ready to learn the computer. We communicated for a fair bit in his dimly lit corner of the school. I really feel for people like Charles because as long as they are here, they will not have the opportunity to hear.
I am thankful that there is at least a school here that kids like Willem can attend where they can learn to communicate. And the teachers seem to really care about the kids and helping them. The school uses the MMR (Metode Marternal Reflektif) way of teaching. They observe the childs body language and expressions and then ask the child why they are saying or doing whatever it is they are saying or doing. I’ve never heard of this before so I’m curious if anyone in a Western country has heard about this. If you have, please comment!
I would love to help Willem out and get him some kind of amplifying device. As one of his ears is somewhat deformed, I’m not sure if he needs a bone conductor or a hearing aid. I’m afraid we’d need to go to Jakarta to find that out for sure….
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