Curriculum links
Asia and Australia's Engagement with Asia is one of the cross-curriculum priorities. Use the link to explore some of the following questions.
Some key questions might be:
- What do my students learn about Indonesian history or geography outside of my classroom?
- What (if any) Indonesian texts are used by other teachers in teaching literacy or English? What images do they present of Indonesia? Are students getting a wide range of perspectives?
- What do my students learn of the traditional and contemporary arts of Indonesia? Of music, film, visual arts etc?
- Are there topics or approaches (e.g., to literacy) that could be shared?
- How are other teachers teaching about Intercultural Understandings?
- What’s the best way to generate change?
Implementing change
Start small. Teachers are dealing with a lot of change. The introduction of a great new picture story book for primary students, or a film set in Indonesia for secondary students might be a good starting point. You could give the history teacher a set of useful resources or provide the art teacher with a great website.
Find out what your colleagues’ interests are. Many teachers have been to Indonesia and/or have a specific interest in an aspect of Indonesian culture.
Building confidence in teaching about Indonesia
Many teachers have had little experience in their own education of learning about Indonesia or other countries in Asia. Many lack confidence that they know enough about Indonesian society or history and feel they may make mistakes. Sometimes the subject matter feels very foreign or ‘political’. How can you help with this?
- Ensure that the school has a range of high quality resources about Indonesia.
- Consider developing a sister school partnership so that relationships can build.
- Nothing beats personal experience. Study tours and/or visits to Indonesia have been a real catalyst for changing attitudes and curriculum in many schools.
Teaching resources
Some regularly updated websites include the Asia Education Foundation: Indonesia Resources and Education about Asia.
Indonesian Lesson Plans offers lesson plans across topics such as Hinduism, Indonesian music, Indonesian culture for students in primary and secondary schools. Teacher Reflections is a blog by a teacher of Indonesian language which provides links to topics across the curriculum. Teachable Indonesia: Grades K-8 provides ideas for a range of teaching topics. Distance learning resources: Explore Indonesia is from Asia New Zealand Foundation.
Geography
- Poster of Indonesia
- AGTA: Units of study: Geography (K-6) includes units of work that have a focus on Indonesia as one of Australia’s closest neighbours, environmental change in Borneo, and a unit on children in different places.
- Using geography thought provokers is designed to support students to think critically about what is relevant when answering a question or looking at an issue. It uses examples related to Indonesia.
- Deforestation of Rainforest in Australia and Sumatra These learning experiences help develop an understanding of the causes and consequences of human-induced environmental change in Australia and Sumatra that is challenging sustainability.
- Deforestation Research Assignment
- Environmental Issue: Deforestation in Indonesian Borneo
- Foreign Correspondent: Bali - tourism and development
- The Art of Growing Rice
- We live in a diverse world: Indonesia (Years 6—10)
- Rice growing across the Asia region
The Arts
- Art Turns. World Turns This Education Resource Kit provides classroom activities and information about Indonesian artists as well as significant historic events and themes.
- Contemporary Worlds Indonesia is an Indonesian language and Art Secondary school education resource.
- The art of south and southeast Asia provides useful background reading for teachers.
- Teaching Modern and Contemporary Asian Art Find classroom activities and information about artists from China, Indonesia and other Asian countries.
- Wayang puppet plays
- Understanding traditional shadow puppetry
- The classroom gamelan
- Get into gamelan
What can I do with this information?
Spread the word. You don’t have to work in isolation and you don’t have to do all the work. Teachers appreciate high-quality resources that are linked to the curriculum. Share these resources with other teachers in your school. Talk to your school librarian. Look at ways to integrate the learning, being mindful that every teacher feels that they have too much to fit into their existing curriculum.