Teacher Post

Here is a short story that provides a recent example of why I love my students here at IAIN.

Yesterday, during my Cross-Cultural Understanding class, I passed around the attendance sheet that every student signs. They sign once, for that meeting, and if they're absent, well, of course, they don't sign it. This allows me to monitor who's coming to class and who's not.

I got back after class and noticed that everyone had signed twice, for two meetings, which was weird. Also, students who I knew to be absent had also had their names signed. This kind of annoyed me, since the students KNOW they can't sign for their friends. So, I left a slightly angry post on the class Facebook page, basically saying, "Why did you do this? Explain yourselves."

The next day, a group of six students from that class showed up outside my office, and waited half an hour, until I'd finished teaching, to explain. They'd been confused about how many days to sign, because of the midterm last week. They also admitted to signing their absent friends' names, because they didn't want their friends' grades to go down. I reminded them that they weren't allowed to do this, and they all said they were sorry and wouldn't do it again.

I suppose this story doesn't sound so impressive to the casual observer, but I found the students' honesty  surprising and refreshing. Even though they'd broken the rules by signing for their friends, they didn't lie about it. And they came to me directly, rather than trying to answer on Facebook.

This is one of the ways that teaching in Indonesia has been really gratifying. I am really going to miss these students.