SEA TEACHER : Shaping Indonesia Future Educators 👩🏻🏫
- VENUS ZAUHAIR
- Mar 13
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 14
What an amazing experience I've had! I never imagined that I would learn and be able to share my experiences through a Symposium event. During my time as an undergraduate student in Indonesia, there were very few opportunities to participate in Symposium activities like this. The SEAMEO-UT Symposium is held annually, focusing on themes that address the needs and emerging challenges in teacher education between Japan and Southeast Asia. The 13th Symposium will focus on the needs of Japan and the Southeast Asian region through the relevant theme of “Transforming Education to Problem-based Learning in the Era of AI and Data Sciences.”
The event was held for 2 days, on February 6-7, 2025. There I met many professors and lecturers from various countries, it was a very valuable experience because I could learn a lot from them. Also on the second day of the symposium, on February 7, 2025. SEA-Teacher participants had the opportunity to share their experiences during this program, we started by sharing the benefits and difficulties we faced during this program.
“SEA-Teacher was beneficial for me to enhance my experience to teaching, i was never teach in front of the real students in Indonesia this experience will be my first and can be inspired me to teach when I was in Indonesia later and learn what the best way to teaching in Japan so later can be adapted when i was going to teach the students in Indonesia, so it will be also beneficial for my future career.
It's not only about teaching about science, but also about becoming a homeroom teacher. In Indonesia, we have a homeroom teacher, but there is no session where we can meet them every morning and every afternoon. So it's really inspiring to me, the homeroom session makes the teacher have a really good bonding with their students. This is not only to learn about the teaching or pedagogical things, but also learn about culture in Japan, and be able to meet a lot of great people and learn also from the people.
I was going to teach Biology, and the teacher gave me the chance to explain about the Ecosystem in Indonesia. Since Indonesia has a lot of Biodiversity it was really fun to teach and give a new insight to the students about my country.
The challenges that i might face is because i don't really have much experience teaching in front of the real students in Indonesia, i still have to learn more and search for the best way of teaching. But it is such an honour that I can join this SEA-Teacher program to help me learn and search for the best way of teaching and hopefully in the future it will shape me into becoming a greater educator.”
I shared these points in the forum, hoping that many people listening and watching could learn about and be inspired to participate in the SEA-Teacher program.
After the valuable experience of the Symposium at the University of Tsukuba Tokyo Campus, on February 15, 2025 another opportunity to be able to share the SEA-Teacher program experience as well as Indonesian culture at the Senior High School at Sakado, University of Tsukuba (UTSS) Research Forum. When we first arrived at Sakado, we were informed that there would be a Research Forum on that date and we were given the opportunity to present a poster and later present on that day.
I remember Galuh and I worked hard to make the poster with the help of the teachers at UTSS when we needed help with the printing! Galuh and I did a lot of brainstorming so that our presentation could attract many people to come and discuss with us at the Research Forum event.
When the day of the Research Forum arrived, I was both excited and a little nervous. But luckily the day went really well! A lot of teachers from other schools, parents, and even students were interested to come and see and discuss with us about the SEA-Teacher program and Indonesian culture. Many of them asked 'Why did you choose to go to Japan for this SEA-Teacher program?', 'Is there a difference between Indonesian students and Japanese students?' and even 'I wish I could go to Indonesia, try the delicious food and go to the nice places there!' from the people that visit our poster. It feels really good to be able to share something useful to many people, and also to improve my ability to communicate well and be confident in talking to many people.
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