Project News

In the new target sites of Lesson Study, the 5th School Management Trainings were conducted at each site from the end of May through the beginning of June. Principals’ understanding on Lesson Study is indispensable for teachers to implement Lesson Study activities at their schools and attend MGMP (Subject Teacher Training Forum). Thus, in PELITA, School Management Trainings have been conducted, targeting all principals in the new sites to facilitate them understanding what Lesson Study is, what good lessons are, and how to implement Lesson Study. In the 5th School Management Trainings, principals themselves had a reflection after observing an open class. In addition, the JICA Expert, Mr. Suzuki, a former junior high school teacher, had a presentation on “What does a principal can do to make teachers happy in teaching”.

As this was already the 5th training, it became clear that some principals show strong interests on Lesson Study, and some do not. This is natural because Lesson Study is just one of the approaches to improve the quality of education, thus, it deserves high praise that many principals join the training enthusiastically, give financial support for their teachers to join MGMP Lesson Study activities, and try to start School-based Lesson Study at their schools. This is a result that Education Departments at each district have been making an earnest effort to improve the quality of education through Lesson Study and their strong policy has reached to each principal.

Well, how about principals’ skills on observing a class and reflection? Are they improving? Except some principals in Padang, their manner in observing a class is getting better and better. This is evidence that many more principals started to understand what and how to see inside a class. When they notice they need to carefully observe children’s learning process in a class, they start observing in detail, visiting all groups in the classroom. Principals who do not understand what “observing a class” means soon get bored and go outside of a classroom or start chatting with others. In the reflection, many of them were able to make comments based on what students were doing in the class, such as “XX was fully concentrated in the class activities”, “XX could not solve this problem”, and “XX and XX discussed each other and solve a problem cooperatively”. However, most of the comments stop at the level of mentioning the fact, and cannot go further level of reflecting why that fact happened and how to improve that situation so that they can actually improve the next lessons. JICA Experts facilitate them to think what they would do if they themselves were the model teacher.

For principals in Indonesia, it is a great concern how Japanese teachers conduct daily classes and the reasons for Japanese children having high academic achievement. So, a presentation by Mr. Suzuki, JICA Expert who has experience as a teacher in Japan fascinated the principals. He advised as followings.

• Give teachers the thoughts or advise by joining daily classes informally. LS is not necessarily through formal open classes.
• When evaluating a class, take a close look at whether the teacher includes activities and ideas to accomplish the target of the lesson based on the actual attitude and characteristics of children.
• Make a good atmosphere in the teachers’ room that they can naturally discuss students and lessons.
• Make a good atmosphere so that teachers can visit the principal room to consult without hesitation.
• Envisage and share the vision among all teachers on what they hope their students would be.

Encouraged by the presentation based on the real experience, principals raised frank questions such as; “We have elder teachers who do not have motivation anymore, and there are also young teachers who are not good enough yet in teaching. What should I do?”, and “I tried to visit daily classes and give them advice, but teachers said don’t do that. What should I do?”

Principals observing a physics class in Banjarbaru City.

Reflection by principals in North Minahasa District.

Principals discussing what principals can do to improve the quality of classes.