Immersion to Brisbane to Broaden Minds
Tuesday March 14th 2023Nothing to say but “alhamdulillah” that finally, Al Azhar 55 could make one of its biggest dreams true this year, i.e. carrying out an immersion program. The long-awaited program was dedicated to grades 5-6 students, for them to learn about different perspectives by putting themselves in the shoe of their counterparts in another country.
After some considerations, Brisbane, Australia, was picked to be the destination. It is in an English speaking country, it has developed education system, and it is not so far away from Indonesia. It was also quite a good luck for us that despite the planned “field trip” by the co-working travel agent, we had a chance to add a place to visit due to one of the teachers’ acquaintance. It was Mayfield State School. Thus, students had a chance to visit two schools, i.e. Mayfield State School and Australian International Islamic College (AIIC).
In both Mayfield State School and AIIC, students and the accompanying teachers “attended” the activities e.g. learning in the classroom, playing in the break time, and eating snacks from the schools’ canteen. They could even have Jumuah prayer together at the AIIC. Aside from that, at Mayfield, they were given an opportunity to perform Javanese traditional games such as “Cublak-Cublak Suweng”. Even Ms. Vita, one of the accompanying teachers, explained that Mayfield students looked very interested in the games that it made her touched. She added that our students learned so much about respect and appreciation from them.
Aside from the schools, they also visited two universities, i.e. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and The University of Queensland (UQ). There they met some Persatuan Pelajar Indonesia members and had some discussion on how to be part of the universities and toured around the campuses. Sitting in a lecture room in each university, they felt the vibes of university life. Even better, when they were at QUT, they watched the history of technology development and simulation of chemical reactions. Such a scientific expereience, wasn’t it?
Last but not least, other than visiting education institutions and getting involved in some activities, the participants had a tour of public places such as Goald Coast Beach, Movie World-Wonder Bross, Mt. Coot-tha Summit Lookout, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Museum of Brisbane, and Queensland Street Mall. One of the highlights when touring these places was that at lunch time, they once had an opportunity to buy some stuff themselves using the Australian Dollars. It was truly an irreplaceable experience to interact with locals using English in an English-speaking community. Reality, they could “survive” with the skills they have instilled in themselves.
All and all, this immersion has been one of the significantly contributing aspects to the cultivation of students and teachers’ open-mindidness and global-mindedness. Although only 21 students and 2 teachers took part, the program gave them invaluable experience which is hoped to broaden their minds. Then, sharing it with the other school members is hoped to “ripple” the impact on them.