Indonesia Reflection Information

Below is the simplified rubric for grading reflections while in Indonesia. Each reflection done in Indonesia is worth 10 points due to the reduced expectations. Length expectations are now loosely 1 page doubled spaced or equivalent if choosing comic, etc. Note that you can use the following approaches when completing reflection assignments:

• standard written entry - addressing the new simplified rubric

• poem with explanation of meaning/inspiration

• comic-book-style cartoon with captions AND 2 paragraph explanation

• unsent letter

• Interview reflection (interview does not need to be transcribed, only described & analyzed)

Reflection Prompts

1. Indonesia Week 1: Consider your first week in Indonesia. What has made the biggest impression on you so far? What aspects of the place/culture/experience have fit your expectations, and what aspects have challenged them?

2. Indonesia Week 2: What kinds of cultural differences have you observed so far between the Indonesian community at your study location (Philly) and Indonesian culture at you service locations (here in Indonesia)? Consider attitudes toward family, work/leisure, and community. Consider how historical and social circumstances may contribute to these different expressions of culture.

3. Indonesia Week 3: Describe your host family. Include names and ages of each family member, their professions, their pastimes, and descriptions of their personalities. How do they relate as a family? What are similarities and differences between your host family and your family of origin? What do you appreciate about your host family and what difficulties have you experienced with them so far?

4. Indonesia Week 4: Write about your service assignment: What do you think your service organization most appreciates about having you? How do you play into their mission or agenda? What may be the most difficult aspect for them in your being with them? What agenda of yours might not be compatible with theirs? What do you think is their impression of your country, your family, your education, your career plans, your personality, your culture and customs? What may be the rewards and challenges for you about your work assignment?

5. Indonesia Week 5: Write about someone you have come to know during your time. You may write about a family member, neighbor, or friend. Be sure to include plenty of historical background, description and detail so that the person comes to life on the page.

6. Indonesia Week 6: How do different groups (religious, social, economic, cultural, indigenous, etc.) in Indonesia relate to their natural environment? What attitudes do you see displayed in their behavior? Ask people you meet about their views of the environment. What kinds of solutions to environmental problems have been (or potentially could be) implemented? What kinds of thoughts/attitudes are you bringing to the conversation?

Philly Reflection Information

What is Reflective Writing and Why is it Important?

• What is reflective writing? How do you do it? What are others ways you can reflect?

• What is the purpose of reflection assignments? What about reflection in general?

• What do you really like and /or really find valuable about reflection?

• What are some things that you don't like and/or find challenging about reflection?

During our SST program each of us will gather a multitude of experiences and insights through classes, authentic field experiences, and learning community conversations around meals. Because of the integrated nature of SST, each week will be filled-to-the-brim with experiences that cut across multiple courses and challenge you to consider how your own sets of skills and values fit with your developing insights. Reflective writing is one tool we use to help you build your own scaffolding to understand your experiences while also taking a step back to evaluate and interrogate your own thoughts, feelings, and emerging ideas while you internalize your learning.

At the end of each week you will be given a prompt. These are what's called guided reflections - they lead us to think deeply around a certain topic or perspective while providing opportunity to synthesize multiple experiences (present and past). You are encouraged to keep a small reflection journal to use daily as you process new experiences and perspectives. Your formal reflection is to be handed in as a Google Doc via the website "homework portal" no later than Tuesday at 5:00PM. Reflections are usually about 1 page typed and are graded via the following 3 rubric topics:

_________________________________

• Content Recall & Synthesis [70%]

  • • "Can you take multiple experiences/reflections from SST as well as your previous experiences (before joining SST) and coherently & effectively weave them together around a central topic or topics?"

• Views & Values [20%]

  • • "Can you identify and articulate what you have observed regarding the role of personal or corporate/community values surrounding a central topic or topics? Can you provide evidence of your own interrogation of how your personal views and values interact and/or have shifted as a result of your experiences around this central topic?"

• Call to Action & Growth [10%]

  • • "How can you translate the insight you have gained through reflection into specific actions (no matter how big or small) that reflect your personal views and values? What areas of growth have you identified as a result of this reflection?"

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Grading

• All reflections are due by TUESDAY at 5:00 pm

• Each reflection is graded according to each of the 3 rubric topic

  • • below 60% = not present

    • 60% to 69% = unclear if present or present & severely underdeveloped

    • 70% to 79% = present but underdeveloped

    • 80% to 89% = present, adequately developed

    • 90% to 100% = present, exceptionally developed

Helpful Hints

• When writing your reflection remember the “Four Ps:” is your writing here purposeful, personal, perceptive & polished?

• Reflect every day in your private notebook to keep ideas fresh so you have plenty of material to write your weekly reflection

• Write pieces of your weekly reflection throughout the week, you can always go back through Friday evening or Saturday morning and reconfigure your entry for submission

• Continue to come to your instructors to ask for clarifications, especially early on

Reflection Prompts

1. Philly Week 1: You have all now arrived in Philadelphia, met members of the Indonesian community, settled in with your host families, and started to work on content related to your SST learning. What has been going on in your inner life this week? What has been harder than you anticipated? What has come easier than you thought? What have you learned about yourself? Have you begun to piece together core values in the Indonesia community in Philly and in Indonesia? What about your own values - what is important for you to work through on this SST? How do you intend to go about this?

2. Philly Week 2: We have spoken a lot recently about religion and how it influences Indonesian life. Specifically we have been learning more about Islam since Indonesia is a Muslim country. What have been your previous understandings and experiences regarding Islam? How has your thinking shifted now that you have been introduced to Islam within the Indonesian context? Make sure you include reflections on the political aspects of Indonesia as a non-secular country in your writing. Also, now you are staying with host families who are connected to a Christian Indonesian context. What tools for Interfaith dialogue have you started to see modeled in our Philly Indonesian community? Does any of this affect how you see Islam/Christian relations or how you think interfaith dialogue can be achieved in other contexts?

3. Philly Week 3: Let's reflect back now on the arts. By now you have experienced glimmers of Indonesian artistic expression (murals, gamelan, dance, possibly even singing, stories, etc.). How do these experiences compare and contrast with your previous experiences of artistic expression in other contexts? What do they tell you about the Indonesian cultures they have emerged from? What do they evoke in you (feelings, thoughts, etc.)? What types of artistic experiences do you want to pursue if you go to Indonesia? Why? How might you go about this?

4. Philly Week 4: Think back to your conversations this past week about "weapons of the weak", the immigration stories you heard, and US immigration law. Begin to draw parallels between these topics, specifically what types of power has the Indonesian immigrant community in Philadelphia utilized to make their voices heard? How did immigration law in the US effect the strategies at their disposal? How can you be an ally for voices here in America who have been marginalized and feel that they can't speak out? What kinds of "weapons of the week" will you be on the look out for in Indonesia?

5. Philly Week 5: You are handing in this reflection assignment just a couple days before flying out for Indonesia. It has been a long and sometimes surprising road in order for all of us to get here. You started this process (some of you years ago!) with a desire to go to Indonesia for your Goshen College SST experience. You then worked through your first semester Indonesian language class not knowing if you were going or not. Then came the double blow that we would not leave for Indonesia at the beginning of the semester & we were going to Philly (not as warm or sunny as any one of us had hoped!). Then came the interesting surprises of finding a vibrant Indonesian community here in a northern US city. Living day-to-day eating Indonesian food, hearing their stories, speaking their language, and seeing the tension of raising kids from Indonesian families in a US context. Now you have your placement assignments, your airplane tickets, and your visas. You are on the cusp of your next big step in the PIT SST experience. Reflect on this entire process that I have detailed above. What excited you about Indonesia in the first place? What was it like starting out learning a new language? How do you feel about your language skills now? What have you learned about Indonesia and Indonesian people through your time in Philly? What has it opened your eyes to? What are you hoping to achieve or learn more about when you actually live in Indonesia? What makes you nervous or frightened? What are you unsure about? What's next?

6. Quarantine [45pts]: Describe a specific story from your six weeks in Philly that requires some academic contextualization with regard to the on-the-ground situation amongst the Indonesian immigrant community in Philly. This story should connect readings, lectures and field trip material with a narrative from your own experience. The story should focus primarily on understanding the Indonesian immigrant community in Philly and its people and secondarily on understanding you and your cross cultural experience. This should be about 1.5X the length of a normal reflection paper. NOTE you should NOT follow the rubric for our other reflection journals - this is more of a narrative.