Getting their children to express their opinion or their ideas or to work in a group was like banging your head against a wall! Perhaps these things were easy to implement for partner primary schools in the town or schools which were well advanced.

But for students in SDN Benerkulon these things were completely new and risky. But by making a very simple wall magazine, the children working in groups and individually started to get enthusiastic, even though the results still aren't all that great.

The children's enthusiasm has been motivated because their work has been judged by the students and teachers as good enough to be displayed on the wall magazine notice board at SDN Benerkulon. That is how we motivated our students to work, to express their opinions and ideas in order to support and achieve the basic competencies.

By Suyanto, Teacher at SDN Benerkulon, Kebumen

MADIUN: Local Language Teachers use PAKEM

You can find interesting lessons going on at SMPN 6 Madiun. Ibu Budi Lestari gave a lesson in Javanese language where the children had to make up short conversations of about five minutes. The students worked in groups of three or four and they chose varied topics, for example: voluntary work, looking after a sick friend and flooding.

Creating an Interest in Learning Mathematics

"Many roads lead to Rome". That is the saying the children at SDN Tanjungtani 3 in Prambon subdistrict, Nganjuk use to answer the question 'why does mathematics scare so many people?' But this doesn't apply any more to the children from SDN Tanjungtani 3.

By playing with 'gear wheels' the children became clever and quick at adding and multiplying decimal numbers or any other kind of number operations you like to choose. Pak Hari gave each group a pair of gear wheels.

The gear wheels had numbers on which operations were to be performed written on the teeth and below the gap between the teeth. Each group put together the gear wheels so that the teeth in one wheel engaged with the gaps between the teeth in the other wheel.

Each member of the group wrote down the results of the number operations, according to what they decided (multiplication, addition etc.). These activities often took place for five minutes after lessons have finished. The results were great! The children were clever and quick at carrying out the number operations.

SITUBONDO: Getting Inspiration from a Guest Speaker

The classroom is not the only place to learn, books are not the only source of learning and writing an essay is no longer boring for students, who normally freeze when asked to write a sentence.

SDN 8 Mimbaan, which is a simple school, makes use of the environment as an enjoyable learning resource. Besides being enjoyable, the lessons don't use expensive resources and encourage the students to take more care of their environment.