Rabu @ UKSW 4 Nov

My final presentation at Salatiga, talking on the topic: "Why Teach Literature and How to Support Students in their Learning." The seminar was open to staff and students. In the talk, I suggested as diplomatically as possible that FBS needs to clarify why it teaches literature and how it assesses the topic. If students are being assessed/examined on whether they have read and comprehended the content, then non-literary texts could be used. Don't use literature to punish the students! If the purpose of teaching literature is so that the students know how to teach literature to school students, then include a pedagogical component to the course. If you want to study literature, then focus on form, language, context, not just content. Also suggested that the marking regime, whereby in some classes teachers are marking something each week, be reviewed.

At the end of the seminar, I was given an official farewell. Thanked by Pak Hendro and given a shirt to add to my collection and a pen holder, whose engraving focuses on an epistemological issue: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" - Proverbs 1:7. Then, lunch in the staffroom.

Ibu Ina, whose "Prose" class I was involved in, gave me a gift at the end of the seminar. She really enjoyed having someone with a background in literature teach the students.