Review of SEKOLAH DELIMA

I cannot begin to comprehend how inadequate the school staff has been in the education of my child. He has been schooled there for two and a half years and he has made little progress both academically and socially. Originally emerging from a top-notch preschool (Sunshine Preschool, now known as Mentari Preschool) his progress plummeted with teachers who seemingly do not care about the future of the children.

Now going to Mentari International School Jakarta, he has healed from this madness that he was succumbed to in Delima School. All the teachers mostly did was just write something on the whiteboard, and ask the students to copy it to their notebooks, "hoping" that they would learn something. Of course they did not! What kind of lazy lackeys would think that a bunch of 7 year-olds could benefit from such treatment?

My son was way ahead of his peers, and I knew it from the very start. However, he was constantly pressured by his academically-struggling peers who acted all smarty-pants and kept pushing him around. He could have outsmarted them in everything, and easily, but one student in a mass of hopeless children is useless; a lost cause.

The teacher assistants are also terribly uneducated, hardly understand much English, and don't know how to carry out their jobs. One example that epitomizes my verdict was when my son was in the 1st grade: the class's homeroom teacher was away for the moment, and she left a worksheet for the students to do. One of the problems on the worksheet was confusing for the students (except my own son). "Ms Tatu," one of the students said. "What does 'surface' mean?". Now, they are 1st graders, so one cannot possibly expect all of them to be child prodigies--so the teacher assistant replied: "Oh, you know surface, surface is like surfing..."

SERIOUSLY? "surface" meant "surfing"? My son then could not handle it anymore and got up to the whiteboard, and decided that he would explain the term himself. He drew a simple diagram of an island. The island was surrounded by water. He clearly explained, "Surface is the topmost part of something. See? This is the surface of the water...this here is the surface of the island. When somebody is underwater, when they say 'get back up to the surface' they mean to get back to land..."

And you know what the teacher assistant said?

"Yes, see, he explained it. 's like surfing..."

God. Dear God. Now more than 6 years since my son's time there in the school, I do not even know the fate of that cursed establishment.

My advice: if it still exists, and that lame excuse for a vice principal tries to lure you in, just don't. Don't succumb to to that hellhole. I hope your children find a good school.