Young Family Moves to East Timor from Watsonville
This year IF's program partners, Pam Sexton and Curt Gabrielson, are taking the giant leap of moving their young family to Timor Leste, committing 3 to 5 years of full-time focus on education and community building projects. (Here in Santa Cruz County, Curt developed a unique science program that is now usedin several Pajaro Valley schools.) The science teacher training program in Timor Leste has been awarded partial support, and we are working to raise the rest of the funding.
The brutal occupation of East Timor lasted 27 years. By the time Indonesia left, one-third of the Timorese population was killed and the country’s infrastructure demolished.
After decades of unimaginable human, cultural and material loss under first colonialism and then a brutal
military invasion and occupation, Timor-Leste is struggling to rebuild its society on its own terms.
Much of the country still looks like a disaster zone. The aid agencies have largely shut the people out of the decision-making for their own future. While other poor countries pin their hopes for a brighter future on educating their youth, Timor Leste’s schools lack any real math and science component.
IF's Timor Leste programs can help greatly here. Curt will be chief advisor and professional development specialist for SESIM, the science and mathematics teacher group he helped to form in 2009. With Curt's assistance, SESIM plans to become the official training and curriculum development resource for science and mathematics teachers in Timor. Curt's focus is improving the effectiveness of science and mathematics education, and producing experiential and hands-on curriculum, rooted in the Timorese experience and environment.
Pam's area will be improving the effectiveness of solidarity between the citizens of the U.S. and Timor-Leste. She will continue to work with La’o Hamutuk, a Timorese organization that monitors international players in Timor-Leste and supports the genuine participation of the grassroots Timorese community in key policy decisions. She will also continue to work with the U.S.-based East Timor Action Network.
The brutal occupation of East Timor lasted 27 years. By the time Indonesia left, one-third of the Timorese population was killed and the country’s infrastructure demolished.
After decades of unimaginable human, cultural and material loss under first colonialism and then a brutal
military invasion and occupation, Timor-Leste is struggling to rebuild its society on its own terms.
Much of the country still looks like a disaster zone. The aid agencies have largely shut the people out of the decision-making for their own future. While other poor countries pin their hopes for a brighter future on educating their youth, Timor Leste’s schools lack any real math and science component.
IF's Timor Leste programs can help greatly here. Curt will be chief advisor and professional development specialist for SESIM, the science and mathematics teacher group he helped to form in 2009. With Curt's assistance, SESIM plans to become the official training and curriculum development resource for science and mathematics teachers in Timor. Curt's focus is improving the effectiveness of science and mathematics education, and producing experiential and hands-on curriculum, rooted in the Timorese experience and environment.
Pam's area will be improving the effectiveness of solidarity between the citizens of the U.S. and Timor-Leste. She will continue to work with La’o Hamutuk, a Timorese organization that monitors international players in Timor-Leste and supports the genuine participation of the grassroots Timorese community in key policy decisions. She will also continue to work with the U.S.-based East Timor Action Network.
Pam and Curt's Past Work in East Timor
Curt and Pam have lived and worked in Timor-Leste several times since 1999, (which was around the end of the Indonesian occupation) and they are intimately familiar with the challenges the new country faces.
Pam began working with the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) in 1992 after returning from teaching in Indonesia, where she learned first-hand of the gross human-rights violations in East Timor. She was heavily involved in community education and lobbying U.S. representatives with the goal of changing U.S. policy to support human rights and self-determination. In late 1997, Congress enacted a ban on U.S. weapons sales to Indonesia. Pam spent six months in Timor in 1999, first with an exploratory team for Peace Brigades International and later helping to prepare for the U.N. referendum that ended the Indonesian occupation and precipitated the destruction of 80% of Timor’s infrastructure. She helped organize the largest observer group for the referendum, and was evacuated when violence broke out after the results were announced. Once the U.N. took transitional control of the half-island, she returned to identify where emergency funds from the Boston-based group Grassroots International could best serve local needs. In mid-2000 she moved with Curt to Timor-Leste and helped to found and develop La’o Hamutuk, the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis. When they returned to California, she became a La’o Hamutuk board member and has remained active with them, as well as ETAN ever since.
Curt began training teachers and working at the National University in 2000. He was commissioned by the Ministry of
Education to revise and develop their national curriculum in physics, and to choose the textbooks. He began developing hand-on activities for use in teaching physics, and was supported by a dean of the University to write them into a book. His Manual for Practical Physics Lessons was the first technical book written in Tetum, the local language of Timor, and formed part of the national curriculum. Before leaving in 2002, Curt led the training of all middle and high school physics teachers in the country.
Curt and Pam spent 2009 on sabbatical working in Timor-Leste with their young children. Pam worked with La’o Hamutuk and the primary women’s human rights organization, as well as the Ministry of Social Solidarity. Curt taught at the National University and worked with the Ministry of Education on various projects of curriculum and teacher development. He helped to form the teacher group SESIM, a Tetum acronym for the Center for the Study of Science and Mathematics. With a team of Timorese teachers, he wrote and produced the Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science and Mathematics in Everyday Life, the first curriculum resource in these subject areas with content based entirely on
local environment and experience.
With IF's support, Curt and Pam returned to Timor-Leste for a month in 2010, and Curt again for three weeks in2011 to carry out small projects and trainings. Curt has organized and taught at four national teacher trainings in Timor-Leste over the last three years.
We'll miss this wonderful couple, who have been committed educators in our area, where Pam has been teaching at the Watsonville-Aptos Adult School, and Curt directs the Watsonville Environmental Science Workshop. Their hope is to become a bridge of solidarity between their home of Watsonville, and their home-away-from home, Timor-Leste. While in Timor Leste, Pam will write a blog to bring the communities closer, and to give us all an opportunity to learn from each other.
Pam began working with the East Timor Action Network (ETAN) in 1992 after returning from teaching in Indonesia, where she learned first-hand of the gross human-rights violations in East Timor. She was heavily involved in community education and lobbying U.S. representatives with the goal of changing U.S. policy to support human rights and self-determination. In late 1997, Congress enacted a ban on U.S. weapons sales to Indonesia. Pam spent six months in Timor in 1999, first with an exploratory team for Peace Brigades International and later helping to prepare for the U.N. referendum that ended the Indonesian occupation and precipitated the destruction of 80% of Timor’s infrastructure. She helped organize the largest observer group for the referendum, and was evacuated when violence broke out after the results were announced. Once the U.N. took transitional control of the half-island, she returned to identify where emergency funds from the Boston-based group Grassroots International could best serve local needs. In mid-2000 she moved with Curt to Timor-Leste and helped to found and develop La’o Hamutuk, the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis. When they returned to California, she became a La’o Hamutuk board member and has remained active with them, as well as ETAN ever since.
Curt began training teachers and working at the National University in 2000. He was commissioned by the Ministry of
Education to revise and develop their national curriculum in physics, and to choose the textbooks. He began developing hand-on activities for use in teaching physics, and was supported by a dean of the University to write them into a book. His Manual for Practical Physics Lessons was the first technical book written in Tetum, the local language of Timor, and formed part of the national curriculum. Before leaving in 2002, Curt led the training of all middle and high school physics teachers in the country.
Curt and Pam spent 2009 on sabbatical working in Timor-Leste with their young children. Pam worked with La’o Hamutuk and the primary women’s human rights organization, as well as the Ministry of Social Solidarity. Curt taught at the National University and worked with the Ministry of Education on various projects of curriculum and teacher development. He helped to form the teacher group SESIM, a Tetum acronym for the Center for the Study of Science and Mathematics. With a team of Timorese teachers, he wrote and produced the Multimedia Encyclopedia of Science and Mathematics in Everyday Life, the first curriculum resource in these subject areas with content based entirely on
local environment and experience.
With IF's support, Curt and Pam returned to Timor-Leste for a month in 2010, and Curt again for three weeks in2011 to carry out small projects and trainings. Curt has organized and taught at four national teacher trainings in Timor-Leste over the last three years.
We'll miss this wonderful couple, who have been committed educators in our area, where Pam has been teaching at the Watsonville-Aptos Adult School, and Curt directs the Watsonville Environmental Science Workshop. Their hope is to become a bridge of solidarity between their home of Watsonville, and their home-away-from home, Timor-Leste. While in Timor Leste, Pam will write a blog to bring the communities closer, and to give us all an opportunity to learn from each other.
Curt Decribes His Grassroots Approach to Science
When I had learned just enough Tetum to follow basic conversation, I was invited to do weekly teacher trainings at a high-end Catholic high school in the district of Baucau. The teachers were sent to me after lunch on Saturday and I was to do hands-on science activities with them.
One of the most vivid memories from these after-lunch sessions was the lesson on magnetism. I brought speakers I’d procured from an electronics repair shack. I passed them around and told the teachers to play with them and that we’d write down their observations. This is a favorite activity I’ve done with many students and teachers in California: through simple tinkering and careful observation, a group can nearly always write down the fundamental laws of magnetism without assistance from a book or outside authority.
This group was no different but before we got to that, another stunning revelation came out: many of these teachers, who had been teaching high-school science at a top ranked school for years, had never touched a magnet, never felt it attract and repel, never searched for and categorized the various materials it would and would not attract. As they did this the very first time it seemed to me they were having a spiritual experience, as if a fire had been lit and the dark room became bathed in its warm glow.
Another similar situation occurred with a group of mathematics teachers. I had them make triangles of various types
from the palm-frond spines commonly used for bristles in house brooms. After categorizing the triangles and measuring angles and sides, I had them check the Pythagorean Theorem on one of their right triangles. The square of the hypotenuse sure enough equaled the sums of the squares of the two other sides, and one by one the groups sat back smiling in giddy disbelief: the Pythagorean Theorem! Now not just a vague abstraction from an imported
textbook, but alive and living here in our very own house—broom bristles! Incredible!
One of the most vivid memories from these after-lunch sessions was the lesson on magnetism. I brought speakers I’d procured from an electronics repair shack. I passed them around and told the teachers to play with them and that we’d write down their observations. This is a favorite activity I’ve done with many students and teachers in California: through simple tinkering and careful observation, a group can nearly always write down the fundamental laws of magnetism without assistance from a book or outside authority.
This group was no different but before we got to that, another stunning revelation came out: many of these teachers, who had been teaching high-school science at a top ranked school for years, had never touched a magnet, never felt it attract and repel, never searched for and categorized the various materials it would and would not attract. As they did this the very first time it seemed to me they were having a spiritual experience, as if a fire had been lit and the dark room became bathed in its warm glow.
Another similar situation occurred with a group of mathematics teachers. I had them make triangles of various types
from the palm-frond spines commonly used for bristles in house brooms. After categorizing the triangles and measuring angles and sides, I had them check the Pythagorean Theorem on one of their right triangles. The square of the hypotenuse sure enough equaled the sums of the squares of the two other sides, and one by one the groups sat back smiling in giddy disbelief: the Pythagorean Theorem! Now not just a vague abstraction from an imported
textbook, but alive and living here in our very own house—broom bristles! Incredible!
How You Can Help
IF really needs donations to support Pam and Curt's work. They are available to speak to groups in the Bay Area. Their multimedia presentation, Timor Leste Rising from Crisis, is a rich and engaging overview of the country's struggles and the importance of solidarity for social justice. If you can host a presentation, inviting your family
and friends, colleagues or spiritual community, you would help in bringing greatly needed support to the Timor Leste programs. And we believe your friends would truly enjoy meeting this gentle and inspiring couple. Please contact the IF office at if.integrities@gmail.com or 831-724-4108 if you'd like to schedule a presentation
and friends, colleagues or spiritual community, you would help in bringing greatly needed support to the Timor Leste programs. And we believe your friends would truly enjoy meeting this gentle and inspiring couple. Please contact the IF office at if.integrities@gmail.com or 831-724-4108 if you'd like to schedule a presentation