We didn't have notebooks or pencils to write with when we were children, so we recorded everything we learned in our mind.
~ words from Ketut Madra that keep us thinking and wondering ~
Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
Notice what you notice. Wonder what you wonder. There is no quiz, no right way. Read until something stays.
this film has no words. notice what you notice. notice what you wonder. wonder out loud. and don't forget to notice what you feel, too.
Meeting Mentors
My name is Ketut Madra, but you can call me Bapak (which means “father” in Indonesian). When I was ten years old, I spent my days in the rice paddies of Indonesia gathering rice, catching eels, and drawing village scenes on the ground with my fingers. I remember sometimes when I used to get very thirsty, I would take sugarcane, break it, and eat it to quench my thirst. I loved the sweet juice that would calm my dry mouth.
I enjoy remembering these scenes from my childhood, but let me start my story from the very beginning. A volcano erupted a few years before I was born, and ash had covered this entire island of Bali (or so I was told). People had been killed, and the amount of ash that covered the land was just too much. It ruined crops. It caused sickness. It was a very hard time for the people of Bali. I was born during a time when life wasn’t good for my family. For us, it was difficult to live. We didn’t know what we would eat at our next meal. My parents worked very hard in the rice fields, but that didn’t give them enough money to feed us every day.
Do you know what was happening in the world at the time when you were born? How do you know? Have you asked your family, or learned from history books, or from some other source of information? What was your family experiencing at that time? Have they ever shared with you any stories or items such as photos that give you a glimpse into what that time was like?
My father died when I was in third grade, and I had to stop going to school so I could help feed my family. As a small boy, I often walked 10 kilometers to rice fields that had just been harvested so I could gather the small pieces of rice left behind on the ground.
Though I was only in school for a few years, it was helpful to me. Even now as an old man, I can learn very quickly, and I still have a very good memory at my age. We didn’t have notebooks or pencils to write with when we were children, so we recorded everything we learned in our mind. If we forgot anything, it would be gone. This is why we tried very hard to keep what we learned with us. I trained myself to remember new things I learned: words, numbers, and history. I didn’t want to forget any of it.
What are some things that you’ve learned that you don’t want to ever forget? How do you make sure to remember those things? Do you ever find yourself dependent on anything outside of your memory that helps you, such as notebooks or other tools? What do you think would happen if you lost the thing that helps you? Would you forever lose the information it contained? Why or why not?
If the distance between my home and the rice field is 10 kilometers, what is the total distance to walk there and back? If I make this journey 3 times a week, what is the total distance that I walk?
Before he passed away, my father played music for the shadow-play theater in our temples and home ceremonies. This is how I came to know the stories of the gods, demons, heroes, and villains that are important to our culture. I was also good at drawing, although I could only draw scenes on the ground and paint pictures in my mind. I started painting the life around me. I painted the rice paddies and the markets that I knew so well and the ceremonies I saw in the village. I painted all parts of life: when we had celebrations, when people worked on the land, and when there were services at the end of life. I loved preserving the beauty of the life around me on the canvas.
I would love to learn about one of your talents. Can you describe it to me in detail, so I get a sense of how you express yourself through your talent? For me, my environment was my inspiration for my paintings. What are some things that inspire you when you are expressing your talent?
Sadly, when I was a teenager, many of my family members became sick and died. I didn’t have anyone to take care of me anymore, and I also didn’t have anyone whom I had to care for. When I was 18 I moved to Peliatan, the larger village nearby where I have lived ever since. I moved into the home of a businessman who sold paintings and carvings.
Not long after I began to paint professionally, I became very sick. It was similar to what my family members had faced before they died. I had seen them suffer, and as I lay on my bed unable to move, I thought it was my time to go too. I was in my 20s then, and I didn’t think I would reach my 30s. I went to a medicine man (traditional healer), and thankfully, I got the treatment I needed. I survived the illness, and slowly I came back to life. I was lucky to recover fully.
It was around this time I met Tjokorda Oka Gambir. He was a very good painter of Bali’s traditional stories. One day he was painting a sacred mask in the temple, and I asked if I could help. He showed me how to mix paints to create the right color. He soon became a mentor to me. Do you know what that is? A mentor is a person who can help and support you to learn more and grow.
Can you tell me about the mentors in your life? When you talk to them, do they tell you exactly what to do, or do they provide guidance and encourage you to develop your own path? Are you a mentor to anyone? In what ways?
He asked me, “Why are you painting the village scenes of Bali? Your painting is so good, and it can be even better if you paint the stories of the gods. People around the world haven’t seen these stories from Bali. If you paint that, you will do very well for yourself.” I was so glad to be alive then. I didn’t care so much about what I was painting... I just wanted to be the best painter I could be.
I started to take lessons in that painting tradition called wayang (named after “wayang kulit”, which is “shadow play” in the Indonesian language). I learned about the meanings of the stories of Hindu gods and mortals and the demons they fought. In doing that, I learned about literature and culture. I read about the struggle between duty and desire, and I gained a whole new understanding of my own duty in life.
What do “duty” and “desire” mean to you? Are they always different, or can they sometimes be the same?
Let’s say I want to paint a scene with a character every 6 inches on my canvas. Can you help me fill in the pattern to see where I would paint the characters?
6 inches, ______ inches, ______ inches, 24 inches
In Indonesia we measure things by centimeters. 6 inches = about 15 centimeters. Can you help me fill in the pattern below, if I want to keep the same distance between characters but calculate in centimeters?
15 centimeters, ______ centimeters, ______ centimeters, 60 centimeters
Through practice I learned how to show the look of each character in these stories: the appearance of their face, clothing, and headdress that identifies each one and their place in the story. That way, the viewer can experience each scene as though it is taking place in a shadow play. I took pride in my work because I was also preserving an art form of my people. The wayang tradition is unique to Bali, and I wanted it to be known to people everywhere. These are stories that share our religious lessons and ancient myths, and the style is unlike other paintings. Wherever you are, if you see wayang painting, you know it’s from Bali.
People can express themselves through their appearances – but what are some other ways we learn about a person’s story, besides how they look?
As I learned and brought new focus to my work, my paintings started to sell. Visitors to Bali began to buy my paintings. The first buyers were from Java here in Indonesia, and then people from America, England, and Germany began to buy my work for resale and for exhibitions in their countries. My paintings are also in the temples of the village where I currently live and in the village where I grew up. Many of the families in my village ask me to create stories that will go into their own family temples.
It amazes me that people in other parts of the world can experience my art, as well as people from my own community. Do you ever think about how your actions affect people around you? Do you think the effect is limited to those who know you, or could it reach further than you imagine? Can you give me an example of an action that has been felt by those who are near to you, as well as far away?
If 6 people each buy 3 paintings, we can write that as 6 x 3. If we use the commutative property of multiplication, can you complete this equation?
6 x 3 = ____ x 6
If we want to use the distributive property, can you fill in the missing numbers?
6 x 3 = (______ x 3) + (2 x 3)
6 x 3 = (______) + 6
6 x 3 = _______
Want to create a calm and focused space to start the conversation? Set up desks or chairs in a circle and start the session with 2 minutes of collective silence.
What does being a ‘mentor’ mean to you?” With your class, you can brainstorm different traits of a mentor. Examples could be that they are patient, honest, and able to give helpful feedback.
You can then ask your students why they feel these traits belong to a mentor; some students might say that they have seen these traits in their own mentors (such as parents or coaches), or they have heard about them through media (such as a character in a book or movie). You can also encourage students to think creatively about other people in their lives that could also be mentors, such as a sibling or a person in a non-teaching position who works at your school. You can ask, “How might it change how we see and interact with people if we imagine everyone we meet could be a potential mentor we could learn from?”
With your class, read the story “I am Ketut Madra” and watch the video “I am Ketut Madra” (above).
To check reading comprehension you can ask, “Why did Ketut Madra call Tjokorda Oka Gambir his mentor?” Answers could include that Tjokorda Oka Gambir showed him how to mix paints and encouraged him to try different painting styles. You can also ask students to think of other mentors that Ketut Madra may have had, even if he doesn’t specifically call them mentors in his story. You can write these people on the board — such as his father, other family members, other painting teachers (who gave lessons on the wayang style), or even the people who buy his paintings — and then have students form groups where they can brainstorm ways these people might have been mentors to Ketut Madra. The groups can then share their ideas with the class, and you can compare similarities and differences among the reasons for how they might have been mentors.
You can share with students that sometimes it can be frustrating if we do not fully know how to use a piece of knowledge right away, and that a strategy for exploring something yourself is to teach it to someone else as a mentor.
Students can practice this while solving the math questions in the story “I am Ketut Madra”. Instead of simply solving a question, have students explain the steps they took to approach the challenge (they can do this individually by writing out the steps, or they can work in pairs/ small groups and verbally explain it to each other). You can then ask, “How did it feel to both answer and teach the math question? Did you teach it in a similar way to how you were taught? Or did you teach it in a different way? How did you decide how to share your knowledge as a mentor?”
Imagination Activity: Explain to students that even if they have mentors in their lives already, they can also be mentors to themselves! Tell students this can involve reflecting on your own actions and motivations, and coming up with ideas of how to reach your goals.
Ask students to imagine themselves as a mentor to a younger or older self. Then, students can write a letter giving that version of themselves advice and inspiration. Prompts could include: “Describe something that you recently learned that you wish to share with your younger self,” or, “Give encouragement to your future self as you follow your dreams.” You can also do this activity yourself before the lesson, so that you can read your letter to your younger/ older self as inspiration for your students before they begin. After your students write their letters, you can invite those who wrote to their younger selves to share their letters with the class. Then, you can collect the letters from the students who wrote to their future selves and later in the year ask if they would like to share their letters with the class as well.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Planning Ahead
These days my life seems to follow a set routine here in Bali, Indonesia. When I wake up, I think about my paintings and what I must do to paint. I step out of my room in the early morning, and I am greeted by the bright sky and the barks of my dog, Ellie. I run a guesthouse in my home, and I must feed my guests their breakfast. I usually walk to the shop a few meters from my house to pick up some pastries for them. I get one for myself too. My favorite is the kind with green jelly filling in the center. It’s so sweet! I take them back to my home and make kopi (Balinese coffee) and I brew some tea as well.
If I buy 12 pastries so that each of my guests can try 3, how many guests do I have? (You can assume I already have pastries for myself.)
How many guests do I have if I buy 20 pastries, and I will give 4 to each guest?
One by one my guests come and eat. They usually say hello, but sometimes not much else. Very few of them can speak Balinese, some know a bit of Indonesian, and I speak just a little English. They thank me for breakfast, and we might have a short chat about what they are going to see in Bali. I’m glad I can care for them when they visit my home.
Do you know some words or phrases in different languages? It would be fun if you shared them with me! What are some other ways people can communicate, if they don’t know the same language?
My guests aren’t the only ones I must feed, though. After I make sure the humans have had their fill, I go to the fish tank next to my room door and I sprinkle food flakes for their breakfast. Next, I go to the koi fish in the pond at the center of the compound. The fish swim around and then dance to the surface of the water to swallow the food floating on the top. It soothes me to see this. Then, I feed my dog. I’m still not done yet – there are the birds, too. I feed the rooster that lives in the back of my home in a wicker cage and the small finches that live in small cages just outside my bedroom. Some days I also need to take extra care, and I’ll carefully wash the rooster in the creek that runs behind my home.
Can you tell me about some things that you help care for? It could be something living – such as a family member or pet – or something that is not alive (like your toys). Do you care for them the same way every day, or does it change? How does it make you feel to take care of something?
I feed each finch 2 teaspoons of seeds each day, which in total equals 12 teaspoons of seeds. Can you write a division equation to figure out how many finches I feed? Then, can you write a multiplication equation to also solve this?
After I’m done providing food for my human and animal friends, I go to the small gallery that’s in the room next to my bedroom, and I take out my broom that’s usually hidden in the corner. I sweep all around the gallery and around the open areas. All the twigs and ants that have landed on the tiles, I brush them back onto the ground. Then I take my paint and paint brushes to my routine sitting place. It’s just inside the roof covering so I’m shielded from the sun. I know I’ll be working there for some time, so I get comfortable. I make sure I’ve finished my kopi and completed my other morning tasks, so there is nothing else that can distract my focus as I paint.
When I sit down on the ground, my back must be straight. It’s important to have good posture when you paint. I carefully lower myself onto a small flat pillow and fold in my legs one under the other. This is a very natural position for me. The pillow is a cushion so I can easily sit here for most of the day. I must have sat like this for years of my life if I add all of the hours together.
I sit on a tiled floor, and some of the tiles are old and need to be replaced. Can you help me figure out how many new tiles I will need to buy to replace some of the old ones?
5 rows with 6 tiles in each: 5 x 6 = ______
4 rows with 7 tiles in each: 4 x 7 = ______
I mostly paint scenes from Hindu religious texts. I enjoy focusing on the expressions of the heroes and villains to show their personalities. Each painting is different, and some are like a favorite child to me. Yes, I can admit that I do have my favorites. Each painting is not equal in my heart, even though I love them all. Some are closer to my spirit and have a special meaning for me.
I have learned that painting is about knowing the feelings of my heart. It’s not only about beauty, because to be a master painter I also need mental strength. Painting takes skill, patience, and focus, and I have worked to develop those qualities in myself. I have learned that so much of the work that takes place happens before I even start painting. All the decisions that come with planning the painting are usually much harder than the act of painting itself.
Do you do anything where much of the work takes place before you even start? What are some of the decisions you make before beginning? How does deciding early in the process help you throughout the project or activity?
I believe that each of us needs to discover how we will contribute to the world. I have found that for me, it’s through painting. I would continue to paint, even if I didn’t earn any money from it. It’s that valuable to me. I think that sometimes the way we can make an impact in the world comes to us naturally, while other times we need to actively seek out and discover our talents and opportunities to express them.
Can you share an example of a talent of yours that comes to you naturally? How about a talent that took time for you to discover? What was that process of discovery like? How can we help others learn more about their own talents?
Want to create a calm and focused space to start the conversation? Set up desks or chairs in a circle and start the session with 2 minutes of collective silence.
“What does it mean to plan ahead? What parts of your day do you make plans for? Why do you do this? What factors can influence if you choose to plan ahead or not make a plan?”
As a class, watch the video “I am Ketut Madra” and read the story “Ketut Madra Prepares to Paint”.
Check reading comprehension by asking, “What are some things that Ketut Madra prepares in order to take care of his guesthouse?” (examples: he buys pastries for his guests and gathers food for his animals). You can then explain the concepts of “observation” and “inference”. An “observation” is what we learn from using our senses (such as seeing in a video or reading a story), and an “inference” is what we can imagine might be true based on what we learn, even if it doesn’t say it directly. You can ask students, “What did you observe Ketut Madra doing as he prepares to paint?” (examples from his story could be he sweeps the ground, takes his paint and paintbrushes to his sitting area, and sits on a pillow). Then, have students infer what else Ketut Madra might plan ahead for, that he doesn’t specifically talk about in his written story/ show in his video. Encourage students to be creative, and to also give a reason for why they made their inference. Examples could include that maybe he goes to the store to buy paint material or makes his own, since he is an artist who paints; or maybe some days he washes his dog in the creek, since he owns a dog and washes his rooster. You can then ask students, “What are some benefits of making inferences? What could be some of the dangers of making inferences without knowing through observation if they really happen? What are some things that you observe in our classroom, and what do you infer?”
Let’s practice planning our approach to math questions! Look at one of the math sections in the story “Ketut Madra Prepares to Paint”.
As a class, discuss a plan to solve the questions: this can include reading the question out loud, making notes about the key math sections/ numbers, writing the equation, solving, and checking the answers. As you talk about the process, you can write the steps on the board so the whole class can track the different stages of solving. If students have different suggestions, you can try various ways to approach the questions (such as by using physical items as representations, or by working in teams, or checking responses with a partner). After you finish the questions, you can discuss, “What were some of the benefits of planning out how we would solve the math, rather than solving right away? Was there anything that you would do differently? Why?”
You can lead students in different activities to explore planning and being spontaneous in creative ways. You can decide as a class one activity (or many) where you will both create a plan and then also do the activity without a plan.
An example for “planned” could be deciding together a style of dance, watching a dance tutorial online, writing down the steps, setting up a space, practicing each of the moves, deciding on a time for the dance, then trying the dance out together; “unplanned” could be putting on some music and having everyone stand up and dance in their own way. Other ideas could be learning a song as a class vs. making up a song on the spot, following steps for a specific artistic style vs. drawing something random, or you could even include discussions about activities that may not be practical to do in a classroom (such as following a recipe while cooking vs. mixing together random ingredients that you find). You can then make a pros/cons list of what students enjoyed/ thought could be improved about the different approaches, or you could make a Venn Diagram to highlight the similarities and differences.
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Emotional Changes
Just like you might have your emotional moods, I also have my moods when I am painting in my gallery here in Indonesia. There are days when I can feel it, when my painting is an extension of myself and my emotions. There are other days when I want to fight with my painting. This can happen when I’m not in a good mindset, like when I’m angry about something or I can’t focus… those are the times I struggle so much to put my paintbrush on the canvas. I am a painter at heart, but I don’t always enjoy it.
What do you think I mean when I say, “I am a painter at heart”? Do you feel the same way about any activities that you do? Why?
You can see my moods in my paintings. When I’m in a silly mood, I’ll paint a clown in the scene. When I’m angry, I’ll paint a battle. Some of the characters in my paintings represent my own emotions at the time I was painting them. If it is a love scene that I am painting, I think about all of the love I’ve given and received throughout my life. I feel like I am pouring myself into my paintings when I find inspiration from emotions that I have experienced myself.
Do you ever find that how you look at something changes depending on your mood? Maybe something which gives you joy one moment can make you angry the next moment. Why do you think that is? Is there anything you can do to change it? Should you? Or should you face your emotions and aim to understand why you feel that way, rather than trying to change them?
As I paint, I feel very full and satisfied... as though I’ve just eaten a feast of food. My mind clears and creativity come flowing out. I can forget to eat or think about anything else that I must do. It’s the connection of my spirit and what I’m doing.
I start each painting the same way because it is important to have a process so that creativity can flow through you. I begin my artwork by drawing with a pencil. I mark the position of all the characters with detail. Then, if it’s suitable to me, I take an ink pen and I outline everything I’ve just drawn. This is the foundation of my painting. I then use a fine brush to shade the areas in the painting so that you can see the depth of the body or the curve of a lip. All of this happens before I add beautiful vibrant color throughout.
If it takes me 315 seconds to outline one section of my painting and 601 seconds to outline another section, how many seconds did it take?
If I spend 539 seconds shading one area and then 254 seconds shading another area, how many seconds did it take?
Do you see the large painting over there with the battlefield scene from the Gita (a Hindu religious text)? It took me three years to complete! Almost every single day of those three years I painted. I have to tell you, it was a little crazy. To paint one painting for three years... I don’t know what I was thinking! Maybe that’s what it is: I wasn’t thinking at all. Even if I didn’t feel like it at first, I would sit in front of the painting. I would look at it. I would hold my paint brushes. I would stir the paint slowly, and then I would begin.
I always come back to my paintings. Even after days of not enjoying it, I start to love it again. I know this will always happen. I paint a little bit here and a little bit in the corner there. I look at it, and I think to myself, “Oh I need to color it some more.” Once I start painting, I don’t feel like it is so much of a struggle. The longer I paint, the better I feel. After I get to a certain point, I don’t want to stop.
Do you ever have a difficult time starting something? How do you motivate yourself to begin?
If I spend about 406 minutes painting one day and 252 minutes painting the next day, can you estimate about how many minutes I spent painting (since you are estimating, round to the nearest 10)?
If I want to find the exact number of minutes, I can add 406 + 252. If I want to use regrouping, can you help me find the equivalent equation?
406 + 252 = 400 + _____
After many years of painting, I also learned to dance, and then I learned to play gamelan music too. I play gamelan music with a group of other musicians every week. We play for hours, and it’s pure fun. Sometimes when I play gamelan I think about a painting. For me, it is all one energy. When I’m painting, I’m sometimes singing or whistling. Music and painting come from the same space in my soul. Painting is my work every day. It is what I cannot live without. Gamelan is my work every week. It refreshes me and gives me more creative energy. It feeds my paintings.
It might be fun for you to look up some videos of people playing gamelan music! Maybe it will give you some creative energy too. What are some activities that give you energy and “feed” you?
Let’s say one day I spend a total of 491 minutes doing my favorite activities: painting and playing music. If in that time I paint for 364 minutes, how much time do I spend playing music?
The motto I always try to follow is to keep life simple. I have friends who have made much more money than I have through their art. I know others who spend their time traveling around the world. I know many people who aim to be at the top of what they do. These might be good paths to follow, but they are not for me. What I want in life are just a few things that are meaningful to me. I want to paint and create my art. I want to be close with my family. I want to learn and love others. I don’t need much to do these things. I certainly don’t need to be famous. I only need to focus on these things every day.
Can you tell me about some things in your own life that are simple, and some things that are more complex? How do you decide what is meaningful to you? Do the things that matter to you ever change? Why do you think that happens? What are some things that you think will remain important to you throughout your whole life?
Begin the conversation with some prompts about how students recognize their emotions. “How do your emotions influence what you do? When do they help you to be your best? When do they hinder you? How can they change over time?”
With your class, watch the video “I am Ketut Madra” and read the story “Ketut Madra Expresses Himself through his Paintings”. In this story, Ketut Madra talks about how his moods influence how he paints and what he paints.
While students may recognize the skill involved in the art of painting, they may not be aware of how much emotion and mental focus influence Ketut Madra as he creates his work. You can check reading comprehension by asking students to name an emotion that Ketut Madra mentions in the story, and how it makes an appearance in his painting (an example is when he feels silly he might paint a clown). You can then ask students to identify emotions that strongly impact them — either positively or negatively — and how they express them. Students can then create a developmentally appropriate tracker to examine their emotions across a day. This could be a series of line graphs with emotions measured across time. Or perhaps students use happy/ sad faces to identify their feelings as the day goes on. Students could do this independently, or you could determine certain times in the day where you pause and ask students to note their emotions (such as when they first arrive at school, during a lesson, after lunch, etc.). Use this activity to help students recognize that their emotions may vary vastly throughout a short period of time. Students can also create a section for notes alongside their tracker. While tracking the emotion is important, they’ll also be looking for emotional triggers. To do this, each student should write down what they were doing when they experienced an emotion. Students can also use the notes section to give more detailed descriptions of how they felt.
The emotional tracking activity is an opportunity to create and interpret picture graphs. Each graph can include a legend that labels symbols used in the picture graph with an explanation of what emotion it represents.
Students can also use their data to create different types of graphs such as line graphs and bar graphs. You can ask, “Which graph do you think is easiest to create? Which graph do you think is easiest for other people to understand? Why do we have different ways to represent the same information?”
Once students have completed their trackers, the next day or later in the week you can ask them to partner with one or two others to discuss their findings.
Together, students should look for possible triggers. For example, did walking up late make students start the day feeling anxious? Does spending time with friends make them joyful? You can then ask the groups, “Were there any situations where you had similar feelings? Were there any times where you experienced the same situation, but you had different emotional reactions? Why do you think this might be?”
One day of identifying emotions is just the start– take it further by making this a week-long activity or by incorporating this into a daily journaling exercise.
Over time, students can start seeing trends and patterns in their emotions. After recognizing their emotions, students will likely wonder how to regulate their negative emotions once they’ve identified them, and you can continue the conversation about healthy ways to regulate emotions (such as through mindfulness and meditation).
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Who's Telling The Story?
Written in third person by storytellers who were with Ketut Madra (also known by many in his community as "Bapak")
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Walking into his home feels like stepping into a quiet sanctuary. Despite the chaotic nature of not far away, this is a serene abode that takes in just a few travelers at a time.
Ketut Madra’s homestay can be found along a nondescript street in Peliatan (in Bali, Indonesia). There’s no large sign or series of advertisements marking the way; there’s just a little old, black and white sign with worn edges and an arrow; it reads “Madra Homestay.” It’s easy to miss.
Bapak greets us. He’s warm and welcoming and also seems a bit nervous like this is his first time welcoming guests. He looks around as though someone else might come to tell us the details of the place. After a few seconds when no one shows up, he decides to take a set of keys and show us to our home. There’s no discussion of payment or talk of breakfast time the next day. That’s not really his style. It’s obvious that Bapak hasn’t made his profession in hospitality. He’s a master wayang painter who also happens to own a homestay near Ubud.
We sit down and ask Bapak to tell us about his childhood. He has a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he tells us the story of how during his childhood he took left over rice from the fields after the harvest to his family’s home for their dinner. He would stuff whatever he could in his shirt so that no one would see. He could have shared the tale with a sense of sadness or he could have conveyed the hardship of what it might have been like to search for enough to eat. But, instead, he tells us as though he’s sharing the secret of a game he played as a young boy in the village.
It’s hard to believe he’s in his 70s. It’s seems his toothless smile and gleaming eyes reveal the child within. Ketut Madra’s work is one that has a long history. Wayang painting is a tradition that combines Balinese Hindu-Buddhist traditions. There is much to be learned about the history of this art, but what do we learn from Bapak you might wonder. There is much to learn from a man who is one of the few traditional master painters still working in this part of Bali.
Well, and when you think about it, Bapak isn’t just a painter, a dancer, or a musician. He’s a storyteller. He gathers the traditions of Bali, the ancient wisdom of religious epics and he shares it through various forms.
Storytelling is a part of all our childhoods. You might have been read storybooks or told nursery tales. Or perhaps you heard stories about your ancestors, ones that you know or perhaps you never met. And, maybe people made up stories to tell you the way certain things worked. What are the stories of your childhood? Did you hear stories that weren’t true?
He conveys the meaning of tales in a way that draws us in. We may not know the story of what he’s painting, but we find ourselves feeling the emotion of the scene. As we watch him paint we wonder who all of the characters are in a painting that seem to share an entire story on one canvas.
Emotion is the key to storytelling. The feeling we get as we hear, see, or read a story is what we’ll remember the most. As humans we’re social and emotional beings who love to connect through a good story. So, that also means stories can be used for purposes that aren’t always good. What negative stories have been told through history that still have an influence today?
We walk around the gallery in his home and see many paintings that he’s created over the years. Each of them shares an intricately detailed image of a story. A fight scene, the moment when one warrior defeats another, or a meeting, where the gods discuss the fate of humankind. Scenes of love, anger, comedy, struggle are all there.
We point to a painting of a creature taking a bite of something. “Can you tell us what’s happening in this scene,” we ask Bapak. “Ah yes,” he says. “His name is Hanuman, the great monkey god. Hanuman has powers that any superhero would envy. He can shift instantly from the size of a kernel of rice to being as large as a giant. His long tail gives him the ability to fly. He is utterly invincible, immeasurably strong, compassionate, and well-spoken. In Bali, we respect Hanuman for his bravery, wisdom, and loyalty.”
“Look at this painting closely. It’s of the young Hanuman who learns from his mother that he must find and eat only the ripest red or yellow fruit. In the painting, he has just awakened and is hungry and in need of breakfast. He looks around and sees the rising sun. Without a thought, Hanuman leaps to the horizon. He mistakes the sun for the fruit of his mother’s instructions. As he takes a bite, Sanghyang Surya, god of the sun, gently informs him of his error. Surya and the great bird Aruna, who carries him across the sky, are amused and tolerant. There in the corner you’ll also see one god, Sanghyang Widi, with a protective naga at his side, watching from above.”
The moment we focus on during a story or the details we provide share a lot about how we interpret the chain of events. Have you ever been in a conversation where it seems like the person telling the story makes a small occurrence seem like a big event? How did the person do that? Maybe you’re the one who loves to share tales of epic proportion, how do you decide what to focus on and how to share the event? How does your emphasis, detail, or omission shape how someone else would interpret a story that you’ve shared?
What does it mean to be a storyteller? How are we all storytellers?”
Together, watch the video “I am Ketut Madra” and read the story “Ketut Madra the Storyteller”. You can explain that the story is written from the perspective of people visiting Ketut Madra to learn more about his life and experiences.
You can compare the way this story is written to the style of Ketut Madra’s other stories (“I Am Ketut Madra,” “Ketut Madra Prepares to Paint,” and “Ketut Madra Expresses Himself through his Paintings”) which are written from his own perspective. You can ask, “What are some of the similarities and differences in the ways the stories are told?” You can lead a discussion about how the narrator of a story can influence the story. Prompts can include: “What are some things we can learn from Ketut Madra about himself, that we might not learn from other people who tell us about him? Are there benefits to also learning about Ketut Madra from someone other than himself? Why or why not?” You can also discuss how even though we don’t see the person filming the video, that person is a storyteller too. “What are some choices the videographer made when telling Ketut Madra’s visual story?”
Students can practice their storytelling skills while further exploring how the narrator of a story can shape it. Ask students to spend a few minutes writing about themselves.
They can decide the topic: it could be about their life growing up, or about a specific event they were a part of, or their future hopes and dreams, etc. Then, have students work in pairs to interview each other. The student who is asking the questions about their partner should take notes as they are interviewing, and then they should switch roles. When they are finished asking questions about their partner’s life, they should use their notes to write a short profile about their partner. You can collect these and read them to ensure they are appropriate, and then can give each one to the person whom the profile describes.
Once the students have their own writings about themselves as well as the profile their partner wrote about them, you can ask reflection questions such as: “How did you decide what to highlight in your writing?
How did you decide what to leave out?” “Were there any similarities between what you wrote about yourself and what your partner wrote about you?” “What were some of the differences between the two types of writing? Why do you think they were not exactly alike?” “Did anything surprise you from the story your partner wrote about you? Why?”
This is one way to teach this story. You could also weave your own way, threading two or three other people the AI finds for you alongside.
Want to weave a full lesson around this story?
The weaver finds 3-4 real people whose stories thread together with this one.
Weave a lesson →Not hers. Not yours. People are always more than the chapters anyone could share. Hold what is here gently. Approach with curiosity, before judgment.
If a moment stayed, follow it. If a question rose up, hold it. The quiet teaching is still teaching.
Three or four real stories woven into one lesson, your topic, your time. Ketut Madra is one. The weaver finds the others, threads the math, the literacy, the values, the reflection.
Open the weaver →