Premier Pioneer — A Legacy

In 1951, an aspiring educator named Hardiati Anwar joined the newly opened Joint Embassy School (JES), driven by a growing passion for teaching. Over 70 years later, she’s still remembered as a JIS pioneer who helped shape the fond childhood memories of generations of JIS Dragons. Her legacy lives on, not just through her former students but also through her grand-nieces Agiani “Agi” Salima and Ulma Ribowo, who have followed in her footsteps as assistant teachers at JIS.

To her family and the Dragon community, she was known affectionately as Ibu Ai, the dedicated Bahasa Indonesia teacher who loved spending time with her students in the famous Pattimura Elementary (PEL) courtyard, her “outdoor classroom”. 

JIS Alumna Louise Ohlenschlager (Class of 1980) feels grateful to have been one of these students in the late 1960s. Earlier this year, she had the chance to revisit her elementary school days, where her memories of Ibu Ai — “my favorite teacher” — came flooding back.

“I saw a photograph of [her] in JIS’s 50-year anniversary book and felt very emotional when I saw her face after all these years,” she says. “Looking back, I have strong feelings of being safe, being very happy, and being outdoors a lot.”

In a delightful twist of fate, she also met Ulma, an assistant teacher at PEL and Ibu Ai’s grand-niece.

“She was my grandmother's sister; they were very close. As children, my sister and I would spend time at her house and play with her two grandchildren. We always considered her our second grandmother,” Ulma recalls.

“I remember her taking us, her grandchildren, to see her classroom at Pattimura — even on non-school days. That's what I love about her. Teaching was her passion and she spread it to her two younger sisters, my sister, my cousin, and myself. We became educators.”

Her cousin Agi is a Dragon herself, guiding JIS’s youngest learners at Pondok Indah Elementary’s (PIE) Early Years Center. She, too, remembers being inspired by her grandmother’s fierce independence — “I remember she had a brown minivan; she was very independent and drove herself everywhere” — and a dedication to teaching that turned her into a PEL mainstay for over 40 years.

She reluctantly retired in the early 1990s as her health started declining. When she passed away in 1996, a plaque bearing her name was placed right beside the Pattimura tree, right by her “outside classroom”, to honor her memory. 

“Personally, she helped me a lot during my formative years as a student, opening up many opportunities for me. She also taught us English — she always spoke English with my grandmother, and it became ingrained in us. It made learning English much easier later in life,” Agi says.

For Ulma, Louise’s visit taught her something new about the legacy her grandmother had handed down to her as a teacher.

“She made me realize how big an impact teachers have on the early development of children at school, and that they will remember and cherish the time they spend with their teachers until much later on in life.