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This article describes a study of the implementation of Indonesia’s national policy on active learning. Active learning was first introduced in Indonesia in the 1970s. Since then four different national curricula have rearticulated the policy, and numerous donor and government funded projects have attempted to support implementation. Notwithstanding all of this effort at reform, the gap between policy and practice remains wide. Most schools and classrooms remain little changed. A wide range of teaching practices is employed by Indonesia’s more than three million teachers and across its 260,000 schools. However, with a few exceptions, a casual look in any one of these schools will reveal poor conditions, few books or teaching aids, and traditional ‘chalk-and-talk’ teaching methods. The study addresses two questions: (1) How do teachers translate active learning methodology in the classroom? (2) What factors impede the implementation of active learning? A mixed-method, qualitative, case study approach was adopted to answer these questions. The case selected was a group of teachers, schools and school clusters in three districts in the remote eastern Indonesian province of North Maluku. The data collection phase of the study took place in 2007. Data analysis was conducted in the following years. Four main data gathering methods were employed: (1) document analysis, (2) survey questionnaire, (3) semi-structured interview and informal discussions, (4) field visits to schools and class observation.