Week 9: Democracy on excursion

Just as Monday 2 weeks ago, this was also a very common Monday. In the morning we had Dutch culture. The only thing that was different from a regular Monday was that we didn’t have the concept of education but an information lesson about Early Bird schools. Early Bird schools are primary schools where the pupils get English a few hours a week (yes, even when they’re four years old).
For me this lesson was only interesting because the teacher told and showed us some nice things you could to in lessons of English, things I can most certainly use in my own school practice at secondary schools (e.g. singing, letting pupils repeat but in different voices, etc.).

On Tuesday I visited Wolfert van Borselen TTO. This is a school that offers education in English and Dutch (TTO = TweeTalig Onderwijs).
First I got a tour around the school’s premises (which were huge). The school doesn’t only house a normal secondary school, there is also ISK (a school for children who just arrived in the Netherlands) and the International School (a school for children whose parents travel all around the world as a consequence of their profession and only go to international schools).

As usual when I visit a school for the first time, I got a tour through the huge buildings. Very interesting to discover was that the International school clearly got more funds than the other schools. I also learnt following things about International schools:
• teachers have to be native (English) speakers, so not Dutch;
• there are meetings all around the world with the teachers of the same subject to make sure that they all follow the very strict curriculum and are at the same point in the same week. This is because the pupils can move at every time of the year and to make sure that they don’t miss out on anything;
• the examinations are also global, so the International school in Tokyo has the same examination as the ones in Perth and Rotterdam;
• for subjects like art, a group of examiners travels around to visit the schools and give grades to the pupils. They do this so that every pupil gets the same sort of evaluation;
• there’s also a group of controllers who checks the grades that are globally given. If they’re too high to be normal, the teacher who gave those high grades, can expect a visit. This is also the same for teachers who give really low grades.
A thing I didn’t really learn about the working of this sort of schools, but about the pupils themselves, was that it’s very difficult for them to make friends. They live a uprooted life and feel out of place whenever they have to move again. As a result of this life, they are very eager to make friends but because they know they have to leave their friends, or their friends are about to leave them, they stay quite distant from each other. This doesn’t mean that they don’t make any friends, but not close friends. I think this is a problem because pupils of every age, especially during their teens, really need close friends to tell them all their grieves and gossip. It must be hard to bear without having a close friend around you at that sensitive age. A result could be that these pupils have problems adjusting or become rebellious against their parents and/or teachers.
On the order hand, these pupils also get the opportunity to get to know the world, travel around and explore themselves and this world.
A thing that I want to mention as well, is that almost (I think there are 4 exceptions) every classroom has got at least a beamer, screen, overhead projector, computer, television with video and dvd and a sound installation. There were also a lot of classrooms of which the screen mentioned was a Smartboard. It was very clear that when it comes to ICT, this school is ready for a computer revolution.
I think it’s a nice thing to be able to work with these things in the classroom, but it’s not something I would use any lesson (except of Smartboard perhaps, because then I can save good blackboard schemes to use them again, or to adapt them at home first and then use again).
The pupils will find these things nice and interesting, but when you use a powerpoint very single lesson, their attention is bound to fade away.
The school also had a ‘mediatheek/openleercentrum’, where the pupils can work in silence and use books, computers, etc. I think it’s very good for a school to be able to offer the pupils something like this. In a mediatheek, they can learn to look up things on the Internet, in encyclopaedia, etc. The pupils also have the ability to borrow books. I can imagine that in Rotterdam, not every pupil has access to one of the public libraries. Therefore it is very good that they can do this at school.

After this extended tour (it took two lesson periods to get around) I joined my guide for today, Jurriaan (duaal student of the HRO), during a lesson of English (also two periods).
I already got some warnings about this class (first year, the so-called brugklas) and those warnings turned out to be correct. This class indeed proved to be quite ‘busy’ as I was told. It took the teacher (a young woman, also a duaalstudent of the HRO) almost 15 minutes before she could anything that didn’t sound like: “Could you sit down? Be quiet. Be quiet!!!”, etc.
When most of the pupils calmed down, one of them could give her presentation on her country of origin, Morocco. After this presentation the rest of the pupils could ask her some questions. This had to be done in English but most of the time it was done in Dutch without anybody telling them to at least try English.
It really struck me that a lot of the pupils just started to talk and even walk around whenever they felt like it. Of course, this doesn’t apply to all the pupils but most of them were talking. The pupils who remained calm and worked, were of course bothered by this talking and walking around.
After this, the pupils could make up a list of three songs, one of them was going to be performed during a karaoke competition between all the classes of the first year. As I expected of pupils, they all chose things like Rihanna and Leona Lewis. I think this is an international phenomenon, every pupil loves almost everything that is in the Top 50.
The teacher looked for karaoke versions on the Internet, found them but the pupils didn’t all sing along.
At the end of the lesson I suggested that they should try something more spectacular as all the other classes were going to sing this sort of thing too. I doubt it if they’ll listen to me (“That weird Belgian”).

We had to move to another classroom for the next lesson period. The teacher (this time a man who is about to retire) wanted to correct the homework. This was done in Dutch and it startled me that in the workbook and textbook, the explanation of a lot of things was also in Dutch (like the assignments).
The teacher just read the answers out loud, or the pupils could answer and most of it was in Dutch.
When pupils didn’t understand a word, the teacher would translate it.

After the correction of the homework, it was time for some grammar on the tenses and negatives. The teacher explained this but without writing anything down on the blackboard and also very fast.
Afterwards the pupils did the exercises on this subject. The pupils didn’t really care about these exercises as they were going to get the grades of a test.
They almost harassed Jurriaan who had corrected the tests, and, as a result of that, knew their grades. At the end of the lesson the pupils finally found some satisfaction in hearing their grades.

What struck me most about this lesson, was that a lot of things were in Dutch. I can understand that pupils of 12 years old have some difficulties in understanding every single word in English, but I think a little bit more of Dutch wouldn’t do any harm.
In Belgium the pupils get English when they’re 13, 14 years old. In these lessons there’s only some Dutch when they really don’t understand anything or when the grammar has been explained in English and it wasn’t clear. We also don’t translate words, we explain them in English by using sentences, body talk or images. In this way the pupils are forced to use English (and work on their speaking skills) and they always have an example to listen to. In the workbooks and textbooks, everything is in English.

After the break I got an introduction into the digital learning environment of the Wolfert. This turned out to be very developed.
For each subject, for each year there was an extensive range of exercises to be found. When the pupils do these exercises, they can save them. The teacher can give grades for this and can also see how many times it took the pupil to come up with the correct answer. If all your pupils do an exercise on e.g. the Simple Past, then you can have a look later on what the most common mistakes are. In this way you can shape your next lesson around a revision on the Simple Past, paying extra attention to the common mistakes.
A digital learning environment is very useful when it is developed like this one. Pupils are able to test and extend their knowledge. Also all the pupils have to have access, this is taken care of by the mediatheek/openleercentrum.
The teacher who showed me this digital learning environment, Mrs. Slangen, she also showed me some fantastic websites to use during my future as a teacher. Especially the BBC website proves to be an almost magical source of information and exercises.

When the ICT tour was over, I was expected to join the homework class. This class has been installed for pupils who need help or with grades that are going down. This homework class takes two periods.
When a pupil is finished doing his or her homework, they’ve got it checked by the teacher (always one of the students of the HRO) and they can go home. You can imagine that some of the pupils can leave the classroom after 20 minutes.
I think it might be a good idea to keep the pupils for one lesson period, not longer. They should also learn how to study, using a set of guidelines or something of that kind. Learning how to use their diaries properly, how to make schemes and summaries, is very useful, not only for now, but also for their future. This homework class is the perfect opportunity to do such a thing.

On Wednesday we were going on excursion to The Hague, Den Haag.
When we entered the Central Station of The Hague (by Randstadrail) we met with a teacher of the HRO whose name I can’t remember right now, I’ll call him teacher. Janneke Verloop also joined us.
At first the teacher gave us an introduction to The Hague when we left the Station. We found ourselves standing in front of the Ministry of Education. Then he took us for a walk in the direction of the parliament.
We came across some very fancy shops and we concluded that The Hague was cosier than Rotterdam. The city resembled older and because all the people looked relaxed, it also felt relaxed.
The first thing we visited was the Second Chamber (the parliament). We first had to get past the security and leave our coats and bags behind (including our cameras and mobile phones). We saw a part of a debate on nuclear energy and we found out that there were more visitors listening than there were members of parliament present, also an international phenomenon.
When we left the Second Chamber we went to the building of the European Union, just down the road. We got a cup of coffee and a whole lot of material to use, read and perhaps even work with in class. After we’ve finished our coffees we were taking into another room where we watched two films on the European Union and its use.
Then a man came to talk to us about the Union and to answer our questions. As I expected the Turkish people wanted to know why the Union always keeps saying no to their country. The man gave an answer but it was not really satisfactory, it didn’t really cover it. Every time Turkey did what Europe asked, Europe gives them other things to do before they can become a member. Nowadays, the Turkish population doesn’t even care about the Union anymore because they’re getting sick of it.
The main problem according to this man was that the Turkish law stated that nobody can say anything negative about the state of Turkey. This is, according to him and the Union, a violation of the human right of freedom of speech.
The Turkish people consider this rule a good thing, because they have to learn to respect everyone and everything. This discussion lasted a long time, especially when the Turkish people and the teacher quite rightly stated that the countries that joined the Union last time, aren’t exactly good examples of human rights lovers as well. They also pointed out that Turkey had economically a lot more to offer than five of these countries counted together.
Unfortunately, the man of the Union had an appointment (or he wanted to get rid of us because we questioned the European Union, no idea) and we left the building as well.

After this European adventure, we went to get something to eat. When our stomachs were full again, we left for the Tower (het Torentje). We could only see this and its surroundings from the outside. What struck me, was that all the political power of the Netherlands can be crammed in into such a small surface and right in the centre of The Hague. The teacher told us some things about the Tower and about the Knight’s Chamber.
Then we went to the Mauritshuis where we could see the famous Vermeer ‘Girl with a pearl earring’. This is one of the few things I remember because I’m not really into the Old Dutch Masters. Of course I appreciate them because their work is really outstandingly natural (sometimes it was just like looking at a photograph). I took some pictures but suddenly (after taking a picture of ‘Girl with the pearl earring’) someone of the security pointed out that I couldn’t do that. I thought this was funny because nowhere, in the entire building, had I seen an icon that said I couldn’t do it. Also I found it remarkable that he saw me getting ready to take the picture and he waited until after I took it. Yeah well, Dutch, my mother (who’s Dutch herself) would say.
After enough art we went for a walk throughout the beautiful centre of The Hague, which we crossed on road to the Panorama Mestdagh. We passed the working palace of the Queen, palace Noordeind. We waved but she didn’t seem to wave back so we walked along (without an invitation to a cup of coffee).
This Panorama Mestdagh was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve seen in my entire life. The panorama is a huge painting (14 metres high) that is 360°. Around the painting the makers of it made it resemble that the painting was real by using real sand and objects that mingled perfectly with the painting.
It’s difficult to explain but it was a very nice and weird experience. I even felt dizzy!

Then we walked back to the Central Station, passing again Palace Noordeind, a lot of expensive shops, a gallery just like the big one in Brussels and just the normal shops you can find anywhere. We thanked the teacher for the really nice day and took the next Randstadrail back to Rotterdam.

After an entire day of seeing the political powers of the Netherlands, we got a lesson on this subject on Thursday. Mr. Marcel Mooijman explained us very clear how the Dutch state system worked and what its history was.
It turned out that this system was very similar to the Belgian one, we also have a constitutional monarchy/parliamentary democracy. Of course, our history is mingled together until the independence of Belgium in 1830.
Finally it became clear to me what the exact differences and meanings were between the whole list of Dutch political parties (something like D66, what’s that about?). A difference was that in Belgium PvdA is the very socialistic party with hardly any power and SP(a) is a socialistic party (but not very) and has got power.

In the afternoon we went to the Dienst Jeugd, Onderwijs and Samenleving, also known as the JOS. A very friendly gentleman explained all we wanted to know about this JOS and gave us a cup of coffee (really, everywhere you go in this country, you can get coffee or tea, remarkable).
The JOS is a service that connects education to society. They help schools, organisations and parents to work together to the children’s benefit.
They are also the link between schools and the City Council.
This year they want to work on a higher educational level because Rotterdam needs highly educated people. The schools get motivation to higher their standards and to make sure the program is extended with cultural, recreational and sporty activities.
These are some of the goals the JOS sets for itself and the schools:
• by 2010 80% of the children of three years old is in preschool;
• by 2010 45 community schools (brede scholen) offer their pupils a program of 6 extra hours of activities a week;
• by 2010 16 too white or too coloured schools have mixed preschools;
• by 2010 none of the Rotterdam schools will get an unsatisfactory mark of the inspection;
• by 2010 25 secondary schools will open their buildings for 3 or more days with extra programs for pupils and children from the neighbourhood;
• by 2010 the number of drop-outs will be decreased with 20% in comparison with 2006.
These aims are realistic and I think they can be reached.
I think it is very important a thing like the JOS exists, especially in big cities like Rotterdam. The JOS stays in touch with similar services all throughout Europe, to learn and to help other big cities similar to Rotterdam.

On Friday I could get some extra hours of sleep in the morning as it was Dutch language lesson (which I don’t have to follow as Dutch is my mother tongue and my main subject at school). I had to get out of bed to go to a lesson on Google Earth. What can you do with Google Earth and is it useful for classroom use?
First we learnt how to work with Google Earth. This seemed very easy. We showed each other where we lived and if there were some pictures on the map we could also show them.
Then, to test if we understood it, we had to look for volcanoes all over the world and connect them.
I think this is very useful when I would teach about the UK, London, etc. Google Earth offers a lot of nice material to work with, e.g. the photographs of a lot of places (like for London: the Tower, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, etc.)
The pupils can also look for those things themselves as it is very easy to use.
After this lesson I went home.