…It’s about time I wrote up some of the things keeping me busy lately.
This picture of me and Ciska, one of my students, was taken by my colleague Bart Scheren during the yearly Carnival ball.
Just like every year I remember, this one started with an unexpected challenge; my new job as a Dutch teacher at a secondary school. Being trained as a primary school teacher you can teach at certain other schools too and I always wanted to try this level. (Hey I’ve been any kind of teacher in the press already anyway). Main reason for not becoming a teacher like this in the first place is that I didn’t want to choose one subject. Anyway, I’ve enjoyed my courses.
A while ago I sent letters to three secondary schools in my area and from one – the CITAVERDE College, which is the one I went to when I was a teenager too – I got a response. I’d applied too late but when they called me back later I already had another job. We kept having bad timing for a while, but stayed in touch.
Anyway, I started a week after the Christmas holidays and have been enjoying it ever since. I’m learning heaps myself and have the feeling I’m doing something good. The first day was like being thrown into the deep end, but of a nice warm bath. The students were cool with me stepping in as their new teacher (one girl even said she liked me best after two lessons), although one class thought of me in terms worse than ‘bitch’. After another lesson a girl from that same class admitted I actually was quite alright for a teacher… They make me laugh. Like the other day when I told a girl to say ‘better than I’ instead of ‘better than me’ and she said Dutch wasn’t her ‘bestest’ subject. Although I also had to be mad at the boy who threw tampons around in the classroom (ah puberty). I don’t mind if some don’t like me, but I do hope that under those masks most of them like to learn things…
More than ever I’m busy planning things, even though I’m only teaching one subject now. But that’s nice, I like to organise. I can’t explain how full of information my head was after only a few days though, but that’s also my own fault for wanting to know everything. I have a lot of supportive colleagues though and the feeling of having it under control now is great.
The news about me being a ‘famous’ discoverer (and appearing in Playboy) spread through school faster than I had expected and they also found out quickly I’d walked these floors a decade ago as a student myself. They think it’s weird, because who’d want to be a teacher anyway? But also because I’m now addressing some other teachers as colleagues (and they found it hard to imagine the art class used to be where the teacher room is now). I don’t find it strange though and I’ve only had nice comments from others so far. I’m not sure I have an opinion about it to be honest. It does have me thinking about things more than usual. About things that change and about things that stay the same. And about how nice that is.
3 Comments
Nice story!
Lucky kids. Great that you are enjoying it!
Thanks guys.
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