Mieke's Tale
Mieke's Tale
"Don't forget the hospitality, because that's how some people
unknowingly recieved angels." - (Hebrews 13:2)
If you would like to listen to the audiofragment with English subtitles, click on this Youtube-link.
(Google translation) Mieke is the first teacher we interview. At the beginning of the year we payed a visit to her class, a fifth grade with many non-Dutch speaking students in a large village school in the Limburg mining region. In the morning we meet an energetic teacher there while supervising the playground. While chatting with a colleague, Mieke welcomes each student who arrives. She knows all their names and also knows who has been sick, even if the student is not in her own class: “Dear, you have been sick, do you have a note with you?” In the meantime, she hands out stickers to the students who wear fluorescent vests. One boy is not wearing a vest and still asks for a sticker. He gets one without Mieke asking any further questions. Her warm relationship with the students will impress us all day long. During the first lesson, children arrive late to the classroom. They quickly apologize: “Teacher, my mom overslept” and “The car was broken and we had to come by bike”. Mieke replies with: “That's okay, dear. I'm very glad you're here! Come on in! Isn't it too cold? Oh charm!” When a student who is having a hard time with math answers during class, her response is, “Good! I am very happy with your finger! I'm very happy that you provide the solution, I'm happy with that!" We stay with Mieke all day, a preview of the plan to start a more intensive follow-up program later in the year. When we say goodbye in the evening, we don't know yet that a pandemic will prevent us from setting foot in her classroom again. Since it's our first interview, we're a little tense. We now have a lot of literature behind us and would like to gauge in a clear way certain aspects of teaching that we find in it. We spent a lot of time formulating the right questions. It will be a pleasant conversation. Mieke is a cheerful, spontaneous, smooth talker who responds enthusiastically to every question. A number of themes emerge clearly in her story. The first thing you notice is that Mieke likes to dive into the world with the children. She even does this during distance learning. “Today I made an online lesson for the children, one that playfully repeats their French. I enjoyed making those, I just really liked it. I started with (quickly lifts up her laptop and goes around her room for us): 'Here guys, voilà: ma chambre! Voici une armoire, une fenêtre,…' That's how I started the subject matter.” Exploring that world with her children is her longevity. She already tells us that with the first question. What does she miss most during this lockdown? Mieke sums up: “The contact with the children, the madness and the laughter with them, their questions, the collaboration.” Immediately after: “You know what I miss most? Investigate those problems. They often come in class with questions - it's a very bright group this year - that I don't have an answer to immediately either. Then I have to search with them, take books and make presentations. I miss that.” Whatever question we ask, however we run or turn the interview, we are repeatedly told examples of research projects. In a WO project with the theme of the Olympic Games - which was on the agenda for June - the visit of a top athlete would be combined with multimedia, crafts, a presentation for the parents. “Working out such things. See how that works with the kids. I miss that now.” About another project, she says: “It was the first time that we had completely turned it around. Everything was there: math, language, social skills, computer use, WO That was so much fun. I miss that.” Several times in the interview, Mieke returns to one special project for WO in which the children clearly pleasantly surprised her. If we puzzle the different fragments together, this is the story: “We worked around the theme 'Space'. That theme lasts 6 weeks, it is a whole arrangement. It starts with the construction of the atlas and eventually we make a big bike ride through the village. That bike ride is enriching, the learning content is only being able to use the atlas skillfully and gain insight into how nature has been manipulated in your own neighbourhood. We had given a lot of impulses, but I couldn't question all of them. That's not what the ZILL plan wants. It states: 'being able to apply', or 'experience' or 'experience'. It almost never says 'know'. So I didn't test that. Then we (Mieke and the colleague from the parallel class) did a project. While other students were given a math refresher lesson, the stronger group of the class was given an assignment. They had to look in newspapers for the influence of humans on nature. When we gave that assignment I thought: aiaiaiai. I also asked colleagues: 'What do you think? Would it work?' They said: 'Mieke, try it. You see.' Well, it's a project, I thought, we'll see where we end up. They came back with a result that made me think: yes! In that project it emerged that they had achieved many objectives, even though I had not tested them. They had found the storm surge barrier in Nieuwpoort. They had found pollution - that's a logical course. They had found that the gravel and sand quarries in our village had also had an effect on nature, resulting in Connecterra, for example, but also that the Mechelse Heide had been manipulated. And then I thought: heh! (North Limburgish for: 'Look at this!') That was a very simple assignment, in three sentences, and a lot had actually come out of it. It was noticeable that they had really benefited from the learning material that we had provided.” Mieke is proud of what her students have achieved during the project by doing research together. Learning comes naturally when you work hard, she believes, and no one can do it for you. During our class visit in the morning she goes over the assignments for the different subjects of that day. A student asks about an exercise from the Language lesson: “I don't understand?” Mieke responds: “Where is your book? Find the rule!” Someone else asks, "Should we work to page 63?" Mieke points to the board: “You can read.” At the same time, learning to work is not to perform. An example is the way in which Mieke frames the past tense of the verbs and the dictations during our class visit: “I'm doing a dictation, but that's not on points. That's just for me to see who's where. I don't do any tests yet. We are going to practice very hard on that in the next few weeks, so that will be fine!” She says about the quarantine assignment with new subject matter: “But it is also very clearly written in the letter: what does not work, leave it open and that is absolutely no problem. You shouldn't feel bad about that." And: “I was actually very proud to hear that all my children were working. Of course they also know that I'm on top of it. Every week they receive a message from me on Bingel: 'Great job! Don't mind making mistakes, just keep practicing. When I get back, we'll rectify that.” A little later she says about the restart of the schools: “I'll panic if we find out in our school that the children still have to take tests. I don't want to see any keys now. All I want, if I get to see my kids again, is to work with them and do exercises so that their gaps are gone. But I hope not that the assignment is that I have to finish a report. I've always been against reports. I don't like points. That tells you nothing. Now if your child has a 9 or an 8, or a 6… That doesn't always say something about someone.” The belief that you learn by exploring and working hard goes hand in hand with an aversion to routinely filling out work sheets or repetition exercises. “At a certain point we were given the assignment to make bundles. I was in favor of and against this, in the sense that I didn't want to make bundles with only repetition. That's boring and exhilarating for more than half of my class, a little occupational therapy. Then I'd rather they rage outside and in that dark period today are a little psychologically okay. So at a certain point I said: 'Look, now I'm adding a video with the instruction. We're going to let the children do that and have them respond by email whether it works or not.' That occupational therapy, that practice for practice, I am also against that in my teaching. I don't want that in my class, so I don't want that now. If you know it, don't keep practicing. And I was doing just that with those bundles.” “So you did offer new subject matter?” we ask. Mieke answers (giggling): “Yes, I know it's not allowed! I don't want the kids to get a kick out of school. My son then says himself: 'Mama, why do I have to make those leaves, I could already do it with the first leaf?' They didn't choose this either. It's exciting for everyone. And we still have to maintain that motivation for the school. I notice very well that they feel, when I put something new in it: I have to do some puzzling, I have to go searching.” “I'm very happy to get off the plan,” Mieke tells us. She can only do this on the basis of a thorough knowledge of what the curriculum requires: “I know my ZILL university curriculum by heart. Language, for example, not yet, I have to update that. I know where I have to go with WO Then you can of course leave and swerve faster. And then you very often find that you can omit learning material components. That means we were actually ahead this year. We have been instructed at school to compare our curriculum with the lessons yet to be given and then see which goals we still have to achieve. Then I immediately emailed back and said, 'No, no, no, no! We have to open up the curriculum, look at what we have already achieved and then see which lessons in our manuals can match that.' I understand that we have to use a certain manual - we don't have to invent hot water - but we now very often start with our learning plan from the manual and not the other way around. I am now on unit 16 and we have already achieved most of the goals. So I don't have to get to unit 20 at all, while some would like that to be our goal." At a certain point in the interview, Mieke suddenly says herself: “There is a pitfall to the story, isn't it. Maybe I should say that too. Because they are always pushed to discover things and can never even 'breathe', my children are often very tired. If they could just join a class and do some easy exercises, it might be a little more boring and we'd accomplish less, but maybe they wouldn't be so tired. So I have to build in rest breaks very often. We do this in the periods before the holidays, for example. Then we really provide repeat moments. Then of course they can still ask: 'Teacher, give me something to think about.' Then they get that. But then it is not necessary.” A similar sigh returns when we ask, much later in the conversation, whether she sometimes feels vulnerable as a teacher. "Vulnerable? No (thinks for a moment). Well here at home. That's hard, isn't it, when you're trained as a teacher and then you're also a mom. Ai, ai, ai! That is not always positive. I want too much. I want to repeat the subject matter of the entire school year with my children, so they won't have to do that at the end of the school year when schools start up again. Such nonsense.” She rolls her eyes. Earlier in the conversation, she also told us an anecdote with a laugh. “Do you miss your WO?” we asked. The answer: “Of course! I go skating with my daughter and then I don't do anything else (in a pedantic tone): 'Yeah, here's the forest. And the layers of the forest are…?'. 'Mom!! We're not in school!'. ” Now Mieke adds: “For example, when I play Pandemic (a cooperative board game) with them, I will say: 'Okay, guys, we should be able to work together. How do you solve that problem now?' I will never help them. I will always ask questions but I will never give the answer. If they ask, "Mama, what does that word mean?" I will put that word into a sentence. 'Come on, what do you think it means?'” Mieke searches for words when she wants to explain why that is difficult. “That is a strength for my children, because they are better prepared and developed in the field of school. But on the other hand, they can never just ask me anything. They should never sit next to me without having to think. Other children get the answer and they can move on. Why is that vulnerable?” Mike thinks for a moment. “Because they need more. They are not allowed to breathe. My daughter just asks me while skating: 'How many kilometers do we have?' Me: 'Eight kilometers and a half. What is that, that half?' Oh, she had to calculate again of course: that is ½ in a fraction, that is a trunk fraction and that is half of 100m and ... (sigh). I can't just say, "Ah, we've got eight and a half miles!" That's not my nature. Cook. Cook!! If other children are allowed to cook, they may mess and you name it. No, mine should measure and weigh and… (giggles and sighs at the same time). My husband often says to me: 'Mieke! Can they just do something now, yes?'” At the very end of the conversation we ask Mieke how she takes care of herself during the quarantine. She and her husband both became infected with Covid-19 during the spring break. She says that she started working very hard at first. “On Friday I finished all my schoolwork until the big holiday. I'm a busy bee. Here all the cupboards have been washed out, the entire ground floor has been painted and my garden is completely in order. I can never sit still.” Until she noticed that her health was not improving. She started looking for ways to force herself to relax. Reading, gaming, sports, it all passes in review. They are things that demand her full attention. There is no other way to find peace. She can never let go completely: “Everything is still perfect downstairs and (lifts the computer and shows us the room) my bed is made and the clothes are hanging exactly in the right order the way I want them.” She has to laugh heartily at herself. We'll talk some more. About anxious news reports, about bathroom habits, about Mieke's husband who has been very ill, about this and that. When we shut down the computer, we are tired. We enjoyed a pleasant and lively conversation. At the same time, something is wrong. We notice it clearly the moment that Mieke, if we keep pressing us with one of our questions, looks at us in despair and speculates: “You certainly know the answer to the question, don't you?”. The uncomfortable feeling of that moment continues to reverberate. When transcribing the interview, we discover that it is our so thoroughly prepared questions that just get in the way of a smooth conversation. Fortunately, Mieke more than compensates for this with her generous answers. Something to think about.
Mieke and Abraham
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