The first day of secondary education takes some getting used to
A large part of the secondary schools had students in their class again today. It felt like the first day of school after the summer, with tame students and uncomfortable teachers.
Image: Mondriaan Col
Geography teacher Reggie van Nuland decided this morning at the last minute to make copies from the Bosatlas of the Marnix College in Ede. “In the last lessons before the summer I want to work a lot with the atlas, because not everyone has it at home.” But, she thought later, different students would hold the same atlas within a few hours. "And that is not possible." Handing out the copies was also not an option. “Then I will come to their area. It is mainly those small practical issues that I still ran into. ”
You don't prevent someone from sitting back and chatting with a boyfriend
Today Hanne Kouwenberg gave her first English lessons again on the Populier in The Hague. “It actually went very well in the building: students neatly follow the direction of walking. But there was an accumulation in front of my class. I said, This is not corona safe. But then it has already happened. Just like you don't prevent someone from leaning back to chat with a boyfriend. Even then there is not a meter and a half between them. ”
In terms of space, Iris Driessen, Dutch teacher at the Hyperion in Amsterdam, had the luxury. She had a huge learning plaza, where she could send her entire mentor class. She ate a cake baked by a student with the group and let the children play football outside. "Nothing went as I had planned, but it went well." Corona was not the subject of discussion, although the class did reflect for a moment on the father of a student who has died. “I have asked them so many times during my online mentoring lessons how things were going. I have sent them all a card, the students who are struggling at home to school. They mainly want to be together now. ”
Resigned
Most teachers experience a kind of resignation among the students. "I didn't see the enthusiasm I actually expected," says Lieke Faber, biology teacher at Minkema College in Woerden. Like her colleagues, she was delighted to see the students again. “Although it is not very pleasant for them. They are quite far apart and are not necessarily assigned to their friends.”
Tom Verhaegh teaches practical school students at the Raayland College in Venray. "I noticed that the students still need some kind of button. They were not yet very keen to participate actively."
Finally we can tick off our big wish for small classes
Jan Westra, geography teacher at the Rijnlands Lyceum Sassenheim (RLS), also found his students 'tame'. He recognizes it from the first day of school after the summer vacation. “We still have to land in this new situation. You see them thinking: how am I going to manifest myself in this? That'll come."
Mariam Schenk, English teacher at the Haarlemmermeer Lyceum in Hoofddorp saw other first day signals: “Pupils didn't have books with them, had forgotten their earplugs or their chargers. It seemed as if they no longer knew what it was like to be in class. ” The big advantage today, says Schenk: she had a maximum of ten in her classroom. And that makes keeping order a lot easier. “Finally we can tick off our big wish for small classes,” she jokes.
Only substructure
The differences in how secondary schools partly resume lessons are large. Some allow only junior students to come to school. Many schools divide the classes into three and make a timetable for this, others receive certain years on certain parts of the day of the week. And then there are schools that only want to resume classroom lessons after the summer.
At the Kouwenberg school in The Hague, students were allowed to register for lessons of their choice today, or stay with their mentor to work independently. This created the strange situation that Kouwenberg had two students in front of her one hour and the maximum sixteen the other. “That was crazy. Then you finally have that class time, then you want to use it well. "
Swap
Most schools seem to choose to have small groups of students in the classroom - also during breaks - and to rotate the teachers. It's the world upside down, in which teachers rush to be on time for the next, often shortened, lesson. Van Nuland from Utrecht: "The third hour I taught geography in the music room. Quite funny, I never normally go there."
And then there is the question: what do you do when you have divided the class into three with the students who are not physically present? Westra from the RLS, for example, was initially not very happy with the school's decision to let the rest of the class watch via Teams. But the first experience today was not that bad for him. “The students understood very well. It actually went pretty smoothly. ”
De AOb answers frequently asked questions from secondary teachers about the reopening, check the latest version of the FAQ here.
