Flashback: 'His lesson was a big surprise'
Theater maker Debby Petter (62) completed her secondary education Dutch studies in the evenings. As a young mother, she went to the Utility Seminary, where teacher of historical language and literature, Herman Pleij (75), took her back to the Middle Ages.
Picture: Fred van Diem
“When I was seven years old, I wore Annie MG Schmidt's 'I'm nice and naughty' in front of the classroom. Exciting - Miss Bos was a strict pincer - but also fun. Because everyone listened silently until the end, I concluded that the recitation had been successful.
As a child in September I started at the age of eleven years at HAVO. Very young and certainly not one of the best. I loved language and reading and liked to listen to Dutch songs: Robert Long, Ivo de Wijs, Don Quishocking. I also liked to sing. I was always there during meetings at school. At the HAVO graduation party, my current husband Youp (van 't Hek, ed.) Invited me to join his cabaret group Nar.
Light-headed, I started studying MO Dutch at the same time, but performing in community centers and cafés was much more fun. I rarely went to college. When I was 24 years old and the mother of a daughter (from a relationship at the time, ed.), I took up the study again. I was interested in language, and the teaching profession seemed to be easy to combine with a child. For four years I went up and down from Nigtevecht to the Nutsseminarium in Amsterdam twice a week. A tough time.
With boyish enthusiasm he strode through the classroom on white sneakers and took us into history with fire, dedication and intonation
Fortunately, when the result of my first exam was a 3, a committed teacher saw why it was: I had a blackout due to fear of failure. She gave me one more chance. This teacher was decisive: a strong personality to whom I could hold on to.
I will never forget the lectures of teacher Herman Pleij, who taught historical language and literature. It was one big surprise. With boyish enthusiasm he strode through the classroom in white sneakers and took us into history with fire, dedication and intonation. For example, to the carnival in the Middle Ages, where simple people walked through the city on a blue boat and pretended to be people who did have status. With the same enthusiasm and style, Pleij exposes, for example, the core of Dutch identity almost forty years later The world goes on. His words come in visually and with conviction. Pleij is a pleasure to watch and listen to and a source of inspiration for my own theater work, in which I want to take people along in a story that matters. ”
Herman Pleij
Herman Pleij is emeritus professor of historical Dutch literature. From 1971 to 1981 he (also) worked as a teacher at the Utility Seminary: “The motivation of the students at the seminary breathed the seventies. Schoolmasters who wanted to advance were solely focused on the diploma. The women, often mothers, wanted to discuss social issues. These clashes about the relevance of the profession stimulated me enormously. ”
