AN AMUSING DAY

Wednesdays are half days for students and teachers throughout the Netherlands. Back home, it seems like late starts or early dismissals are used as teacher development and are just a break for the students. At school, we got to know the teachers more and Mackenzie and I were told that we seemed less shy. One of the teachers gives us tips about the Netherlands and travelling to other countries whenever he sees us. We were able to see a Group 3 class today. They are about 6 years old and have the energy to prove it. We saw a day filled with independent math work, lots of grammar, and the cheesiest video to help students learn English. The video was from the UK and looked to be produced at least a decade ago if not longer, but it used variations of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes to help the children learn different parts of the body. The use of songs (in Dutch and English) is a strategy that seems to be utilized often here.

During grammar, the children were working on the “sch” sound that seems to be impossible for Americans to make. It was really interesting to see the different vowel sounds--and even consonant sounds--that are used in Dutch versus English. At the end of the day, the teacher put on a song called “Carnavale 2018” which was basically techno music that we generally associate with raves. The children made a conga line around the room and started crawling under desks. The whole time, the teacher was dancing with them. It was like our “brain breaks” but much higher energy with even more teacher engagement. Once the bell rang for students to go home, it was really interesting to see how many parents were there to pick up their kids. They have an after-school program available for children whose parents work, but there was still a lot of parents out front of the school. I feel like half-days back home would be difficult for a lot of parents, especially because people often work farther than a bike ride away, which directly contrasts life here.

After school, we hopped back onto some handy-dandy public transportation and took an hour long train to Amsterdam. Mackenzie and I were able to make it from the central station to the museum district all on our own, which is honestly a pretty huge success. I feel so much more comfortable with public transportation now; I’ve started to recognize different bus or tram numbers and where they lead to, which I wouldn’t be able to say a couple days ago. We found the IAmsterdam sign and patiently waited for people to move away from the “E” and the “M.” We were able to come across it when there were three people at most on it, which is a very rare occurrence; the cold, drizzly weather was definitely on our side when it came to crowds. We made our way over to the Van Gogh museum, personally one of my favorite museums. I love art, but I usually am drawn to contemporary, modern, or abstract art--Van Gogh is the exception.

After looking at sunflowers and self-portraits, we stopped by the MOCO (The Modern Contemporary). There are so many things I could say about this museum, but for now I’ll just say this: incredible. I love street art; I think it is one of the most underappreciated forms of art, especially when you factor in that people often have to hide while they are painting or drawing. The MOCO features work from Banksy and Lichtenstein currently--a street artist and a pop artist that was heavily influenced by Van Gogh. I had been to the MOCO before, but it was Banksy and Dali at the time. I immediately fell in love with the pop art on display, and remembered that I had seen some of it before at the art museum in Chicago. There was an interactive piece that was a 3D room, modeled after Van Gogh’s “The Bedroom.” It was a really incredible experience at an incredibly low cost. One of the coolest things about Banksy’s work, is the topics it covers--capitalism, war, and the treatment of animals are just a few of the topics that Banksy’s work touches on.

We wandered around downtown and saw some people playing music in the street, something I am used to seeing in Chicago but haven’t seen much of in Dallas; one was a harmonica player who I briefly talked to in Spanish, the other was a saxophone player next to the Van Gogh Museum. It was really cool to just look at the stunning architecture and just soak up the fact that we were really there, in Amsterdam. Since I was there last summer for a short time, I had always wanted to come back. I fell in love with the Netherlands and coming back was such a surreal experience. At this point I really never want to leave and am looking into applying to teach at an International School here.