Day 3 - Amsterdam, Netherlands

We woke up early this morning for our second school visit to De Springstok, a local community school in the center of Amsterdam.  This school is in a neighborhood that is currently in transition.  The area had traditionally been home to lower income families but has recently seen a lot of artists, writers, and architects move into the area in attempts to revitalize it.  (It sounds very similar to what is happening in Grand Rapids and parts of Detroit.)  The population of the school was noticeably more diverse than the first school we visited, there are many more immigrant families in this section of the city.  A community school was not like anything I had seen before.  It was a combination between a traditional primary school (grades kindergarten to 8th group) and an active community center.  In addition to the normal school functions throughout the day, they offered daycare services, preschool, after school extracurriculars for students and neighborhood children that do not attend the school, Dutch language classes for parents, and computer classes for unemployed adults in the area.

The idea behind a community school is that it takes an entire village (neighborhood or community) to raise children.  They want their school to not only be a prominent part of their child's education, but also an important and visible part of everyday life in the community.  There were areas where parents could come and spend time and have a coffee in the center of the building so that they were surrounded by what was going on at school that day.  The philosophy at this particular school, which is not true of all community schools, is that students should become educated through "natural learning".  The way this was explained to us was that a student should learn by expanding the things they already know and are interested in, rather than just being told what they don't know yet.  They also made it very clear that although they adopted some of the same practices, Montessori education is a 'system' and Natural Learning is a 'concept'.  The director seemed slightly offended to be compared to the Montessori structure, even though they are very similar from observations.  I'm assuming there are some long standing rifts between these two educational structures.

We had lunch at a cafe that was the absolute epitome of a European bistro.  It was cozy and eclectic and the food was great.  After lunch, we went back to the Botel and had class for a few hours.  A couple of us had different sorts of plans for dinner so we went our separate ways.  I went to the Anne Frank House and Museum with Stef, Mary, and Alesia.  This was the house that the Frank family hid in for two years during the Nazi occupation of the area.  Otto Frank, Anne's Father, was the only survivor of the concentration campus of the eight people that lived int he house.  This was a really amazing thing to see in person.  The museum itself is very modest and understated but did a wonderful job in conveying the uneasiness and fear that the residents must have experienced.  It served as both a monument to all of the victims of the holocaust while still telling the story of only one girl. On our way out we each left a leaf on the digital Anne Frank Tree that serves as an ongoing and living tribute.  At night, we went out for a few drinks in the city to toast our last night in Amsterdam.  On to Rotterdam in the morning!