Day 17 - Maastricht, Netherlands

"The Spirit of Maastricht" Statue

This morning, Stef and I returned to UWC for another day with the primary school.  We had hoped we would have the opportunity to visit the UWC secondary school, but the principal was unable to find a teacher who was willing to have us come observe.  I'm really disappointed that we have not had a chance to see more secondary classes.  Although younger students are very cute, and the classes are still interesting, I was excited about the prospect of working with students in a different country that were more comparable in age to the students I will be teaching.

Today we got to work with the Year 1 Dutch classes for the morning.  Every Year is split into three levels of Dutch classes, so when it is time for "Nederlands", the students divide into beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. The beginning levels are for students brand new to the school and the advanced levels are for Dutch students.  The classes coincide with whatever they are learning in their regular classes (so more bugs and insects today) but focus on language competency and integration.  I was left along with the class or two minutes while the teacher went in the other room and they were bouncing off the walls - I don't know how elementary teachers do this every day.

After all of our respective school visits, we returned to Zuyd University and met with the teacher prep students again for a class.  We had a really fascinating discussion about the differences and similarities between Dutch and American culture.  We all had the chance to ask each other about things we had observed, like why, when I pay for something, does nobody hand me chance directly in the Netherlands?  They also asked us things about America that they had seen in the movies, like if cliques in high school were real, and why do we drive our cars everywhere, even if we are going across the street?

We all had dinner back at the ho-tospital and had a relaxing night getting caught up on assignments.