The curriculum

I am blessed with knack for languages; something in which I am not alone in our family. Writing an essay was therefore part of the learning journey that I looked forward to every time, especially as I got older and my vocabulary grew. When I was in the fifth grade of primary school, I quickly noticed that most of my classmates did not share that enthusiasm. Every time the teacher started talking about writing an essay, all fingers would lift and the question would sound, “Teacher, how long should that essay be?” “2 pages” was her most frequently heard response, although that number increased a bit later on. However, my question was always: “Teacher, how long can the essay be? ” She would always laugh and say, “As long as you want, Jo”. That was a license for me to then complete an average of eight to ten pages with the most imaginative story, which in most cases was rewarded with a fairly high mark.

It may be clear that language has always fascinated me. Especially in the form of the written word, but even as a child I could listen to stories with fascination. Miss Jet regularly treated us to stories when we could no longer keep our attention during the last hour of the Friday afternoon or at other times when we had no focus, such as on the last day before a holiday.

She usually read from the book “100 years ago”, a book that tells about life in the Netherlands more than a century ago. I always loved that, after a few sentences I was completely in that world and forgot everything around me. ell, that Miss Jet… I wonder, is she still alive? I would love to meet her again!

Improvements

Although I mostly found my years at Franciscusoord fantastic and still think so, I now also see what could have been better. The choices made in the subject matter offered were not always the best ones. For example, I have never had lessons in social studies, geography, topography and history. I think I missed something because of that. These are exactly those subjects that show you a fair bit of the world. That I was a bit unworldly at the time became painfully clear when I heard friends of mine who attended regular school talking. I found that I could barely have a say on quite a few things, which sometimes made me feel downright stupid towards them. I knew almost nothing about our national history, but I also lacked topographical and geographic knowledge almost completely at that time. I think the school management eventually realized that something was wrong with regard to the curriculum, because suddenly they came up with the subject “world exploration”. This course could be seen as a mixture of history, geography and social studies. In my class, this subject was not taught by Miss Jet but by an intern. The lesson consisted largely of oral explanations by the aforementioned trainee, and occasionally some written assignments.

Another subject that deviated considerably from the usual in primary school was arithmetic. Especially in the lowest classes, the tables, addition, subtraction and multiplication were largely replaced by something called “mathematical arithmetic.” We learned all about sets and their properties and were initiated into terms such as the associative and commutative property. That was very exciting for all of us and we were thrilled that we learned these difficult words and understood what they meant! But when I look back on it now, many years later, I can only conclude that with that mathematical calculation I missed a lot in terms of normal calculations. For example, I only learned to make long divisions in the sixth grade, when the school board meanwhile realized that the choice for mathematical arithmetic was not necessarily a good one. To this day I am very bad at arithmetic, which is certainly not to say that this is due to the strange way of calculating that I was taught at a young age. Our family is much more alpha-oriented in terms of predisposition and I am certainly no exception.

The fact that I was weak in arithmetic continued to be problematic when I went to secondary school in 1981 – which was also located in the Franciscusoord building. I remember that the physics teacher told me to come to the blackboard during a physics class and that I was unable to solve a problem that involved working in percentages. I think I stood in front of that blackboard for about ten minutes, but it seemed like ten hours!

No, then I have better memories of the language related subjects. Dutch and English were my two favorite subjects at secondary school. This was not least due to the inspiring teachers. The Dutch teacher allowed me to indulge myself in the bibliography. At that time, most schools required you to read books by Dutch authors for your bibliography, but we were also allowed to read Dutch translations of foreign books if we wanted to. I always consulted my Dutch teacher very carefully when I needed to read a book for the bibliography. In his classroom he had set up a mini library – well actually micro – filled with well-known works of Dutch origin. Together, during recess we then stood with our heads bowed to the right, scanning the many titles, whereby I let the final choice depend mainly on two criteria: difficult and many pages, to the great pleasure of the teacher. Unfortunately, I was not always able to find something to my liking, which forced me to continue my search in a real library. When making a suitable choice, I was also inspired by people close to me, such as my brother and sister. At one point in the category ‘idiotic choice for an overconfident secondary school student’ I approached the teacher with the question whether it was okay that I should read a Dutch prose translation of “The Odyssey” by the Greek poet Homer.

He was used to the fact that I didn’t go for shitty books and the easy work, but now he frowned for a moment. “Are you sure about this?” he asked concerned. “This book is far too difficult, even for the final year and you are only in the third year. All books on your list count towards your final results this year, don’t you forget that? If you can’t handle it, you probably don’t have time to choose another book.” He continued to put forward arguments why it might be better to choose a somewhat simpler book. However, I insisted that I really wanted to read this book so he no longer held me back. Two weeks later the title appeared on my bibliography and I received an eight for the extract.

Another subject where I hung on the teacher’s lips, as it were, was English. This was not only because of the language, but also because of the fact that I had the best teacher I could wish for in that subject: Mr. Evers. I’ve never had a better teacher than him. He was a very amiable man and a grand master of the teaching profession. The passion and playfulness with which he could teach his students something can be called legendary in my opinion. He also inspired me to get the best out of myself. It sounds strange, but I noticed that the most during the final exam. I was quite good at English and German; the subjects he taught. Still, he was concerned, especially about the oral part of the exam. Besides spina bifida I also have another handicap; I stutter. I now have that under control, but at the time I stuttered a lot, especially in situations that were exciting or stressful. Taking an exam meets both criteria, so he assured me that I had to do my very best on the written part so that I could afford to fail the oral test. The final mark for a course was determined by the average of the marks for the written and oral exam. It was clear to me that I would score a severe fail for the oral exam because I had never done an oral assignment in the past four years without stuttering heavily. I was therefore well aware of the great importance of a high mark for the written exam, which consisted of explaining a text. I was presented with an English text on which fifty multiple choice questions had to be answered.

I didn’t find the lyrics to be very difficult, but I took all the time I had for it so that later on I would never have to blame myself for making many mistakes by being rushed. I wrote down all the answers I had given on the answer sheet and also on a piece of paper of my own so that I could check it for Teletext at night. After checking it turned out that I had made only two mistakes, which would bring my mark to around 9.5. I was almost ecstatic with joy and so was the teacher, because now it was almost certain that I would pass the subject of English.

Still, I was pretty nervous when the oral exams were just around the corner. An extension had been requested for me so that I could take all the time and therefore did not have to feel rushed. Yet that knowledge could not prevent me from riding into the exam room “with nodding elbows”. I was welcomed by a friendly-looking man of Antillean descent. He spoke kindly to me in English, assuring me that I could take all the time I needed. The first part of the exam consisted of reading an English text. I gazed intently at the words, which seemed to dance before my eyes. The thought of thousands of hours of speech therapy seemed to flash through my head like lightning. “Stay calm Jo, just breathe in slowly, breathe out a little and then slide calmly into the first word” (gently adding the letter “h” to that first word, as it were). I will never forget these legendary words from my favorite speech therapist, the late Els Ramaekers! They were my salvation that day because I read the entire text almost fluently, with only two small moments of stuttering. After this moment – which was a big win for me – the prepared topics came up: you had to choose two topics that you had to talk about for ten minutes. One of those two subjects was Kate Bush, of whom I was already an almost obsessed fan at the time. Strengthened by the confidence I had built up while reading the text, I began to talk enthusiastically about Kate. The sympathetic examiner listened attentively and started asking questions, which resulted in a relaxed conversation lasting more than half an hour! To be honest, I almost didn’t even notice that it was an exam, it was that pleasant.

The peace I had managed to maintain during the oral exam was rewarded with a very good grade. Mr. Evers commented on this with a big smile on his face and the words: “You’ve been fooling me for four years!” because the diploma had a 9 for English. Given the 9.5 for the written part, I must have obtained at least an 8 for the oral test!

Two years later I did this all over again. I wanted to go a technical school, but then I had to pass math at D level first. For that, I volunteered to go to Franciscusoord for an extra year, so that I could start with the technical school as well prepared as possible a year later. I also added German, which I had dropped earlier. I was allowed to join a third-year class that would take an exam a year later.

But there was one problem: Mr. Evers indicated that I had to be satisfied with an exam at C level because it was impossible to study all the material that was normally taught in the second to fourth grade in one year. The exam would therefore take place at C level. I said I understood but thought to myself, ‘A C-level language? Forget it, that’s not going to happen!’

When, after a year, the time came to pass on the exam levels to the exam committee, Mr. Evers made his rounds around our tables. He coordinated the level with each of us and noted it on a list. He came to my table last. We talked about the level at the beginning of the year, so he said to me, “You know Jo, for you it’s going to be C level.” I looked at him and said: “No, I want to take the D-level exam.” After thinking for a moment he said: “Jo, that’s not possible, you haven’t had the last textbook at all. The difference is just too big, this is really impossible.” But I am very stubborn. So I insisted that I wanted to take the D-level exam. He looked at me and said, “I don’t care if I put a C or a D on this list. But don’t come to me if you fail because then I really can’t do anything for you anymore. The risk is therefore entirely at your expense.” I assured him that I was fully aware of the risk but that I dared to. With a sigh of ‘okay, then you should know for yourself, I warned you,’ he added a D to my name. A few months later, my diploma was marked with a six for Mathematics and a nine for German, both at the desired D level.