Dutch Blog

The climate is changing. You hear about this every day. It’s a thought of concern, also – maybe even especially – for the Dutch people, who’ve been living with the dangers of the sea for as long as one can remember.

We’ve confined the waters with dykes. Sometimes successfully, sometimes the waters fought back.

In the years from 1920 until after World War II, there were several serious floodings in the Netherlands… Floodings that cost the lives of man and beast alike.

The former queen of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, paid visits to the victimized areas, much to the surprise of the civilians.

Plans were made AND executed, to make sure similar disasters could not occur again.

So, apart from some several minor floodings that can still happen every time and again, the Dutch have successfully lived below the sea level for years.

My own memories of the changing climate are few.

Yes, I remember that when I was a child, we still had white Christmases, falling snow that remained long enough to make snow men, frozen lakes to skate on… but to all things it seems must come an end.

I think the last ‘real’ winter we’ve at in the Netherlands…. was nine to ten years ago. When my ex-husband still had to go out with the tugboats, to create a safe path through the ice for large cargo ships who didn’t have the capacity to do so on their own.

The sound of the caving and crashing ice was deafening!

I remember that for several times, the forming and breaking ice would crawl over land, on Urk it once even reached the light house!

It was an exciting but dangerous playfield for parents and their children. Oh my, I was in some real trouble when my mother discovered that I, in my zeal, had ventured off a little too far, completely oblivious to the dangers of the ever shifting ice.

Hot summers, cold winters, seem a thing of the past. Mild summers and mild winters took their places. Last year, the winter wasn’t even severe enough to kill remaining bugs and mosquitoes, creating a real nuisance early on early this year. People got sick massively because of all the remaining germs in the air. A simple cold virus evolved and took the lives of those most vulnerable.

Days and days of rain and clouds seem to drift by. In summer maybe two, three weeks of warm damp weather other then that it could be agreeable most of the time, but those days are soon forgotten when I look through my window right now.

The song: ‘Three little toddlers were sitting on a fence, on a beautiful warm day in September’ no longer applies. I can’t even remember the year in which September carried those agreeable warm days.

It’s cold. Fall is here and soon winter will come. I hope against hope… that this year I might celebrate a white Christmas again.

Today I will tell you something about the Dutch school system.

In the Netherlands the children have a compulsory education up to their 16th year. Most of the Dutch children go to primary school when they reach the age of 4. Before that, parents can choose to bring their young ones to kindergarten. Usually, this means they can sign up their child after their second birthday and when the child turns three, they are transferred on a list of ‘new arrivals’. When there is room for the child, the parents are notified when they can first bring their child to kindergarten.

The place I used to live, had quite a few primary schools but only one kindergarten. Because the local government didn’t want to run the risk that a lot of children were signed up for a particular primary school and just a few with another, they created a ‘district system’. This means that the children living in a certain district, would automatically be signed up for the primary school linked with that particular district. The only facility offered by the local government in this regard, is giving the parents the chance to give their first choice of primary school. But, I fear it’s an ‘in name facility’ only because they usually enroll the children in the appointed primary school anyway.

In the place I used to live most of the primary schools held the Christian values. Besides the district system, it also matters which church you belong to. Without discussing all the different religious main streams in my home town village (really an anomaly in the Netherlands in that regard) it’s needless to say that if you belong to a very conservative church, your child would go to the district primary school with the same believes.

Where I live now, there are ‘only’ three primary schools. A school upholding the Christian values, a school upholding the Catholic values and a public-school where no religious believes are upheld.

Everywhere in the Netherlands, education becomes compulsory at the age of 5. Should you choose to keep your child at home until that age, no one would probably mind.

The primary school is divided in 8 groups or grades. The youngest children start in grade 1 (or 0/1, depending where you live, the dividing in groups is not the same everywhere) and the ‘seniors’ are in the 8^th grade.

Where I live, the children can go to school from the age of 4, so they start in grade 0/1. Grade 0/1 is divided in two sections though they stay in the same class. The section that just turned 4 only get to play and putter. There’s also a section in the same class with children who will turn 5 that year, they get their first introduction with the alphabet and the year after, they will go to grade 2.

I’m not sure if every primary school in the Netherlands uses this same shared class system.

When the children finish primary school, they are generally at the age of 12 and get a continued education at a high school. This is a big change for them because while they were seniors at first, now they have to start all over again in the first form. Also, while they first had to deal with just one teacher in primary school, now they have several professors and of course now they get home work.

The school where they get their continued education is called a ‘college’.

The children starting first form are often called ‘brugpiepers’ or ‘brugklassers’.

In recent years, the system of the High school has changed in the Netherlands. In my schooldays you could either go to MAVO, HAVO or VWO.

MAVO took 4 years, HAVO 5 years and VWO 6 years.

There was also a VBO or IVBO, these were the technical schools to prepare children for a technical profession. Many further educations required at least a HAVO diploma. So, children with a MAVO diploma needed additional years of education to get into the education they needed.

Today, the system is slightly different. MAVO no longer exists, this was combined with the VBO and is now called VMBO.

VMBO (voortgezet middelbaar beroepsonderwijs à continued profession oriented education) = 4 years

HAVO (hoger algemeen voortgezet onderwijs à higher general continued education) = 5 years

VWO (voortgezet wetenschappelijk onderwij à continued scientific education) = 6 years.

VWO can also be divided in ‘atheneum’ and ‘gymnasium’.

Atheneum is VWO-level with or without Spanish. Gymnasium is VWO-level with either Greek and/or Latin.

When a student has finished high school, they get further education in a higher level, depending on the level they started with.

VMBO à MBO (profession oriented eductation)

HAVO à HBO (higher profession oriented education)

VWO à WO (scientific education)

After graduation in high school, you can get a Dutch title (baccalaureus, ingenenieur, meester, doctorandus) or an international grade (Bachelor or Master).

Bachelor educations in HBO level are 4 years. An education at university level consists out of a three year bachelor degree followed by a one or two year master degree.

There are two kinds of bachelors: after a bachelor education at university level you are either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science. If you graduated at a HBO level, you can become for example a Bachelor of Fine Arts or Bachelor of Arts and Economics.

I hope I could help you a bit to understand the Dutch learning system a little better. If you are still confused, don’t worry, so am I! Luckily I don’t have to deal with this all for at least 7 more years (that’s when my eldest becomes a ‘brugpieper’) J

Dutch proverbs and expressions.

English and Dutch proverbs have more in common than we might think. Some phrasings developed in a fairly similar way, but of course there will always be little differences and big big big differences.

So, just for fun, a few Dutch proverbs and the Dutch equivalent plus literal translation.

Oh and to get in the spirit for October 4^th, World Animal Day:

Als je zo vlijtig bent als een bij,
zo sterk als een beer,

werkt als en paard,
en naar huis toe gaat zo moe als een hond,

dan moet je eens naar de dierenarts gaan.
Misschien ben je wel een ezel!

If you are as busy as a bee,

as strong as a bear,

work like a mule

and you go home dog tired.

Maybe you should visit a vet.

You might be an ass!

* Okay, so in English you can be angry as a wasp, in Dutch you get “nijdig als een spin.”

Same meaning actually, but a different animal.

spin = spider

* In English you can kill two birds with one stone. In Dutch you can kill “twee vliegen in één klap”.

twee vliegen in één klap = two flies with one hit.

* The English can make a mountain of a molehill, the Dutch make of a “mug een olifant”

van een mug een olifant maken = to make an elephant from a mosquito

* If someone is not too bright., he ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. In Dutch this

person certainly wasn’t the one who invented the “buskruit”.

Hij heeft het buskruit niet uitgevonden = He didn’t invent the gunpowder

Popular expressions:

Voor niets gaat de zon op à the sun rises for free → there’s no such thing as a free lunch

Als de maan vol is, schijnt zij overal → when the moon is full, it shines everywhere → when someone strikes gold, everyone will know.

Na regen komt zonneschijn → after the rain the sun will shine → every cloud has a silver lining.

Waar de dijk het laagst is, loop het eerst het water over → where the dyke is lowest, water runs over it first → the poor will suffer first

Een haastig man moet op geen ezel rijden → he who is in a hurry, shouldn’t be riding a donkey → if you want to succeed, you need the right tools

Ben je helemaal van de pot gerukt? → Did someone completely grab you from the pot?

Hoge bomen vangen veel wind → high trees catch a lot of wind → important people attract a lot of attention

Hoogmoed komt voor de val → pride goes for the fall → self-explicatory

Beter één vogel in de hand, dan tien in de lucht → it’s better to have one bird in the hand, than to have ten flying about → a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Een gulzige mond is nooit verzadigd → a greedy mouth will never be satisfied → a drunken man is always dry