This weekend I spoke to a girl who had just finished her Dutch studies. “Great,” I said. “I read last week that there will be a major shortage of Dutch teachers in the coming years.” “I’m really not going to stand in front of the class,” she horrified. “Not with what you get paid for it, with all those bulging classrooms, all the shortages and overtime.”
She went on to talk about the hollowed-out curriculum, the exaggerated emphasis in the central exam on a very specific form of reading skills, being able to do tricks with signal words. I nodded. And the education itself, the overcrowded classrooms, the insane workload, and the piles of proofreading (with all those speeches and reading reports, most of it from high school) are only part of the problem. The other side of the coin is policy. The countless cutbacks, the cutting out of literary festivals, competitions and programs that stimulate language enjoyment among young people.
How can you credibly convey to a class that good language skills are important, that reading enriches your life, that a rich vocabulary is vital to be able to tell what is alive in you? Dutch is heritage. There are words that don’t exist in any other language, that say something about the culture (whatever you think of it) from which we come, so that we can take a closer look at it.
It would be nice if the teacher knew that he or she is not alone in being an ambassador for the language. It would be nice if there was also a signal from the government that his profession matters and extends beyond writing job applications or reading comprehension. Write novel lines on all government buildings, decorate every bridge with stage quotes, open parliamentary week with a poem, lard every party speech with word art. Start a SIRE campaign on how to expose and defuse linguistic abuse of power. Ban Hugo de Jonge from speaking. All ways to indicate that Dutch matters and that it is more than a mandatory number to pass your final exam.
“I’m sure it will be,” said the young Nelandica when I had touched on all this. “At least it won’t get me in front of the class.”
“Then what?”
She thought for a moment and smiled.
“The government can start by canceling their student debt for all Dutch people who go into education. So that we see that they are willing to adjust the policy at every level. Then we’ll talk further.”
Ellen Deckwitz writes an exchange column with Marcel van Roosmalen here.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 30, 2022