Now that classrooms, open-plan offices and home workplaces are filling up again, the House of Representatives and the Trêveszaal can also count on full occupancy. Parliament will return on Tuesday, the Council of Ministers is already at work. How does a first council of ministers go after the summer recess?, I wondered when I saw the ladies and gentlemen with tanned and bearded heads walking into the Binnenhof.
Would Mark Rutte – despite the tsunami of problem files – be cheerful at the door of the Trêveszaal? In good spirits are ministers welcoming with a box or elbow wink? Would he kindly remind them of the rules in the cabinet – which had sunk deep into their brains during the long, warm summer months? ‘Hugo, don’t forget to hang your coat on the hook. And those shoes have to take off too, you know that. Yes Rob, soon you will be able to tell us about your boxing lessons in Croatia.’
I see them coming in piece by piece. Sigrid with her light blue Frozen-backpack, matching pencil case and brand-new calculator: ‘I hope I don’t have to sit next to Wopke anymore.’ This time Wopke is dressed as a pirate. ‘Hi guys, don’t you think my beard is super cool? He’s real!’ Christiane, Carola, Dennis, Robbert, Kajsa, they are all back. They look forward with anticipation to what Master Mark has in store for these first weeks after the holiday.
In education they are called the Golden Weeks. Because it is precisely those first weeks that determine the rest of the year. Students explore the teacher, the rules and each other. Will the class become a well-cooperative group? Or one where the teacher has his hands full all year round restoring order, preventing children from learning?
‘Get used to it, that’s how it goes every year,’ my colleague says when I ask, after an exhausting first week of school, whether it is normal that my students seem to have forgotten even the most basic rules. “Here, read this.” He presses a book into my hand. Tips for a golden start: ‘Make sure that you jointly formulate a clear group goal with behavioral agreements that you keep to each other. Work systematically on mutual social cohesion from the start.’ Funny, that sounds familiar to me. From a previous life. Does that also work for children?
Yes, of course! When I ask them the next day of school what ‘a great class’ means to them, they discuss passionately. ‘A nice class is being respectful and kind to each other’, says Luna. ‘With attention and interest’, adds Janus. And so it goes for a while. When I ask the quiet Danae what her idea of a nice group is, she whispers, “Everyone is different, but together we are one.” I see nodding in agreement. Our group goal was born.
How are things going with Rutte and his team? In these ‘golden weeks’, would he consider how they want to function as a group in each Council of Ministers? Do they also keep to each other’s agreements? I hope they see that a smooth-running, united team braving the list of crises together is far more effective than dropping another ad hoc bag of billions. That solving the big issues requires a cabinet that is more than a collection of individuals forging political deals.
But I doubt it. And so there is a danger that those first, golden weeks may well become the last weeks. A country full of crises is not waiting for that.