Cholera
You might think why I write down this illness but it's because I watched a youtube video made by a Dutch historian about epidemics in the city of Arnhem the capital city of the province Gelderland. This video is part of an online course. I must say it was a good start of my Saturday. I love history and this elderly man has a clear voice, humour used idioms and is a storyteller for sure. I learned something and shared the video with one of my children. I tried to figure out how to join the class, if I can join at all since my internet connection is generally speaking so slow I can hardly duckduckgo. This course is one out of many the "Volksuniversiteit" gives. I intended to unsubscribe to their newsletter because my days of schooling are over but I did not.
Chris
Stories... I love them, always did. No matter how it ends. It's the same with history. I have always been a story lover and history at school wasn't boring at all. An interesting fact was my grandmother's brother was one of the writers of the Dutch history book I had at primary school. It was a thick book filled with stories printed in small letters. I would love to have that book. Most of the Dutch history will be wiped out by now. Those who were heroes once are changed into traitors, abusive people by a few. To be honest I find that odd. No matter if your history is something to be proud of or not it's still history. Ignoring, wiping it out won't help and a nation should know about its past.
Each country has it's black pages, slavery and wars. Don't let us pretend only a few did. The Greek and Romans were cruel, so were the Americans and Arabs, Muslims and Africans raped, abused, castrated and killed their neighbours too.
That book I mentioned... I would like to have it since it was written by a family member, someone who loved history too. Perhaps it runs into the family? At that time I went to school the school owned the books. Most likely they are burned by now although schools love to teach old news.
One of my history teachers his name was Chris. He had a catching way of telling and thanks to him history came alive. We saw each period in history we had to learn by the head come alive. He explained everything clearly, showed how life was, people thought and lived. This included the instruments of torture. He even showed how to use them. These teachers are rare. I wish my children would have had a teacher like him instead of the bored one unable to paint clear pictures and making students hate history.
Camp
Chris was one of those teachers who came along with the class as we went on a school camp. We stayed in a farmer's barn and had to do tasks outside for history, geography, biology etc. We went to Hulst the hometown of 'Reynaert De Vos'. Reynaert became world-famous (Walt Disney used the fox, bear and wolf characters mentioned in this poem) thanks to a poem written in old Dutch. I once wrote a more modern version myself. The camp was fun and it will be something my children will never experience. These days are over. Can be the schools are glad about that because the past decennial they are always out of money, complain about a lack of teachers, money, too many pupils in a classroom (that must be a joke 30-40 was normal as I visited school that teacher could manage and we learned way more), etc etc.
With some luck, it's (more) homeschooling from now on. Good for the introverts, studies and bullying will end. The only thing needed is teachers who can and are willing to teach. That can't be such a problem since the elderly historian can and homeschooling for adults (by now children too) exists for 100 years! Indeed you read it well. For 100 years homeschooling for adults exists which means those schools have all expertise needed.
