Hansje Brinker

Compared to the Netherlands most countries have a width arrange of myths. Maybe it has to do with the landscape, the lack of rural area’s or mountains. Or it has to do with the Dutch mentality. Because compared to most nationalities the Dutch are quite down to earth. However there are some Dutch myths, and of course one of them has to do something with the dikes. The name of this myth is called Hansje Brinker.

According this legend a lockmasters son saved the Netherlands form a disastrous disaster. On a stormy day Hansje Brinker discovers a tiny hole inside the dike. Without hesitation he decides to put his finger inside the hole. By doing this he literally defends his city with bare hands for twenty four hours. The funny thing about this myth is that is better known outside the Netherlands than inside. The reason for this is probably very simple. Since this myth came into existence after the book Hansje Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge was published. In this book Mary tries to describe the typical Dutch life of the early 19 century, by describe the Dutch life she uses typical Dutch landmarks and habits such as the dikes and ice skating. Probably she used the myth to tell her readers the consequences of a mistake in the Dutch dikes. However Mary Mapes Dodge wrote her book, while she never visited the Netherlands.

What should be learned at school?

Every student at least thinks once a day why am I at school, this thought mostly does not occur because it is Friday half past four. No the reason for this thought is that we students cannot link the information we receive to reality. However the link to reality differs from person to person. This means that it is impossible to make the perfect school system.

I think that most students agree with me that links with current affairs are always interesting, for example discussing renewable energy with Geography. The basis of our modern school system should not be changed. Begin with the basic (English and maths) on the primary school. I call this the basic, because in every subject you need these two. After developing some skills in these two subject add the other subjects (biology, chemistry, physics, economics, history, geography, modern language, computer science), by doing this students will gain more skill and they will specify there interest which they develop in the third stage. In this stage you will study your favourite subjects of the second stage in more detail, however you will follow match and English because this is the basic. I would also add two new subjects theory of knowledge because it will teach you to approach a problem in different angles, and social studies because I believe that everyone should know how his/her government works.

The approach of developing skills will be completely different, I will mostly work in projects and combine different subjects, for example it is easy to combine statistics and economics. The topics of these projects I would link to the Current problems for example the combination between the credit crunch. During the projects I will use modern technology to gather certain information. This of course I will do in the third stage, because you need some basic skills to analyse the problems.

The last typical feature of my school system is that students have to be actively involved in sports, visiting types of art and helping the community. These three things are quite important, because after an exercise people feel fit, and you have to be fit to absorb the knowledge that is given to you on school. Visiting different types of art you just need to broaden your horizon. The most important one, helping the community, is to experience that not everything is as logical as it seems. In addition it faces you that most of us are very luckily to be in the situation we are.

Overall you can see that the aims of my school system is that the students can make a connection between theory and normal life, can work with modern technology, are fit and have a width horizon and have a clear image of how the real world looks like.

Is school a cave?

400 years before Christ, Plato accounted for this sense of another reality in his ‘Allegory of the Cave’. According to this view on reality, we are prisoners in a cave, looking at the shadows of puppets on the cave wall. That is to say everything we see around us is just a illusion. We may think we see trees and cats and BMWs, but in fact they are only shadows, projected by the light of a fire and some fancy puppeteers. Outside the cave are the true trees and cats and BMWs, or the pure ‘idea’ of these, which would hurt our eyes to look at.

If Plato is right not only is school a cave, then in a sort of way our whole life is a cave. In this cave you have different corridors. All the corridors have different walls that protect us and limit our movements. In the beginning we can only enter a few corridors. In these corridors we have to obey the rules of our parents and teachers. When we graduate we can enter the next stage. We can choose the corridor of company A or company B. There we listen to our boss. We can even dig our own area, and start our own business. However if we do that we still have to compromise with the government. Our whole society is based on staying inside the cave. Take our constitution, we all agree with it. However if you do not, we think you are stupid and you get punished. You get locked up and we will teach you what is right and what is wrong. There is nothing wrong with it, actually it is quite the opposite we all love it. We all love safety and most people hate it to take initiative. We prefer watching moves instead of making them. The people that do take the risk and therefore do go outside the cave we reward them, with honour and high salaries. There nothing wrong with it, this system is even older than our existence.