School systems are non-stop renewed in most “western” countries. They are a mirror of society.
Equal chances for all is a popular theme. To reach this goal, standards will be lowered if necessary. So almost everybody can pass the tests. And in France it is not allowed anymore for parents to help their children with their home work. This in an attempt to eliminate differences in the social background of the pupils.
And of course, teachers are no longer persons whose authority should be respected. If you like them they can be considered as friends and otherwise, ignore them. School should, above everything else, be fun and teachers are striving for popularity among their students.
But what does the customer think about all these innovations? We got the answer, when the son of our neighbours (age 12) told us about a day when he revisited his old school in Norway. He and his family are from Norway and they are living for a few years in the Netherlands. Here follows his story …
On the 26th of October 2015 my parents, my sister and I went to Norway to visit friends and family.
For the past one and a half year I have been living in Den Haag (Holland) with my family and I’m attending the British School of the Netherlands.
During the autumn break we went back to Norway to visit family and friends. I decided to visit my old class and join them for a day.
My observation was that it was hard for the teacher to teach because the students were chatting and making a lot of noise, actually just messing around. But the teacher had also planned the lesson pretty badly because the first 30 minutes we had geography and the only thing we did was that we had to read a page in our textbook and that was it. No additional explanation from the teacher, or time for asking questions, nothing. And for me it was difficult to concentrate in the noisy environment.
My first school day back from Norway I realized how lucky I am to get the chance to go to a school which is focused on learning and not messing around.
So, now we know, from the first hand, from the customer himself!