On Friday, May 19, Noëmi and I went to a faculty development conference at Microsoft’s Dutch office in Amsterdam. The conference was organized specifically for teachers from the college networks. Each school got to send a handful of teachers — Noëmi’s colleague Paul was with us, as was one of the other guests from the U.S., Janel from California — and there were over one hundred educators and IT administrators in attendance.
Noëmi participates in these conferences often because she’s a Microsoft Innovative Educator. Summa College students have free access to Microsoft 365, and the teachers use it to share documents and provide feedback on assignments. And on the 19th, Noëmi was leading a hands-on workshop focused on using the One Note program in the classroom.
Janel and I were lucky to have Noëmi with us, because for the first half of the day, before Noëmi led her workshop, she sat with us in the back of the conference theater and translated every presenter’s Dutch into English. She basically gave us everyone’s word-for-word, which was fantastic for us and probably exhausting for her.
Noëmi ( who is probably very tired but doesn’t show it!), me, and Janel
The theme of the day was Empowering the Students of Today to Create the World of Tomorrow, and each speaker gave a thirty-minute presentation. Because of the intimacy of the space, everyone was able to ask questions, and because I am a huge gorp, I took many, many notes.
Don’t worry, there are six more pages just like this.
Noëmi eventually had to leave me and Janel, first to do a short introduction of the MIE program…
Noëmi!
…and then later on to lead her workshop:
Noëmi teaches the teachers
And without our translator, Janel and I were a bit lost in all of the Dutch, so we hung out for an hour in Microsoft’s employee lounge area. We were very professional and mature.
Professional…
…and mature.
There were a few breaks throughout the day: one for mid-morning coffee (I’ve told you that the Dutch love their coffee breaks, right? They love them, and I love them. We all love them!), one for lunch, one for early afternoon post-lunch treats…
Bros before bros.
Well don’t you look new and delicious.
…and a post-conference reception that easily topped any reception that followed any faculty development day I’ve ever attended at MCC. Ever.
Sorry, MCC, but Microsoft has you beat. Not pictured: a variety of fried snacks that I was too busy eating to photograph (many of them were stuffed with cheese; all of them were delicious).
It was a thought-provoking and useful day and I’m so happy we were able to tag along with Noëmi. The only thing that crumbed up our moods was the three hour commute back to Eindhoven. The highway we needed to use was shut down because of an accident in a tunnel, so we took a detour, along with what felt like every other commuter in the entire country.
But that’s gross, so let’s not end on that; instead, let’s end on this super gorpy picture of me!
I am smiling so big because my notebook is so full of notes, and my stomach is so full of fried cheese and beer.
Now, I know that I’m way behind on my posts, so I’ll try to get a few more done before the end of the week. My official exchange ended on Saturday, and Trevor has now joined me in the Netherlands (yay!!!). We’re staying with his uncle in Amsterdam, and I will have many more posts about that. But up next will be a post about me, Noëmi, and Dave, and a windmill in Borkel (Borkel!!) and an abbey in Belgium.
My last post was a bit number-y and kind of a downer. So this one will be fun and full of stories about the wonderful students I’ve met over the past two weeks!
But I’ve met so many more students after last Tuesday, and I wanted to tell you a little bit about them. Last Thursday I observed five classes: three of Chiara’s classes (Chiara is a teacher-in-training and a former teaching intern); one of Noëmi’s classes; and one of Franka’s classes (Franka is a Dr. Who fan, so she is obviously top-notch).
First up at 10 a.m. was Chiara’s English class for 2nd year healthcare students. They were a good start to the day, although a little shy and quiet. They asked great questions (including the now infamous high school cheerleader question) and were the reason Chiara and I started to crunch the numbers about college tuition in the U.S. Unfortunately, I let them leave without getting a picture, so please imagine that they were smart looking, because they were.
Next up at 11:15 a.m. was a class of Chiara’s 3rd year nursing students, and they were on it. As soon as Chiara mentioned that I was from the U.S., one of her students said — in a pretty damn good rural-American accent — “America: Fuck yeah!” From that point forward, they were hilarious and engaged. They had questions about school and about nursing, about tuition, cheerleaders (of course), and about my thoughts on visiting the school and the Netherlands. I took a nice group picture of them with Chiara…
Chiara’s 3rd Year Nursing Students with Chiara (far right)
…but we also wanted one altogether. So I took these terrible selfies to try to get us all in:
You guys know how amazing I am at taking selfies, so you should be impressed that any part of my face is visible.
Next up was Noëmi’s class of 2nd year students at 12:15 p.m. I said goodbye to Chiara, knowing I would meet up with her later on that afternoon to visit one more of her classes. Noëmi’s 2nd year students had a hard act to follow with Chiara’s 3rd years, but they turned out to be pretty spectacular. These were a small group of students who’d “chosen” wrong. In my earlier post I explained that Dutch students make choices at age 12 about the type of high school they’ll attend (general vocation [hospitality, healthcare, teaching/education…], general, or college-prep), and then at age 16 they make a choice to focus on a specific area within the general area.
All of Noëmi’s students have chosen nursing, which puts them at her college, but the students in this class had made an early decision that they wanted to change, and then they switched to nursing a little later than most students started. This meant that they were older than her typical 2nd year students (19/20 instead of 17/18), and they were a little more mature and focused. This is saying a lot, since all of the students I encountered at Summa College gave me the impression that they were mature and focused.
These students asked some of the most interesting and thoughtful questions, and Noëmi showed them the requirements for a nursing degree at McHenry County College, which they appreciated seeing and had a lot of questions about. They were the only class that did not ask about cheerleading.
Noëmi’s 2nd Year Nursing Students
After this class, Noëmi and I had a thirty minute break so we ate some sandwiches and fruit in the teacher’s lounge, and then got a cup of coffee. (Have I mentioned how frequently the Dutch have coffee breaks throughout the day? Quite often. It’s one of the most civilized things about them and something I want to immediately import to the U.S.)
After lunch I met up with Franka, the Dr. Who fan and English teacher for students studying to be dental assistants. These were typical 2nd year students, about 18 years old. They were a little shy, but there was another teaching of English who asked questions to get them warmed up and who had excellent questions about paths of study in the U.S. They were the first group to whom I explained my own circuitous route to becoming a teacher.
Franka is kneeling in the front row left, wearing glasses
The last class I got to visit was back with Chiara, her 3rd year part-time nursing students. These students were similar to MCC’s returning adult students: students who’d been working at a job for ten or twenty years, and then decided they were up for a change so they went back to school to study nursing.
It was in this class that I felt most at home with the material, since she was giving a lesson on how to compose a business letter. She touched on a lot of the same things I touch on with my students: addressing an unfamiliar audience clearly and professionally; using a standard salutation and closing; and proofreading (!!!). She also talked about the “shit” rule for remembering subject-verb agreement, and I’m going to steal it. Here’s what it is:
If you have a subject that’s needed to make “shit”, then you need to add an “s” to the verb. What do you need to make shit? She, He, and It. So, “she sings,” and “he drives,” and “it produces.” SHIT!
I love it. Thanks, Chiara!
I didn’t get a picture of this final Thursday class, and I’m kind of bummed about it. But it did mark a time I made a dumb American blunder with a Dutch person. The desks were arranged in a two-layered U-shape, and before the class started I sat in the second layer on the end. The person in front of me had her things there, but she was getting coffee, and when she came back she asked me, in Dutch, if it was okay if she sat in front of me.
Now, I am such a goof that when someone is speaking to me in Dutch and I don’t immediately get the gist of what they’re saying, I just sort of stare dumbly and smile. So, that’s what I did and then, still smiling, I shook my head “No.” To me, I was trying to tell her that I didn’t understand; she thought I was telling her that she could not sit in front of me. She probably thought I was a major asshole. Luckily, someone in the class said that I was an American and then she asked in English, and I was so apologetic and said that of course she could sit in front of me! She laughed really hard and the whole class had a great sense of humor. That made me love them all very much.
I’d made another American tourist gaffe my first day on campus. I was doing simulations with the doctor’s assistant students: a student would sit at a reception desk behind me and I’d call with an ailment; the student had to identify whether I should come in to see the doctor if it was serious, or if I could take some aspirins and stay home. I first pretended to have a mild headache; I called the second student with a stomachache; and, since the first two had asked if I had a fever and I’d said “No,” I thought that I’d have a fever for the third student.
But when she asked what my temperature reading was, I thought to myself, “hmm, what’s a kind-of serious but not too high temperature?” And I answered, “101 degrees.” The room was silent for a couple of seconds before Noëmi burst out laughing and the rest of the class (who were listening in order to debrief after the calls) joined in as well. It took me a second to realize that I’d given them a Fahrenheit temperature and basically just told them that my blood was boiling. Noëmi gave me a quick calculation and I changed my answer to 38 degrees. Yikes.
On Monday I observed five more of Noëmi’s classes: two 2nd year classes, two 3rd year classes, and a 1st year class. One of the 3rd year classes I visited was the same class I’d met first last week Monday; I’d forgotten to get a picture of them, so we made sure to get one this time:
The only group I got to see twice!
The other groups were, as expected, great. They had similar types of questions as the groups I’d met last week, though Noëmi’s 11:45 a.m. 3rd year class also gave me some good ideas about things to do in Amsterdam once my time with Noëmi and Dave is over and Trevor comes to town (more about that later). They were the first to suggest that we visit the Anne Frank House Museum, which we’re doing on Tuesday; and they also mentioned that I might like to visit a “coffee” shop. We’ll see about that.
Noëmi’s 3rd year students
Noëmi’s 1st year students — very early in their studies, but their English was excellent!
Noëmi’s 2nd year students
As you can see, they are very smart looking and adorable. I told them that I’d tour them around Chicago if they ever came my way, and some of them were actually interested. But even if I never see them again, they helped make my time here meaningful. Thank you, students!
I’ll have more posts about the faculty development conference we attended at Microsoft’s Amsterdam offices last Friday, the visit we took to the hospitality school (and all of the wonderful food we ate [and helped cook!]) and the meetings I had with some of the Summa College administrators. Well, maybe I won’t do an entire post on the administrative meetings: I found them fascinating and I took tons of notes, but they might not be very interesting to you.
Today is my last day with Noëmi and Dave. Trevor flies into Amsterdam tomorrow (I AM SO EXCITED TO SEE HIM), so I’ll also have some posts documenting our adventures. Stay tuned for all of that.
Last week, in addition to visiting School 23, the Summa College school for hospitality training, and Efteling Theme Park, I got to see a lot of students and teachers in action, and I got a taste of Dutch faculty development. I was going to focus this post on those things — the amazing teachers and students, the excellent faculty development — but as I typed out an explanation of the Dutch education system’s tuition and compared it to ours in the U.S., I realized that I couldn’t focus on anything fun…yet. As a result, this post is a little dry, but I hope you read it. I think it’s important. Tomorrow I’ll give you a little brain candy and a lot of great pictures of smart, interesting Dutch students.
On Thursday, Noëmi and I headed back to the Summa Zorg campus. She’d arranged for me to observe five different English classes: three taught by her former intern and now a teacher-in-training, Chiara; one by her colleague Franka; and one of Noëmi’s own.
The first two classes were taught by Chiara, an energetic young woman of Irish and German descent who was born in Germany and moved to the Netherlands when she was four years old (her father’s work transferred him here). Her English is spectacular and her accent is a bit Irish/a bit Dutch, and all of it was a pleasure to listen to.
Chiara’s 3rd Year Nursing Students with Chiara (far right)
Her first class was made up of 2nd year healthcare students (who I am just realizing now I didn’t get a picture of — imagine them as great, because they were). They were fairly young and a little shy. I explained the U.S. education system to them and talked about some of the differences between it and the Dutch education system.
The first significant difference is choice: when Dutch students are 12 years old, they must decide which type of secondary education they will pursue: a vocational education (VMBO), a general liberal arts education (HVAO), or a more stringent university-preparatory education (VWO). The students who have selected the vocational education go through four years of the VMBO and then, at age 16, they must decide on a specific vocation. That choice determines which college (MBO) they will attend; the students who have chosen healthcare come to Noëmi’s school, Summa Zorg.
This means that at age 16, students decide on a career. If they change their minds, they can switch schools, but they may need to go backwards a bit to make up the curriculum they missed, and this could delay graduation. The system sounded stressful to me (I changed my mind about possible careers until I was about 26; and I think that’s actually pretty decisive). But when I questioned the students about this, they more or less seemed okay with their choices. A couple were a bit uncertain — what if they decide later that they want to do something else? — but many felt confident in their decisions. And I encountered students who had chosen a different vocation, but who’d then switched to healthcare, or were interested in switching from healthcare to something else. They said that yes, there was a bit of delay, but they were happy they’d made the change early and not once they’d gotten into a career they didn’t like and didn’t fit with.
The other significant difference is tuition. When Dutch students begin college at an MBO (or at an HBO, which is comparable to a four-year college or university in the U.S.), they’re only 16 and the government is still paying for their education. The following two years are entirely funded for them, and then, once they turn 18, their tuition is $1,037 per year — to any MBO in the country. And, as long as the student finishes her degree within a reasonable period of time, the tuition is reimbursed to them upon graduation. And, all students get a free public transportation pass after secondary school, as long as they’re continuing their schooling. The government doesn’t want student to have to pay for transportation to and from school, just in case their college is far away. These MBO students are, in large part, though not all, the kind of students who attend McHenry County College.
Now, if a Dutch student is on the track for an HBO or WO (college/university in the U.S. traditional sense) her tuition is $1,984 per year; and it’s not a gift like it is with the MBO students, but a loan that must be repaid. The interest on that loan is very low (maybe 1%?) and the monthly payments are calculated based on the type of job a student is able to get after graduation. If a student has been making monthly payments without default for a long time (about twenty years, I think?), then the remainder of the loan is forgiven.
So, in Chiara’s class, when I explained the cost of tuition at my college, which is still significantly less than most colleges, and the lowest in our area, the students were shocked. Like, there was an audible gasp when Chiara and I did the math (okay, Chiara did the math) and put the price of MCC’s tuition on the whiteboard.
For a student at MCC to be considered a full-time student, she must be enrolled in a minimum of 12 credit hours. My single-semester long class is 3 credit hours; each credit hour at MCC is $104. That means that a full-time student enrolled in 12 credit hours is paying $1248 per semester and $2,496 per year, not including books or other materials that may be required for a class (specific software; art materials; uniform for nursing and culinary students). So if a nursing student at MCC is doing her two-year associate’s degree, her tuition will be $4,992.
Now, in the U.S., for a two year degree that almost immediately gets you access to a career, that sounds like a good deal, right? But the Dutch students were floored at how much money that was. For education, which, for them, is a given, like bicycles and windmills. Then I told them that at the University of Illinois Chicago, where I’m doing my master’s degree, tuition is a lot more expensive than it is at MCC, even though UIC is still considered to be reasonably priced. UIC’s in-state tuition — for a 12 credit hour undergraduate student — is $4,763 per semester, and $9,526 per year (again, without books, other materials, or boarding). And out-of-state tuition per semester is $10,550, making the annual cost $21,100. So if my nursing students (or if any of the many students at MCC who are on the baccalaureate/transfer side of the house) want to get a bachelor’s degree, after they’ve paid $4,992 at MCC, they still need to spend a minimum of $19,052 for the remaining two years of their undergraduate education.
And then one of Chiara’s student mentioned Harvard, so we quickly looked that up and saw that tuition alone — without adding in the nearly twenty-thousand dollars worth of fees, room, and board — is $44,990 per year. Plus an estimated $4,000 for “personal expenses” per year (books, materials); and up to $4,000 for traveling between school and home each year for breaks and holidays; and $3,130 for required health insurance if you’re not covered on your family’s plan. Even if you’re a townie or you don’t ever travel home to see your family, and if you don’t need to buy health insurance, you’re still dropping about $70,000 per year and $278,400 for the entirety of your undergraduate education. That doesn’t account for an increase in tuition. And you can’t ever leave Cambridge.
And I know, I know — it’s Haaaaaaahvaahd. It’s the school of schools; Harvard graduates are almost definitely going to make more money out of school than your garden variety schlub like me. But more than a quarter of a million dollars? Holy shit, man.
There’s a gulf, an abyss, even, between the people in the United States who can afford somewhere like Harvard, or even somewhere like UIC, and the students who are barely able to attend MCC (many of my students). This gulf will continue to widen and affect these students’ lives, through the time it will take them to complete their degrees, the debt they accumulate (student loan interest is currently at 3.76% but is likely to go up soon), and the salary of the jobs they are able to get. I don’t think this is okay. I really don’t think this is okay.
I started drafting this post on Sunday evening and my intention when I started was to write about all of the great students I visited last Thursday, and about the professional development conference I attended with Noëmi on Friday. But it’s Tuesday afternoon now: I’ve looked at a lot of dollar signs and I’ve met even more students to whom I’ve had to explain our tuition. This didn’t turn out to be a fun post, and I got off track from Chiara, Noëmi, and Franka. But I’m glad I wrote it. I’m glad I’m thinking about it.
Let’s all think about it, and maybe we can figure out how the U.S. can adjust its culture to believe that a post-secondary education is just as much of a right for all citizens as is the right to own a firearm. How about that, huh? Let’s start there.
I have 1,000 things to write about in regards to my trip to the Netherlands (I’ve been here for one week), and tonight I’m going to write about the first two days I had visiting schools and meeting students.
On Monday I went to Summa College with Noëmi to see her college campus, get a sense of what her work day looked like, and meet her excellent students.
First, let’s talk about the teachers’ lounge at Summa College Zorg & Welzijn (healthcare and wellness), where Noëmi teaches. This is what it looks like.
I love this lounge
There are two coffee machines that make espresso, cappuccino, and regular coffee; they also have hot water and a variety of tea, and cold filtered water. And it’s all free for teachers. And I have been using it a lot this week. I’ve upped my daily caffeine intake by 80%, and I’m pretty happy about that.
Next, let’s talk about Noëmi’s students, who are great. All of the students I’ve met so far have been great, and I’ll get to that a lot more later. Here’s one of Noëmi’s classes:
Adorable.
I told her students why I was visiting and a little bit about the type of college I teach at, and my students, and they had great questions. They also, through giggles, asked me if high school in the U.S. was like high school in the movies: specifically, are there cheerleaders?
Yes, students. Yes, there are. And they look something like this:
Picture stolen from Sara Zambreno’s Facebook page; she’s that super cute stringbean in the far right front row.
Between Noëmi’s classes, we hung out in the teacher team’s office, and I saw a book near her desk. It looked like fun, so I picked it up.
Fun, right? And the author’s name is Buffi, so…it’s obviously the best book ever.
And it was so much more fun than I could have ever imagined. So. Much. More. Fun.
WHAT IS HAPPENING? I LOVE ALL OF IT!
And then…I found this:
I’ll just leave that there for you to enjoy.
Noëmi drove me over to another school, School 23, where I met up with the three other American visitors and their hosts. There is a visitor from Morton College in Cicero, IL; a visitor from Casper College in Casper, Wyoming; and a visitor from Fresno City College in Fresno, California. As you might imagine, I think they’re all great and I can’t wait to tell you more about them.
Now, the school itself, while also great, kind of blew my mind. School 23 is a school for Dutch language learners to become acclimated to the Netherlands, to learn Dutch, and to learn skills that will allow them to not only function in Dutch society, but to thrive. But many of the students at School 23 are refugees who have fled from countries like Somalia, Syria, and Eritrea. These students have been traumatized; many have lost family members; some are now living in a foreign country all by themselves; and while some have excellent educational backgrounds (Syria had a robust school system until the war, and reported a 95% literacy rate), some of the students at School 23 are illiterate. These students brought an entirely new context to my understanding of “at risk” students.
Not only is School 23 serving this important population, they seem to be doing a wonderful job. The students we saw during our tour of the school were friendly and happy; they practiced their English with us (adorably and nervously), and showed tremendous pride in the work we saw them doing.
Noëmi with the culinary arts instructor and one of his students (who helped cook all of the food for our after-meeting tea!)
We saw students working on art projects, students learning about evolution (um, yeah, a group of smarties from Syria were learning about evolution and I was really jealous and wanted to hang out with their class), and students hanging out in the reading nook (reading nook!). And everywhere in between they were just being happy teenagers, and that made me so proud of them and so thankful for the work that School 23 does.
A masonry studio for students to practice job-specific skills; they also learn carpentry and electrical work
A shop simulation stocked with donated goods where students can practice front of house skills like customer service and back-of-house skills like inventory and book-keeping
We left School 23 happy and feeling great, and we went into our Tuesday with high expectations for the next school we were visiting: the Summa College school for hospitality training at the Eindhoven Aiport. And guess what? Our high expectations were met.
Airport!
We were so excited to go to a new airport — it’s always fun to go to the airport when you don’t have the stress of dragging bags around and worrying about catching your flight.
We met up with the rest of the visitors and their hosts, and were greeted by some of the students in the lobby. They brought us up to their school facilities, located on the second floor of the actual airport. The students are required to wear flight attendant-like uniforms each day to classes, and they looked official and wonderful and made me envious of their teacher for getting to teach them (their teacher is a lovely woman named Rose — hello, Rose!).
The students had prepared presentations for us about their school and their training, and we had time to ask them questions before they took us on a tour through the facilities (and guess what? they also asked us about high school cheerleaders).
Waiting in the school’s airplane simulation
Student presentation!
The. Cutest.
Two students gave a tour to me, Noëmi, and Charles, the visitor from Wyoming. Because they were in their uniforms, they frequently got asked for help by actual patrons of the airport, and Nadia here had to help a couple of guys who were on their way to the Canary Islands load their surfboards and kayaks into the oversized luggage belt.
That’s a kayak, not a dead body! (or is it????? [no, it’s totally a kayak])
There’s an outdoor terrace at the airport!
Our tour guide is literally the poster boy for the school!
Charles, Noëmi, and our wonderful tour guides!
We hated to leave because it was all so cool and the students kept asking us excellent questions, but we needed to get back to Noëmi’s school for lunch. So we took a quick group picture…
They’re ridiculously cute!
…and then we headed back to this:
YES.
So, if you don’t know me that well then you might not know that I love sandwiches. Like, I love sandwiches. I’ve written about them before. And I will likely write about them again.
We ate sandwiches and soup (perfect combination, obviously) and then Noëmi took us all on a tour of her school. I’d seen her office, her classroom, the teachers’ lounge, and the restroom, but that’s about it. So I loved getting to see all of the nooks and crannies. And one of the most important nooks is this nook:
Summa College Zorg Library!
And this was a pretty amazing cranny:
The door for this dental assistant lab class was locked; otherwise, I’d have been all up in that dummy-head’s business.
When the tour was over and the visitors and their hosts left, Noëmi took me to her team meeting (I understood one word: Noëmi) and then I hung out in her office while she did some work. We were both tired from an excellent first couple of days at work, but looking forward to Wednesday, which was our day out at Efteling Theme Park.
I have many things to say about Efteling Theme Park, and they are all good things. But you’re going to have to wait until my next post for that. So for now, I’ll leave you with this:
In the fall, I participated in the first half of an international scholar exchange program by hosting a Dutch scholar — an English teacher from Summa College in Eindhoven — for two weeks.
And this week I started the second half by traveling to the Netherlands for my own two-week visit. It’s only my fourth day, and it’s only the second day of the school week, but I have so much to talk about already; so I’ve decided to break up these first days into 1: the weekend; and 2: the start of the work week. That way I can give everything the just descriptions they all deserve and not overwhelm you readers.
So, here’s how I came about to Holland and how I spent my first forty-eight hours!
Trevor took me to the airport on Friday afternoon. I was fresh from entering my students’ final grades; I’d finished packing and we hopped into the car.
Roo doesn’t like when we go to the airport: most of the time, we come home with one fewer person.
I got through security in ten minutes, ate a sandwich, and then read my book for an hour while waiting to board the plane.
What book, you ask? Oh, only the library book that was due on the 13th but that I hadn’t finished and assumed I’d be able to renew, but then I couldn’t renew because someone has a hold on it, and now I’m 4,176 miles away from the library so it’s going to be returned three weeks late. Right. That book.
Sorry, fellow librarian patron. I have done you wrong.
But, I got on the plane with my overdue book and had an uneventful flight, which is the best kind of flight. We landed in Amsterdam at 9:20 a.m. local time and I met up with Noëmi, where we hugged a great big hug hello and then immediately made plans to get coffee. And while getting coffee, we saw this bird.
He wanted very much to show us his worm.
Noëmi drove us to her village, Valkenswaard. It’s about 12 kilometers south-east of Eindhoven, where Noëmi teaches. The village is adorable: there are snack shops everywhere so you can get frites (a.k.a. chips [a.k.a. fries]); and the Dutch still use automats, so there’s a bit of a Dutch Mad Men vibe; and there are just as many bicyclists on the road as there are cars.
A Dutch Bakery in Noëmi’s neighborhood. The smells were amazing. I was not surprised by this.
Relaxing with Noëmi!
And then she and I just hung around and caught up. I met Noëmi’s boyfriend, Dave, and their cats, Wooff and Karel, and I moved into my room, which, when I am not visiting, is used as Dave’s exercise room. He has motivational posters on the walls, and they are now keeping me company.
I honestly feel very happy with these guys on the walls.
We continued to be low-key on Sunday, heading to the Eindhoven city center to wander around the shops…
The Dutch give things…interesting names.
I would not shop here.
…sip some hot chocolate and people-watched while it rained…
…and look for important souvenirs to bring back for Trevor.
Warning: Snore Alert (Trevor would probably like to hang this on my face)
I was *this* close to getting one of these. THIS CLOSE.
We also went to a beautiful book store, the Boekhandel Van Piere, and did a bit of wandering. Noëmi took a surreptitious picture, which is something Trevor does. So it felt like home.
Should I go back and get that copy of The Shining? I should, shouldn’t I? I should.
Dave was at the PSV game, and when the match was over (PSV won, though it was the final game of the season and it didn’t matter much [but they still won!]) we met up to find some dinner. And dinner we did find! We went to a high-end food court called the Down Town Gourmet Market: Dave got Indian food, I got sushi, and Noëmi got pasta. But she was still hungry, so she also got this:
Ridiculous. And delicious.
A post-Nutella picture
We had a great time, and then headed home for the night, making a pit stop so that they could teach me HOW TO DRIVE A MANUAL TRANSMISSION!
OMG I’m driving a stick-shift and Dave is letting me!
I’ve always wanted to learn, and now I have! I drove in circles around a mostly empty parking lot for about fifteen minutes, and I would have kept going, but I think Noëmi and Dave were feeling woozy. It was so much fun! And I only stalled the car once! Ha!
And that’s all I’m going to write about now. My next two posts will be about the excellent school visits I’ve had so far this week (these students are great; these teachers are great!) and grocery shopping in the Netherlands. Yes. Grocery shopping. I love it.
On Tuesday, April 4, there will be a consolidated election in McHenry County, as there will be elections all over the state; and as part of that election, my community will be voting to fill two seats on McHenry County College’s Board of Trustees.
And it’s a big deal.
Elections are always a big deal; I know this. They’re a big deal, and everyone should educate themselves about elections in their communities (even though it’s sometimes a pain to do research), and everyone should get out on election days and vote (even though it’s not always convenient to go vote on a random Tuesday in April).
But you know what’s on the table for this election, and for the school where I’ve worked for over a decade? Civility, decency, and education itself.
See, out of the four people running for the two available seats on MCC’s Board, there are two reasonable, measured, thoughtful human beings: Linda Liddell, an incumbent running for her seat, and Tom Allen, an MCC alumni.
Liddell and Allen are friends of MCC: they are pro-faculty, pro-student, and pro-education. MCC’s faculty and staff unions have both endorsed Liddell and Allen. I’d place a safe bet that nearly all (maybe 99.99%) of MCC’s employees are going to vote for Liddell and Allen. I’m voting for Liddell and Allen.
Yeah, I made these signs myself; and yeah, I laminated them. BOOM.
And wouldn’t it be nice if we could just end it there? With some laminated signs and a bit of silliness? It would be, right? But we can’t.
We can’t end it there because the woman who’s running for one of the two open spots is a terrifying person. Her name is Diane Evertsen and she needs to be discussed.
Evertsen was, and likely still is a member of the “Minuteman Project,” a group designed to watch the U.S. border in an effort to keep out illegal immigrants. Evertsen published posts on her family’s Minutemen Midwest blog (yes, her family had their own Minutemen blog) about President Barack Obama and undocumented immigrants, and the language used on the family’s blog is unfit to repeat. Why is that language used by Evertsen and her family unfit to repeat? Because it’s despicable, racist language.
In 2010, the Evertsens tried to purge the internet of their work by deleting the site, but someone archived them on a separate blog to prevent the family from hiding.
But these archived posts are not the only traces of Diane Evertsen’s problematic views. In 2008, the Mexican Consulate visited Harvard Junior High School to register community members for consular ID cards, and Evertsen, a resident of Harvard, protested. She gave a three-minute presentation to the Harvard school board. Her message was intolerant but not surprising, given her affiliation with the “Minuteman Project.”
Excerpt from Evertsen’s presentation
Harvard is a small town about twenty miles from MCC, and it’s one of the towns our college serves. While McHenry County’s Latino population is about 12%, estimated by recent U.S. Census data, Harvard’s Latino population is about 37%. These residents of Harvard attend my college — I have four students from Harvard in my classrooms alone — and the growing Latino population in McHenry County as a whole is a population that the college is actively engaged in serving. According to MCC’s 2013 Environmental Scan, the college wants to join other institutions to “be seen as a successful bridge for students stepping out from their local communities into the global economy” (pp. 27). The report goes on to say this:
Successful performance in today’s rapidly multicultural workforce requires sensitivity to human differences and the ability to relate to people from varied cultural backgrounds. Thus, an increasingly important postsecondary educational outcome is helping students become more comfortable and competent in moving personally and professionally among cultures of the world. A related outcome is to prepare students to engage in worldwide activities related to education, business, and social interaction. (pp. 27)
Evertsen does not seem to show sensitivity to human differences. In fact, she seems to show the exact opposite. This is not a person we want sitting on the college’s Board of Trustees.
Evertsen and her running mate are promoting a platform of no new taxes, which is the platform that contributed to the reduction in force of nineteen MCC employees earlier this month, including four full-time faculty members. If the Board of Trustees continues to refuse to vote on a tax levy in the upcoming year, this first RIF will not be our last.
Many residents of McHenry County are anti-tax. We have some of the highest property taxes in the state, and the community doesn’t like it. In November, Crystal Lake residents voted down a $132 annual household tax to build a new library. That’s right: $132 a year, per household. For a public library.
Trevor and I voted “YES” for the new library. The majority of the city did not.
So I’m fearful that these same voters will stop their investigations at Evertsen’s campaign slogan. Please, voters: keep digging. There is much more to this person, and none of it is good for our college, for our students, or for our community.
I write this post in an effort to spread the word about Evertsen and to encourage everyone to get out and vote on Tuesday, April 4. School districts in Palatine and Elgin are also facing important votes, including votes about restrictions on transgender students’ rights to use the bathroom. This isn’t an election to sit out. There is no election to sit out.
Whether your town is voting for mayor, alderman, school board, or legislation, find out what’s best — what’s not racist, not intolerant — and then go out and support it in the most democratically empowering way you can: by voting.
Wednesday, March 8 is International Women’s Day, which is a day, according to the IWD campaign’s website, “celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.”
And it is because of that call to action that I am writing. Today I participated in A Day Without A Woman, and took a personal day from work, have abstained from all social media, and haven’t spent any money (although if I had, I’d have spent money with women-owned businesses…). Trevor, who is employed at a woman-owned business, has been working from home today, and has taken Roo on all of her walks, has made us lunch, and will be making us dinner. Hopefully soon.
And I was looking forward to the day as my small part in a much larger movement. I wasn’t able to march in January (although I knitted some pink pussy hats that my amazing lady friends rocked at the March on Washington), so, for me, this day felt like my own little march — my march for equality and for justice and to recognize the privilege and the duty that I have as a citizen of the United States to protest in the first place.
But yesterday, Tuesday, March 7, I had the worst day of my professional life, and I needed to change my focus and my view of what I was protesting for.
Yesterday, four of my colleagues in the counseling department at McHenry County College — four women who have served the college in every imaginable way, consistently, and frequently without thanks — were let go as part of the college’s reduction in force. Three of these four women are part of the eighteen-member faculty cohort I led through our new faculty orientation program during my first year as chair of faculty development in 2009; the fourth has worked at the college for over twenty years. One of these women leads the grief support group and the Autism support group at the college; one of these women wrote the textbook now used in the college’s freshman experience course; one of these women sat on our union’s negotiating team for six months to help craft the language under which I am now employed and under which they have now been terminated; one of these women organized an interview session last week with the candidates for the upcoming Board of Trustees vote so that our faculty could get to know them and make an informed decision. These women have helped MCC’s six thousand students with career planning, navigating college for the first time, and crisis intervention. And today, along with all of the counseling adjunct faculty members, these four women are gone.
But the students who needed them are still on campus, hoping to get help with career planning, hoping to get assistance navigating college, and hoping for someone to take their hands and help them out of crisis.
For the past three years, the college has been operating its budget at a deficit, most recently because of the lack of state funding promised to us and other public institutions caused by Governor Rauner’s budget…issues. One third of our operational money is supposed to come from the state; a third from the county; and a third from tuition. So, without that money from the state, the college was facing either raising tuition (we are currently at $104 per credit hour, while area institutions College of Lake County, Elgin Community College, and Kishwaukee College are at $112, $125, and $129 respectively) or voting on a tax levy, which they have refused to do for years.
So the college needed to put a bandage on this gaping wound, and a reduction in force for faculty, staff, and administrators seemed a necessary evil.
There is no good in this. There is no silver lining. And I know that that MCC is late to the game in terms of a RIF: CLC, Elgin, and Kish have all experienced layoffs starting in August 2016, and the board of Rock Valley College just voted to lay off twenty-eight faculty members; and it’s their second round of cuts. But that doesn’t make our situation any easier to swallow.
It doesn’t change the life-sucking reality that yesterday I tried to help my colleagues, who’d been given five minutes to collect their things and leave, pack their offices into boxes. Years and years and years of accumulated office supplies — many emblazoned with the college’s logo — and books and knick-knacks and gifts and cards from students. And when I got back to my own office and sat at my desk, looking at my collection of supplies, books, student-gifted knick-knacks and student-created paintings and writings, I grieved for my colleagues and for the students who will need them.
Today is A Day Without A Woman. It is a day we hope the world will realize how much women contribute to our society, to our collective whole. We are not better; we are not more important; but we are equal and we deserve to be treated as such.
There are many problems that need to be fixed, and today I will start work to solve them, beginning with my college. I will campaign for the two trustee candidates for my college board, Linda Liddell and Tom Allen, who I believe will best help us. I will vote for Liddell and Allen on April 4, 2017, and I will recruit as many people as I can to vote with me.
Today I started marching. Tomorrow I will continue.
I’ve been a teacher since 2006 and have had, in that time, about 1,800 students in my classrooms. And yes, they’ve all been wonderful people and I’ve loved them all. But…well, you know…I might have had some favorites over the years.
I know that I’m not supposed to have favorites, but it’s hard not to, especially with the high quality of students that come through my door. And especially when one of those students is the super cute, super smart, super wonderful Shahrazad Sheikhali.
How cute and smart and wonderful is she?!
Shaz first became my student in August of 2011 when she enrolled in my Composition 2 class; and I immediately liked her. She was quiet but smart, and she always went the extra mile with her work, her discussions, and with the way she treated her classmates. She was one of my favorites that semester, and it could have ended there.
English 152, Fall 2011: Shaz is far right — her first appearance in one of my class photos!
But then — but then! — I learned that she was loved to write! Favorite status imminent! Shaz enrolled in my creative writing class for the next semester…
One damn fine creative writing class!
…and then the next semester she joined Writer’s Block, our campus creative writing club. She quickly became a leader for the group, helping to organize author readings and our Bi-Annual Bad Poetry Contest.
Writer’s Block hosts its first reading with author Sasha Dawn
Shaz emcees a Bad Poetry contest
Because of her work in our creative writing class and with the student club, I enlisted her to be one of my student editors for the 2013 issue of Voices, MCC’s literary arts magazine. She did a wonderful job on the issue, and even had one of her own poems published.
Writer’s Block celebrates the end of the year and the Voices 2013 issue
Although Shaz didn’t need to take any more of my classes, we didn’t stop working together. She came to me with an idea for a project we could work on together as part of MCC’s then brand-new Undergraduate Research Scholar Program. She wanted to do some research on the impact of the teacher-student relationship on student success. We collaborated to design objectives and a plan for the semester, and then she set to work. Shaz did a literature review, observed classrooms all over campus, surveyed and interviewed students and professors, and wrote up her report at the end of her project (FYI: a supportive and structured student-teacher relationship has a positive impact on student performance). I was proud to be her mentor throughout the process, and I was even prouder when she told me that she’d be graduating MCC, transferring to Northern Illinois University, and studying to be a teacher. An English teacher! OMG, dream come true. Favorite status achieved!
She invited me to go to with her to NIU’s new student orientation the summer before she enrolled. I hadn’t been to a new student orientation like that since I was starting as an undergraduate myself, and I loved going with Shaz for a tour of the residence halls, the classrooms, the dining hall…everything! We also nerded out in the book store and I came out of it with a number of NIU pens. (I know, surprise, surprise, I bought pens.)
NIU’s new student orientation!
I took a lot fewer pictures of Shaz during her time at NIU, primarily because it would have been weird for me to lurk around her classrooms and newspaper meetings and dining hall, snapping photos. (Although, to be honest, I was tempted.) But we kept in touch, got together for coffees and lunches in DeKalb and in Crystal Lake, and she caught me up on all of her cool studenty stuff.
Last year she did an observation at a middle school near her campus, and this semester she was a student teacher in the same school and with the same teacher. It was the last piece of her bachelor’s degree, and I got to see her in action. For my Adolescence in the Schools class at UIC this semester, I needed to observe adolescents in their natural habitat and the write up an ethnography; so I asked Shaz if I could observe her 7th grade class for a couple of hours one afternoon. She and her lead teacher were gracious enough to allow me to observe, and it was so much fun, not only because 7th graders are hilarious and weird and awesome, but because Shaz was great and I loved seeing her teach.
Shaz waits for her students to come back from lunch
Shaz the teacher!
And then she was finished with her NIU coursework, was all set for her endorsements and her degree, and the only thing left for her to do was to graduate. To graduate, omg!
She graduated this past Sunday, and she invited me to the ceremony to sit with her family, which was an honor in itself. Her parents, sisters, and brother had gotten to NIU’s convention center as soon as the doors opened to get some good seats, and they were successful: we were front row, only yards away from where Shaz was seated.
And the ceremony was lovely. NIU’s steel band played “Pomp and Circumstance,” (yes, they have an award-winning steel band and they played all the music and it was surreal because there was a snowstorm outside but tropical music all morning long). The president, during his keynote address, asked the families of the graduates to stand up and be recognized for their support, so the Sheikhalis took a much-deserved bow:
Oh, just the cutest family ever.
And we watched Shaz walk up to receive her diploma, and we were all smiling so hard our faces almost fell off of our heads.
After the ceremony, we gathered with the other few hundred graduates and their accompanying thousands of family members in the convention center’s lobby to take some photos.
Shaz, her sisters, and her mother
Shaz, her sisters, and her cousin
Me and my favorite Shaz!
All of it made me so happy and proud and bursting with smiles and hugs. Shaz has already gotten a job at a high school in the district where she did her student teaching, and she’ll start next fall. I’m so proud of how hard she’s worked and I’m honored to have been a part of her academic career.
I’m sure Shaz will be a part of my life for many years to come, and I know that although I’ll still have favorite students, I won’t have another one like her. Good luck, Shaz! You’re going to go so far!
The first week that Noëmi, our visiting Dutch scholar, was here in the States was jam-packed and a heck of a lotta fun. She observed teachers at MCC, she got to see her first university campus to attend class with me at UIC, and she carved her very first jack-o-lantern for Halloween.
Her second week was just as jam-packed, and, possibly, even more fun. We started on Monday with observations at Elgin Community College. Another host and English teacher at ECC (Ginger, a very generous and helpful person) set up a great itinerary for Noëmi, so she was able to sit in on a journalism class, a literature class, and an English composition class. We also had the benefit of getting a polka serenade as a part of ECC’s Oktoberfest. No offense to the teachers that Noëmi observed, but it was definitely the highlight of our afternoon.
I don’t want her, you can have her, she’s too fat for me (HEY!); she’s too fat for me (HEY!); she’s too fat for me!
On Tuesday we took another field trip, this time back into Chicago for my educational psychology class. But before heading to UIC, we had to check out one of Chicago’s main tourist attractions.
We’re really going up there?
Now, Noëmi is afraid of heights, so I was a little surprised she wanted to go up to the Skydeck at the Sears Tower (yeah, I’m not calling it anything else get over it). We’d agreed early on in her visit that if it was a cloudy day, we wouldn’t go up because we’d probably not be able to see anything. But we woke up that morning to a warm, clear-skied day, and we had to do it.
Although Noëmi was nervous, once we got up there, her excitement over the views took over. We walked all around, taking in the city from every direction, and it was lovely. Chicago is a beautiful city and I felt so proud to tell her about the buildings I knew something about. And while “proud” isn’t really the right word for this one (“bizarre” might be better?), I pointed out the Metro Correctional Center, too.
It’s just hanging out, a couple blocks from the library.
Noëmi even had the guts to go out onto one of the glass shelves. It was a little stomach-dropping, but pretty wild.
We headed back down to the ground and to get some sandwiches for lunch. I filled Noëmi in on what we’d be talking about in class that day (intrinsic motivation, in case you just needed to know), and then we took the Blue line one stop to campus. Why didn’t we walk? Because our bellies were full of sandwiches and we didn’t want to, so get off my back, man.
Noëmi at UIC
After class we hopped back on the Blue line to meet my parents for dinner, this time traveling five stops, so it was totally justified. By this time in the late afternoon/early evening, we’d digested our sandwiches and needed to re-fill our bellies. What better way to do that than over dinner while chatting with two of my favorite people, Mom and Dad Bork? The four of us talked about the Netherlands, art museums, and the Dutch system of registering citizens’ religious affiliations with the government (my mom’s head almost exploded with surprise by this, and if I hadn’t been as engrossed as I was in my french fries, mine probably would have, too). We finished our lovely dinner, and Noëmi and I walked to the train station and headed back home to Camp Crystal Lake.
Luckily, Wednesday and Thursday were going to be spent at MCC, so Noëmi didn’t have to travel far. But on Wednesday, she did have to put her scholarly game face on for the “Brown Bag Round Table” discussion the seven visitors were going to lead. We prepared our room with Dutch/U.S. friendship flags, and took some pre-round table selfies with Frank’s selfie stick (my first selfie stick picture!):
Me with Frank (L) and Patrick (C), two of the visitors, and Bob (R), one of my fellow hosts and an instructor of applied technology
We had lots of visitors to chat with our Dutch scholars, and it was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Frank with MCC staff and faculty, talking about his college in the Netherlands
Anja and Esther talk about their students
Noëmi and Barb talk about students’ career tracks
After a lot of great conversation, Noëmi headed to her afternoon appointments. She spent some time chatting both with our Dean of Library as well as with the coordinator of our advising department to get even more information to bring home to Summa College and her colleagues there. By the end of the day she was loaded down with great information, ideas, and the need to do just a little bit of resting.
But, only about an hour’s worth of resting was in her cards, because Trevor and I had tickets for the three of us to go see David Sedaris at the Raue Center in Crystal Lake.
KWHAT? DAVID SEDARIS came to CRYSTAL LAKE? That’s INSANE.
And yes; yes, it was.
Last spring, as Trevor and I were at the Raue Center picking up our tickets to Death of a Salesman (my friend Shannon, who I played opposite in God of Carnage two summers ago, played Linda Loman and she knocked everyone’s socks right off of their feet, she was so good), and Trevor noticed an advertisement for the Raue’s upcoming events. One of those events was an evening with DAVID SEDARIS, and we were so excited that we immediately bought a pair of tickets for the reading on October 26. We’ve seen him three (or four?) times before in Chicago, and each time is hilarious, so we couldn’t imagine our luck that he was coming to the intimate venue just two miles from our house. And then, at the end of the school year, I got the opportunity to participate in the ICISP scholar exchange and found out that my guest would be here in Crystal Lake in time for the reading, so we immediately got her a ticket.
So, last Wednesday, as we did our hour’s worth of resting before having dinner with Lisa and her husband James (who were also going to the reading), and then heading to the theater, Trevor, Noëmi and I listened to Sedaris read his story “Six to Eight Black Men” from his Live from Carnegie Hall album. It was the first thing I’d ever heard him read, and when I heard it the first time, about thirteen years ago, I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. Since it’s about the Dutch holiday tradition of St. Nicholas, Noëmi had to hear it; and she got a kick out of it, too, though she kept her composure better than I had those many years ago (this is not a surprise; I am a bit of a lunatic).
Here’s Sedaris reading (most) of the story:
Trevor, Lisa, James, Noëmi, and I, after the show
On Thursday, Noëmi visited Lisa’s class — her final observation — and attended one of our Faculty Council standing committee meetings on curriculum development and review. She and her colleagues at Summa College recently wrote some new curriculum and are hoping to write more, so she was eager to learn more about our process at MCC.
That afternoon, the group attended a farewell party in Woodstock so that all of our school’s employees could come to chat with our guests for one last time before they left. I couldn’t attend because of class, but Noëmi told me it was a fun time, and she came home that evening loaded up with some great MCC swag that made me very jealous.
Friday was our final full day together, and Noëmi had one last request: to go to the outlet mall. And, since I am not a monster, I could not deny her this wish, so we headed to the Pleasant Prairie outlet mall in Kenosha, WI. It was exciting for a number of reasons: first, because we traveled to Wisconsin, so Noëmi got to visit another state (it was so different than Illinois, she could barely believe it! [j.k. she wouldn’t have even known if I didn’t tell her when we left IL and then left WI to go back into IL]).
It was also exciting because it was shopping, and shopping is just plain exciting. We both got a new pair of Converse and some other assorted pieces of clothing, though mostly we just had fun wandering around and looking at everything we liked but wouldn’t actually buy. I really wanted to buy about five outfits from the Nike store but realized that the most active I get is walking Roo 1.5 – 2 miles per day (at a leisurely pace; my heart rate does not get very high), it was absurd for me to purchase clothing meant for high achievement athletes, then only to wear it for my own high achievement napping. Even though the fleece-lined hoodies with the little holes in the sleeves for your thumbs are so cozy. So cozy!
Shopping!
The last reason our trip was exciting was that we got to drive through Trevor. You read that correctly: we drove through Trevor. And he didn’t feel a thing! HA!
Trevor, WI is located in Kenosha County, WI, and we stopped there to fill up the car and giggle about being in Trevor.
Friday night was a story in an of itself — the three of us went to see a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But I will be writing about that adventure in a separate post, because it deserves its own space.
And that was it. On Saturday we all woke up, went to eat a big lunch, and then I dropped Noëmi off at Kim’s house, who was driving her, Esther, and Jacqueline to O’Hare to catch their flight back home that afternoon.
Noëmi, Esther, and Jacqueline, ready (and not ready…) to leave
It was hard to say goodbye, but knowing that I’ll be visiting Noëmi in May for the second part of our exchange made it easier. Plus, we’ve already been texting on What’sApp about The Walking Dead, the World Series, and Roo; I imagine we will keep this up until we see each other again.
There are a couple of stories I’ll tell in separate posts: the aforementioned story about The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the story that tells you what on earth I’m doing in this picture:
What is happening here?
So stay tuned for those stories, and more! (though, the “more” is probably going to be about Roo, so…you’ve been warned.)
Alweer de laatste week… Ik loop deze week een beetje achter met bloggen, het is nu vrijdag en ik ga beginnen met maandag. Elgin Community College Ongeveer op 40 minuten afstand van MCC (McHen…
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