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Opening of the week
The Christian Gunningschool opened the week with a bible story. Each Monday, after they had worked for about half an hour, principal Wouda summoned the teacher to bring his pupils to ‘the space’. The pupils of the 6th, 7th and 8th forms had to wait and enter separately. Wouda, or one of the teachers, read a story from a children’s bible, after which the pupils sang up to three biblical songs, accompanied by Wouda on the piano. The teachers of the three forms stood at the side to police the event. The pupils misbehaved in every way they could, from purposely choosing the wrong seat to kicking the seat in front. On an occasion when lip-synching was punished, the pupils reverted to singing very loudly. Wouda’s response was: ‘enthusiasm is nice, but it cannot get too disorderly’. The teachers had a hard time keeping order, which resulted in sending pupils back to class as punishment. Often, the opening of the week resulted in the collective punishment of shortened playtime.
The week was ritually opened at the Kantlijn by discussing the weekend. Luck asked the class if anyone ‘had been up to something’ over the weekend. The pupils volunteered their stories and the others listened intently. A typical discussion about the weekend lasted over half an hour. The stories often connected and seemed to have been thought up associatively: when one mentioned redecorating her bedroom, others volunteered comparable stories. Below is a summary of the stories told on Monday 6 March 2006:
- Ramin went to see his grandfather and played outside.
- Lars visited the garden house and played in the snow.
- Sophie slept over at Roos’s on Friday. On Saturday she went with her parents and their friends to a bungalow park and swam.
- Odecia slept over at her grandmother’s and went to the movies, she saw Nanny McFee. Sunday she went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant.
- (Luck starts a discussion about Chinese food, and pak-choi cabbage in particular.)
- Katia went to see Max with Maud.
- Sophie went to see Max with Roos.
- (Discussion turns into a discussion about how Max was recovering from his operation.)
- Thijs’ older brother came for dinner.
- Björn’s mother had her birthday yesterday and people came to visit.
- Marisol slept over at Mickey’s. They talked about out-of-body experiences the whole time and that was scary.
- Noa went to the movies with her neighbour and saw The Pink Panther. It was fun. Noa’s grandfather died last week.
- Mickey saw The Pink Panther with her mother. At first she thought it wasn’t a nice movie, but later it was.
- Maud took photos for the project, but not many.
- Thirza went horseback riding, and afterwards to a friend in Friesland.
- (Luck starts a discussion about feeling bad for the horses.)
- Mehmet went to Arabic school on Saturday.