Mummy, I can't hear

When my son turned 3, he developed problems with his hearing. This in itself is unremarkable. It is very common for young boys to have problems with their hearing. Many of my son's friends at the time were submitted to hospital after being diagnosed with glue ear and had gromits inserted into their ears to make them hear better.  

As we lived in London in UK at the time, we took 'A' to our local GP. We were sent to see a consultant who gave me steroids to squirt into his nose. I refused to use the steriods after researching into their side affects and realising that they would not solve the problem. At the next 6 monthly hearing check, I informed the hearing test operator that I would not be giving my son steroids and she wrote something in my son's notes. We returned about 4 times to have my son's ears checked. He became bored by the tests and irritated by the tightness of the special headphones he had to wear. We were told his hearing was borderline and I decided that I would prefer not to have an operation as the thought of having my son subjected to a general anesthetic unless it was absolutely necessary terrified me. I was told, 'well, if you're not willing to authorise an operation, there's nothing we can do except keep testing his ears'.

We moved to Amsterdam in October 2013. Again, my son had his ears checked as part of a general assessment. We were told he had a problem with his hearing. We went to a very intense hearing test, where my son was placed in a sound proof capsule and did a series of tests. We were told that his hearing was perfect and he would not need an operation. 6 months later, my son was still not speaking clearly and I didn't think that he could hear me when I called him.  This was very worrying as he is learning to read, write and speak in Dutch. We went back to our local GP for a reassessment.  This time, our local GP looked in my son's ears. 'There's something in his right ear', he said.

This is what he found.

My now 6 year old son recalled when he was in nursery, (he must have been about 3 years old), finding the room very noisy. He tried putting his fingers in his ears to block out the noise, but it didn't work, so he stuffed a piece of paper in his ear. Ever since then, he couldn't hear very well. He just turned 6 years old, so he has been walking around with a piece of paper stuck in his ear for THREE YEARS!!! Shame on all those ear specialists who didn't notice that there was an obstruction in his ear. We are very grateful to the AMAZING doctor who checked his ears properly and removed the piece of paper. My son is like a different child.

Being an Immigrant

Having been English and lived in England for most of my life, I've not put much thought into how it feels to be an immigrant. Or to be labelled an immigrant. As we made a decision to send our children to a Dutch school, we are now often seen as immigrants. Our children need extra support with learning the Dutch language. 

We have been asked by our children's school to pay over EUR2,300 annually for each child to contribute to their learning Dutch. I was deeply shocked by this. In England, I had seen how a girl was embraced by my daughters school when she arrived not speaking a word of English. She was given a class buddy and practically her own teaching assistant. She was very much in demand as many of the children wanted playdates with her. My children's experience in the Netherlands has been very different. After extensive research I found that not only was the school's decision to invoice us for Dutch lessons for our children contravening a European directive, it was also the only school in the Netherlands charging newcomers for learning Dutch.

In the Netherlands, there are two main types of buitenlanders, 'foreigners', or 'outsiders'. Immigrants and expats. The expats generally send their children to international schools and so aren't seen as too much of a burden on society, until they start criticising Dutch traditions (see zwarte Pete).  The immigrants are nicely ring fenced by the area that they live in. There are specific areas where the majority of immigrants live and schools called 'zwarte scholen', 'black schools' where their children can go to. The school application process in Amsterdam is a lottery process, where the school for each child is allocated by postcode, enabling the children of immigrants to attend zwarte scholen and the children of non-immigrants to attend 'witte scholen' (white schools).

Education, segregation and deprivation are inextricably linked. The schools in large cities are often segregated: white children go to white schools, black children go to black schools. Often I hear that 'Amsterdam is so international' from Dutch people. Implying that there are a lot of non-Dutch people living in Amsterdam. 

Needless to say, a segregation in education will lead a lack of diversity in the upper echelons of Dutch society.  While there is no apparent class structure in the Netherlands, but there is an underlying division of 'them', the immigrants, and 'us', the native Dutch.  There is no private school system, even the royal family send their children to the local state school.  At 11 or 12 years old, children take an exam which defines whether or not they will attend university at 18 years. There is some movement and flexibility in the system and children who don't attend a gymnasium can redo a year and go to university a bit later.  However, what chance do the children from a black school have to go to university? What percentage of these children pass the exam to attend a gymnasium? Research from 2011 by the Kohnstamm Institute illustrated that only the 'black' children with educated parents do better in school than the 'white' children with the least educated parents. 

In more bouyant times, companies would pay for the schooling of their staff's children, but this benefit has been cut, meaning that many families cannot afford the EUR8,000 - EUR15,000 annual school fees of the international schools. The percentages of immigrant children are increasing and as more 'expats' decide to send their children to Dutch schools there does not look to be any immediate solution. We remain in discussion with our childrens' school about the Dutch language fees.

Ref. 

School Choice and Ethnic Segregation

Kohnstamm Institute