Preperations
Together with 4 other girls, we choose to go to Curacao for the internship. The KPZ arranged the internship, the only things we had to managed: our tickets, the accommodation and some documents.
We booked our tickets at D-reizen, it’s a dutch company. A niece from one of the girls arranged that for us. We all searched for an accommodation and we had some contact with owners from different accommodations. A friend from my highschool stayed at Casa7 before we were going to Curaçao. So after a month we found the perfect accommodation for the five of us. The documents we had to arrange were an passport and a VOG (Verklaring Omtrent Gedrag, a dutch certificate that proves that your past behavior is not an obstacle for fulfilling a certain role or function in society).
Curacao
Curacao is a Dutch carribean island. It belongs to the ABC-islands from the Dutch Antilles. It’s a constituent island of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Curacao has a population of more than 150.000 inhabitants on a surface area of around 444 square kilomtres. The capital is Willemstad. The language they speak the most on Curacao is Papiamentu and Dutch, they also speak English. The island has an tropical savannah climate with an average temperature of around 30 Celsius degrees.
Internship
I did my internship at the Sint Franciscollege in Willemstad. I was placed in the fourth grade, and one of the other girls was also placed at this school and also in the fourth grade. I had 33 pupils in my class, so it was a big group.
I had a very nice time at this school, but is was also very hard. It was a difficult internship, this because the childeren spoke only Papiamentu together. Only a few childeren could speak a little word Dutch. Even I haven’t had that much contact with all of the cilderen, I had a very good band with some of them. During my internship I haven’t give that much lessons, this because the cilderen and my mentor spoke almost the hole day Papiamentu.
At my school they use methods, for math they use an method from Curacao (because the valuta they use here is guldens, so this also has to come back in the math method). For language lessons they use an Dutch method (but they also got Papiamento lessons). The Dutch methods are forwarded from the Netherlands. Very often these methods are out of date and they don’t have enough books for every pupil, so they have to share. Also the workbooks are copied, they don’t use the original workbooks.
The teaching is very different from the Dutch teaching. They do a lot of classroom teaching and the teachers yell a lot to the children (condescending). Also my mentor never walked around when the children were working on the command. They scream through the class when they need something. It’s never quiet during the day.
There is also a big difference between the schools here in Curaçao. The school where I did my internship was a Curaçao-based school. There was no influence from teaching like they do that in the Netherlands. It's nice to see this difference. But when you want to see this at my school and want to teach you have to speak Papiamentu. So my school isn't the right place for our KPZ students to do their internship. The only thing they can learn at this school is the tipical Curaçao-based teaching. But when you have to finish some schoolsubjects, it is very hard to do that at the St. Franciscus.
Useful tips
When you want to rental a car, you need to ask your proprietor for a car. Most of the time your proprietor got really nice cars and when something happens, you know for sure your problem will be helped.
The second tip I’ve got: there are a lot of vacations here, so you’ve got a lot of free time. Discover the island and do things you never would do. Go swim with dolphins, swim with turtles and jump from cliffs.
Finance
Retour plane ticket: €670
Residence: 850 Nafl.
Car rental: 220 Nafl. (I shared a car with 4 other girls)
If you want to know more about my finance, you can send me an email:
e.welsem@kpz.nl
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