Holland, a nation of trade, commerce, and services, attracts a lot of foreign companies, including American. Children of the companies' executives and staff sometimes attend an American school in the Netherlands, sometimes an international or European school, and sometimes an international department of a Dutch school. In other cases, parents choose a full Dutch school. (There are choices enough in Holland.)
The parents of Christopher, who is four years old, decided on a small Dutch school with six teachers and grades K–6. Christopher joined a group of Dutch children. They played with him, they tried to speak English with him—it was very interesting, of course. The language instruction was tailor-made for him; the teacher repeated in English most of what she told the group in Dutch. But more and more, she challenged Christopher to listen to the Dutch instruction. Six months later, another American boy, also four years old, joined the group. His name was . . . Christopher. Most intriguing for the Dutch kids! Most of them went home and informed their parents that all American boys have the name of Christopher.
Now, the classroom has changed. The two Christophers communicate in English; the first Dutch words of Christopher Number 1 are gone. The teacher believes that the two boys have conspired to use no Dutch words. Her individualized strategies help to overcome their pact, but both Christophers now display a kind of rejecting attitude. The father of one of them has told the teacher that Dutch is such a difficult language she should not spend any time helping them to master it.
Perhaps the father is typical. A poll conducted recently by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that the American public is not in favor of foreign language instruction in schools. The survey also showed that, while the Dutch rank foreign languages as second in educational importance, Americans rank mathematics as second. (Both countries, like most others, consider teaching the mother tongue the first priority.)
Ironically, although the Dutch do not put the highest priority on math, they, together with Japan, lead all other countries in math achievement. The Dutch Frendenthal Institute of the University of Utrecht has exported its realistic math approach to the United States, where the program has been adopted by the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It will be marketed as "Math in Context."
It will not be long before the father of one of our Christophers discovers that it is important for his son to cope with the Dutch language. He'll realize that only then can he be taught mathematics the Dutch way. This is assuming that the two Christophers stay in the Dutch school after kindergarten. They could of course go to other schools where they would get to know still more Christophers—but maybe no Wouter or Hans.
