"Of course there is exam material that just has to be, but within that we have a lot of freedom. Income, money and entrepreneurship adolescents find interesting topics. Everyone wants to be a millionaire by age 20. I'm willing to puncture that balloon." Hans Blaauw (CSG Wessel Gansfort)
During the vo-day of the Week of Economics Education, more than a hundred inspired economics teachers came together. All of them shared great stories about how they enrich their economics education with new economic insights and current social developments. Marloes de Koning (NRC) chronicled four of these stories.
In her report, Ton Smakman (Regius School) says: "There are many developments where the method lags behind. But who puts the book aside if the exam stays the same? I also have to force myself. Then I take examples from the news"
Bastiaan van der Broek (Het Nieuwe Lyceum Bilthoven): "Students learn to reason within a model, a kind of economics game, but we don't look much at how we arrive at those assumptions and how they relate to reality."
Tamara Van Bakel (Ichtus Lyceum): "Economics is about how we live together. I want to give context. They need to understand how you can measure income inequality with a Gini coefficient. But also that equal/inequal is not yet the same as fair/unfair.'"
Hans Blaauw: "Everyone has an opinion. How people with little money look. That they are fat because they eat unhealthy food and drink a lot of beer. Those are prejudices that I try to talk to them about. Then we look at what a kilo of minced meat costs and how much cheaper a kilo of frikandellen is."
[photo: Samuel Wagner]
