Why I completely understand that teachers' strike

I admit right away that I also sighed and groaned a few times when teachers went on strike. The clichés came to the surface for me too. You guys have twelve weeks, holiday? And your workday just ends at 5:00 PM? What's so hard about that?

It's just difficult to switch jobs for a week and hold a competition about who has it harder. Ultimately, it's about a complete professional group being dissatisfied with quite a few consequences. They must have a reason for that, it seems to me. There is a serious teacher shortage. So serious that a Montessori school in Amsterdam has closed simply because there was no one willing to stand in front of the class. So you can shout as loud as you want that it doesn't seem so bad to you, but if we don't intervene, there will soon be no one left to teach our children, and that's not exactly what we want.

My daughter, who is in group 7 at a great school where thankfully there is no teacher shortage and where there is always a substitute when a teacher is sick, was assigned as homework to delve into the budget memorandum and say what she agreed or disagreed with. “But mom,” she suddenly said, “sixty million euros is going to education in developing countries. That's of course very important too, but can't we give part of that money to the teachers in the Netherlands?” She scrolled further through the article on the AD site where the main decisions were listed. “And fifteen million is going to commemorate our Liberation Day because it's been 75 years since 2020. It's of course very important that we don't forget the war, but what's more important now: the past or the future?”

I looked proudly at my little girl and when the news popped up on Friday that teachers are considering a new strike on Wednesday, November 6, I thought only: go for it. You have my support, and my daughter's too.