OliFantje, Everyday life

A very ordinary girl nicknamed OliFantje (that is Dutch for "little elephant") lived in the Netherlands not so long ago. Everything went as usual. She was in high school and did her best to pass Atheneum 2. She enjoyed some subjects, such as French, crafts and music. She did not enjoy other subjects, German, geography and physics.

Dutch was taught by a lady from Romania who had a terrible accent. Her students sometimes wondered whether they could not better teach her Dutch, but in terms of grammar she knew everything very well.

The English teacher was sick for a very long time and OliFantje and her friends often had a break instead of the lesson.

They were taught mathematics by their mentor. She had read somewhere that children can concentrate better when they move, so she allowed them to stand, lie down and sit however they wanted.

OliFantje and the rest of the class were taught French by a very strict teacher, but because the class was a terribly difficult class, they soon swapped teachers and got the teacher from the year before. He was very funny and often had competitions and the prize always was candy.

They also learned German from the same teacher as the year before. That year she was also their mentor and had told them that she and her husband wanted to have a child, but that it had not happened so far. Because they were going to get help, she wouldn't be there for the next lesson. OliFantje had asked her if she could pray for her and her mentor agreed. She also thanked OliFantje for it. A while later the mentor told her she was pregnant. So in the middle of this year the class had a substitute teacher to teach them German.

For history, the class had a teacher who wore a different tie every day: one time with pigs, the next day with bacon... This teacher also always paid close attention to whether everyone had done their homework. If you forgot, you had to stand on your chair and the teacher would ask what kind of autumn fruit you are: an acorn, a wild chestnut, a sweet chestnut or a beech nut... So OliFantje chose the wild chestnut and from now on just did her homework. Soon this teacher became ill and for a long time the class had no history. After a long search, they got another teacher, who checked the homework very 'strictly', but only had multiple-choice questions for the first test. So OliFantje immediately got a 10 without learning. But she made a mistake when she thought it would always be this easy. Immediately afterwards her grades dropped rapidly.

For geography they had a pregnant teacher who was quickly given leave. Just before that, she had the class do an assignment in groups of five. OliFantje and her friends immediately sat together. The teacher felt very sorry for the boy who had to join their group, but the girls could only laugh about it. This assignment meant that a lot of information had to be searched for on the iPad. This teacher didn't like the iPads and when the whole class is working on them at the same time, it is difficult to keep an eye on everything. OliFantje and one of her friends were messing around on each other's IPad. And exactly at that moment the teacher picked OliFantje out to check the iPad. So that was not her own iPad, but that of her friend, and it was then taken away. The whole class was watching and OliFantje turned bright red. She decided to just be honest and gave her iPad instead of her friend's. She got a warning and was able to pick up her iPad at the reception after school. After this teacher they got a very boring teacher. His favorite subject was metamorphic rock and he talked about it extensively, without too much enthusiasm. OliFantje always finished her work quickly and because she could check it herself, she didn't have to be so precise. Then she quickly went on Snapchat with her friends and was working on her "teacher picture card".