Dutch student culture

RASKERART_IO_innovative_lectures_20_1_24

By Aafke Eppinga

In our Sunday newsletter, we, as editors, reflect on the past seven days. We do this on the initiative of our cartoonist Albert Jan Rasker. He chooses a subject, draws a picture, and we take it from there.

This week, Albert Jan devoted his cartoon to Eveline van Zeeland’s latest column. In it, she writes about Professor Freek Vonk’s colleague she recently attended. He prefers to call it a “show” – and the event did not occur in a lecture hall but a concert hall. The topic? Bioluminescence – animals and other organisms that give off light in the dark.

Van Zeeland argues that students’ chances of meeting a professor like Freek Vonk are minimal. More and more educational institutions are skipping lectures because they are not interactive enough. Nonsense, thinks our columnist. “The problem is not the lecture but the uninspiring lecturer. Lectures are boring when they are given by lecturers who stand reading slides prepared by someone else, when they are based on whatever is already in a book, and when the goal is to be able to regurgitate as much knowledge as possible.”

As I type, I am sitting on the train. The three fellow passengers sitting opposite and next to me in a four-seat are students. Their conversations are about study points, club forms, and beer. I ask them what they prefer: lectures or seminars. “Lectures anyway, with working groups, you have to do so much,” my opposite neighbor answers without hesitation. Suddenly, I miss my college days.