In the building on Balboaplein, Leo shared a classroom with Bettine and Wilma. It was arranged exactly the way an after‑school care room should be: low tables, colourful chairs, craft supplies in bins, game cabinets that never quite closed. The room breathed liveliness — the kind of atmosphere where Leo functioned best. His enthusiasm for working with children was tangible and sincere, and the cheerful chaos around him gave him the energy he needed to show up every day with conviction.
Right next to their room was a small office — a kind of in‑between space where admin tasks were handled, phone calls were made, and where staff sometimes escaped the noise of twenty children. The office had its own purpose, but for Leo it became something else as well: an observation post. Through its windows he could follow the noisy activity in his own group, but also glance into the other classroom — also filled with twenty children, two group leaders, and a group assistant. And in that other room, something was happening that worried him.
One of the staff members there was an ID‑worker, a woman in her forties who had her first job not by choice, but because the government required her to convert a lifetime of welfare into employment. Leo immediately sensed the uncertainty she carried: the searching for footing, the cautiousness in her gaze. It was a familiar energy, similar to Wilma’s, but still different. Everyone carries their own history, and Leo had a sharp eye for those undercurrents. Almost instinctively he could feel that this assistant, Helin, was still finding her way. She had the cold, almost empty look of someone who couldn’t align herself with what was expected of her.
The older children — ages eight to twelve — were in that room. The group was led by Jarno and Mieke, with Helin assisting. Leo noticed that she, too, had entered the field through an ID‑position. The look in her eyes told him she hadn’t found her footing yet. Leo sensed it with the precision of someone who had been in this field for years.
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But the children in that group felt different. There was a kind of restlessness that wasn’t healthy — an agitated energy with nowhere to go. The environment seemed to bleed tension. Sometimes Leo watched their room from the hallway, sometimes from the office that sat exactly between the two classrooms. It was a place where you could catch your breath and still see everything. And what Leo saw unsettled him.
The children moved chaotically through the space; it wasn’t joyful chaos, but something that felt more like a tension spreading across the group. An invisible shadow that weighed on them. Jarno and Mieke had a look in their eyes Leo couldn’t place. Indifferent, almost empty. As if they were present, but not really there. Their body language was tense, their voices short, their attention scattered. The unwelcome feeling seeped into Leo; something wasn’t right.
It wasn’t a concrete incident, no clear mistake, no visible conflict. It was the undercurrent — a mood that wasn’t healthy. And Leo, always sensitive to group dynamics, picked it up immediately. He was full of energy, while around him a lurking chaos unfolded.
What Leo noticed quickly was that Helin was taking the lead in the other classroom. That struck him as strange. She was the assistant, someone with an ID‑position, someone who was supposed to be supported — not the one leading. But in that group, the roles were reversed. Mieke, officially one of the two highly trained group leaders with a PABO background, behaved as if she were the assistant. The gaps in their structure were impossible to ignore, and the children seemed to live along the edges of their authority.
Dissatisfaction within the team was palpable. There was whispering — not openly, but between the lines. Colleagues described Mieke as “not pleasant,” someone difficult to work with. Leo heard it, and puzzle pieces began to fall into place. The unhealthy energy he saw in the children — the restlessness, the agitation, the chaotic dynamics — didn’t come from nowhere. Children always mirror the adults who guide them.
Leo realised there was a cutting criticism present that influenced the group’s dynamics, but the cause remained hidden from him.
Despite his concerns, Leo stayed optimistic. He hoped that with his own energy, his own way of working, he could contribute to a better atmosphere. He believed in goodness, in change, in the power of a positive presence. After years of experience, he knew that transformation is a process — a reflection of the people who shape it. His alternative approach as a social‑pedagogical worker, working from the heart rather than the system, might make a difference.
The Clash Phase
Leo had experience with new groups and knew they always went through several phases: introduction, sympathy and antipathy, the first clashes, before cohesion could form. And yes — the moment a child decided to test him eventually came.
One day, while playing with the group, it happened. A child challenged him, raised his fingers in the air and shouted as loudly as he could:
“So what? I’ll do whatever I want!”
It was a deliberate attempt to test boundaries, and Leo immediately felt his patience being tested. Anger rose in him, but so did clarity. It was a specific moment; Leo took the child aside and confronted him about his behaviour. He was both strict and human — a complex balance expected in his role.
Bettine, always the caring one, gave him a wink. I’ll take it from here, she seemed to say, but Leo stayed focused on the child.
In the office stood Mieke, holding a cup of tea. She had withdrawn again, though the pregnancy‑related discussions in the team still lingered. Leo felt her presence, but he did what he had to do: speak firmly, give context, set boundaries. An adult conversation at a child’s level, with a pointing finger and a serious tone.
And then it happened.
Mieke inserted herself into the conversation — not afterward, but right in front of the child.
She gave Leo feedback. Hard feedback.
Unprofessional.
Not pedagogically sound.
Incorrect handling.
All spoken in a calm, motherly tone — but the words cut deep.
It wasn’t that Leo couldn’t handle criticism. It was the timing.
This wasn’t feedback anymore — it was the dismantling of his credibility in front of a child.
A blow to his professional identity, not physically painful but emotionally like a scream of betrayal.
Leo kept a cool head; he looked at Mieke while thinking:
How? What is this? What’s going on with her?
Nothing could have prepared him for this experience. It wasn’t just the content of her message pointing out mistakes. It was how the message was delivered — and that was something Leo couldn’t accept.
This was a breach of one of the fundamental rules of pedagogical work:
You never give a colleague negative feedback in front of the children.
The cohesive structure Leo had been trying to build cracked.
Mieke hadn’t just damaged his authority as a group leader — she exposed a deeper struggle.
Dutch Echo 
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