‘The best thing about this work is that no day is the same and you really make an impact.‘
Stefan Vlaar joined ABN AMRO a year after completing his university degree in mathematics in 1997. He started as a programmer in information technology and now leads team of highly trained specialists in risk management. 'I was also interested in teaching at the time, but an appointment with an agency like ABN AMRO provided me with a much more interesting income at the time. Add to that the opportunities for secondment to other countries -I was dying to go back to Brazil, where I had spent an unforgettable holiday with friends- and you can understand my choice for business. Incidentally, I was never subsequently seconded by the bank.'
However, blood ran where it couldn't go. Both in his positions at the bank and in his private life, Stefan shared knowledge. At work, he supervised his employees, from home he tutored mathematics. 'Finding the best way to explain something is something I love, especially if it is a very complex issue. To be honest, during my career I also went through times when I didn't think about going into teaching. It really started itching again when my teenage daughters had limited lessons during the corona pandemic and complained to me. The fact that ABN AMRO is eager to be socially involved also helped enormously. When I entered the conversation at the end of 2021 to go from 1 to 0.8 fte to free up time for teaching, I was immediately supported.'
Stefan chose the ASK track of the University of Amsterdam. 'This track includes many future teachers who, like me, want to make a partial transition to teaching, along the lines of Mark Rutte who teaches social studies one day a week. The assessment in which I had to prepare a mini-lesson on my subject and give it to a small committee went fine for me, so all signs were green. As I was keen to teach near where I lived, I went - despite the possibility offered by the UvA to take that off my hands - to look for a training school myself. The Oscar Romero in Hoorn was keen to make this journey with me and in August 2022, I took my first steps into teaching. A funny detail: I regularly update members of the Executive Board at ABN AMRO on current affairs and usually do so without nerves. It was quite different when, on my first day of teaching, 30 13-year-olds entered my classroom... then a sense of tension crept up on me anyway.'
'Many lateral entrants work closely with a qualified teacher. Consequently, they are not in front of the classroom themselves until after the autumn break. For my part, I was immediately thrown in at the deep end and ended up in front of the class independently. Of course that has some disadvantages, but the big advantage is that students do not see me as a student, but really as their teacher and have less tendency to make a run at me. The best thing about this work is that no day is the same and you really make an impact. The cake I got from a fourth-grade pupil after she passed her first maths exam is no match for a promotion. Fantastic! The biggest challenge is in creating a balance between my work at the bank and at school, the overtime I often work, my studies and my family life. In the ASK path, you don't have lectures every week, but four intensive lecture weeks, about 15 peer review evenings and assignments of various sizes. So it happens leading up to deadlines that I spend every weeknight and all weekend working on such an assignment. Yes, it is tough, but I haven't regretted my choice of the ASK path and future job as a teacher for a second. Quite the contrary.'