Why promises of presidential candidates never become reality

A look into the EEB2 student representative elections and what goes down once they have been elected.

Interview with Austėja Linartaitė, President 2016-2017

On Tuesday this week, the students of EEB2 were faced with choosing their president for the coming school year. Both candidates made compelling speeches expressing their motivation and goals for the upcoming year. With a small difference of 14 votes, the students elected Austeja their president for this year. What happens now? We asked when we talked with Austėja about her plans for the coming year. 

Interview de M. Spronck, Conseiller S7

Présentation : Je m'appelle Christian Spronck, je suis marié et j'ai deux merveilleuses jeunes jumelles (quatorze ans). J'ai été gradué non-licencié en professeur de maths et physique. J'habite à Liège, sous Magne, et là c'est ma troisième année à EEB2.

Donc ce n'était pas votre premier choix d'être conseiller ?

Ouhla non, c'est une longue histoire d'ailleurs.... quand j'avais seize ans je me formais pour être pilote de chasse à l'école Cadet de l'Air, dans la Force Aérienne ; en même temps que je faisais ma secondaire, jusqu'à mes dix-huit ans. Et donc j'ai obtenu mon brevet de planeur (glider). Au final j'ai arrêté parce que je n'aimais pas la mentalité de l'Armée. Ensuite, j'ai fait un an de maths à l'université mais j'ai aussi arrêté parce que l'ambiance ne m'allait pas. Par contre, j'ai fait un régendat, ou graduat en maths, ce qui m'a plus plu parce qu'il y avait plus de contact. Je suis sorti en 1993 pour devenir éducateur (conseiller) pendant quatre, cinq ans un peu partout, surtout dans un internat à Liège. Ce qui m'y a intéressé c'était de comprendre les problèmes des adolescents pour pouvoir les aider.

Comment êtes-vous donc arrivé ici ?

Je suis plus tard retourné en école secondaire comme professeur de maths, d'ailleurs dans la même école que Mme Mirolo – j'ai eu son fils comme élève ! Mais après treize ans à cette école et au total vingt-huit ans du même genre de boîte, j'ai voulu partir, et c'est ainsi que j'ai postulé à EEB2.

Et vous voilà.

Et me voilà. J'ai aussi enseigné dans une prison.

Merci beaucoup pour cette petite récapitulation... Parlez-nous maintenant de votre journée typique.

Je commence tout d'abord avec un grand sourire [rires]. Une fois arrivé à l'école, je surveille les absences et les retards.

Ce n'est pas trop frustrant ?

Non, ça va. [ça ne va clairement pas] J'écoute aussi les élèves en difficulté, puisque en plus du travail d'administration je me prend aussi en charge des étudiants. C'est un travail important. Dernièrement, je me charge aussi de l'organisation du Bac – ça demande beaucoup de travail, c'est sûr. Ça fait deux ans que je suis en charge de ça.

Interview with Mr Spronck, S7 conseiller

Presentation: My name is Christian Spronck, I'm married and I have two wonderful young twin daughters (14 years old). I graduated unlicensed as a teacher in maths and physics. I live in Liège, below Magne, and this is my third year at EEB2.

So being an educator wasn't your first choice?

Oh no, it's actually a long story... When I was sixteen I wanted to become a fighter pilot at the school Cadet de l'Air, at the Air Force; and at the same time I was completing my high school education, I was eighteen at the time. Eventually, I got my glider certificate! In the end I stopped because I didn't like the mentality of the Army. [piercing stare] Later, I did a year of maths at university but left because the atmosphere didn't suit me. However, I completed a teaching graduate in maths, which I liked more because there was more social interaction. I finished school in 1993 to become an educator for four or five years all over, I spent most of that time in a boarding school in Liège. What got me interested in being a teacher was understanding the problems that adolescents go through and trying to help them out.

How did you get here?

I later went back to high school as maths teacher, at the same school as Mrs Mirolo – I had her son as a student!-, but after thirteen years in that school and in total twenty-eight in the same kind of establishments, I decided I wanted to leave, and that's when I applied to EEB2.

And here you are.

And here I am. Oh, I also worked as a teacher in a prison.

Thanks a lot for this recap... Tell us about your typical day.

I first begin with a big smile [laughs]. Once I'm at school, I check the absences and lateness.

It's not too frustrating?

No, it's OK. [It clearly isn't] I also listen to students who are in trouble, since on top of the administration work, I'm also in charge of the students. It's an important job. Finally, I'm also in charge of the organisation for the bac – it demands a lot of work, that's for sure. I've been working on it for two years now.

What do you dislike about the European school?

No student coming out of high school is ready, they just don't know what they want to do. The level of certainty is simply way too low, and pursuing your studies or whatever comes after becomes difficult. I also find myself puzzled by certain things that happen in the school, or wrong ideas that can spread around very quickly. Then again, no school is perfect.

EEB2 Debate Club Invite Michael Gahler To Debate About Europe

EEB2 challenged Michael Gahler, Member of the European Parliament (MEP), to join a club debate on the future of Europe. 

The proposition team put forward the motion that the EU is doomed to failure.  Michael Gahler accepted the challenge to oppose this motion and the event took place on Tuesday 16th February in Salle Polyvolante.

EEB2 students prepared well for the debate and impressive arguments were made on both sides.

Over 500 people attended – all our S3 and S4 students.  Thank you for the support!

Well done to:

Ligaya

Alessia

Amy

Christina

Sofia

Gustavs

Emma

At the end of the debate, the motion was rejected – the EU is safe for now ☺



By Colm Kehoe

Edited by Gustavs Zilgalvis

Mock United Nations (M.U.N.) and EEB2's Future Team

On Friday 15 January, a group of EEB2 students braved the cold and snowy conditions to take a train to Wavre and walk two kilometres into the Belgian countryside to visit the international school of Le Verseau. The purpose of this excursion was to attend an M.U.N. training conference and discover what M.U.N. is all about. 

The group experienced an impressive simulation of the workings of the United Nations and received a lesson in United Nations vocabulary, diplomatic conventions and international relations. It was clear that the students at Le Verseau had gained immensely from the research work involved, the public speaking experience, the debating and the critical thinking – all of this while gaining huge experience of working together as a team. 

Footfest 2016 Logo!

We are excited to be the first to bring you the 2016 Footfest logo! The winner of the logo competition is Arthur Cherry, an S7 student from the French section. This logo was chosen by the general coordinators among 20 other drawings submitted.

Credits for digitizing it go to Evelina Anglickaite.

The logo will be printed on T-shirts for Footfest coordinators, crew and security.
Colors of the year? First suggestions are black for security, burgundy for crew and bright blue for coordinators, but this is not a final decision yet.

Are you excited for Footfest 2016? We definitely are!
Let us know what you think of the logo and what you are excited about for this year's Footfest.

by Sofia Brusa

Edited by Emilie Kerstens

"Brussels is a graveyard of living beings"

Belgium shut down all schools on the 23rd of November. The decision was made by our Prime Minister, Charles Michel. I was happy about it at first because it meant I didn't have to finish my math homework, but then, I realised it wasn't right at all.

The numerous measures taken over the past few days have made fear grow in our hearts. We often hear Charles Michel saying that the threat is "imminent". The threat of what, terrorism? The fact is that we have no idea of what is going on in this country. Belgian police authorities say it’s for our own safety that we don’t know anything yet, but is it really if we are too scared to leave our house?

The terrorists attacked Paris, aiming to destroy our culture and our way of life. They haven't attacked Brussels yet but we are doing the job for them anyway: we are destroying our lifestyle right now by shutting everything down.

The problem is that the government is doing this because they don’t know what else to do. Yesterday on the Belgian talk show "C'est pas tous les jours dimanche", the president and spokesman of the Free Union of the Public and Police Function, Vincent Gilles, admitted that they don’t know what the security level 4/4 means. This is because the government created the different levels of security without saying which necessary measures had to be taken, and where. 
I agree with the fact that we are “better safe than sorry”, but only to certain extent; we shouldn't just be safe, we should also feel safe and yet all these measures to the continuous “imminent threat” just make us feel scared.

by Sarah Mignot

Interview with Mr. Park

On Monday 19^th October, Professor Jinwhan Park from the Gyeongsang National University South Korea came to eeb2. Mr. Park is the president of “Philosophy with Children and Youth Network” in Asia and the Pacific (PCYNAP), he came to our school to explain this philosophical and ethical idea and I had the pleasure of interviewing him.

When you think of philosophy, you think of the academic one, the one we study, also known as the study of  nature and  its causes, of the principles of reality, of knowledge and our values, all based on logical reasoning. Mr Park's intention is not to teach academic philosophy to children. What he wants to do is teach them more about practical philosophy. By doing that, he teaches children how to be able to make an ethical and logical judgement in a particular situation. "It is crucial that younger students learn how to make a good judgement because some of them might be the future leaders of democratic societies so the sooner they are able to do it the better", he says. 

Interview with 2016 Fashion Show Designers

Each year after a great day of Footfest, we look forward to seeing the talent of our students showcased in the fashion show. Several designers work all year long to make their collections “runway ready”. This past weekend, the model auditions took place. Students walked in front of the designers in hopes of being selected to be a model for their collections. We talked with Jenni Karhunen, Martina Murasso and Alessia Tosetti to find out more about it. We look forward to seeing their collections at this year's Footfest.

In defence of the European Schools - An open letter in response to POLITICO

Last week, the European edition of POLITICO published an article about the European Schools. The Euroschools rarely attract any press coverage and the internet has remained generally free of journalists caring about our system until now. Once their article appeared on the front page of their website, thousands of students and parents instantly read their critique of the European Schools.

The article was clearly a hit. After four days it remained the second most read article on the POLITICO website, receiving even more views than the coverage of the Greek crisis. It painted a misleading picture of a crumbling education system that alienated most of its students through bureaucracy, and ignoring nationality in a school system resembling a Kafkaesque nightmare. Contact with students as well as graduates and parents upheld our view that the article was misguided and prioritized controversy over fact. In fact, after talking to one of the students who was quoted in the article, it surfaced that her positive outlook of the schools had been overshadowed by cherry-picked criticisms.

Les Mini-Entreprises de EEB2

Cette année, plusieurs mini-entreprises ont vu le jour à l'EEB2. Oui, mais une mini-entreprise c'est quoi ?

Partout en Europe, on offre la possibilité aux jeunes étudiants (en S6 à l'EEB2) de découvrir le monde de l’entrepreneuriat et de le concrétiser d'avantage. Pour cela, des étudiants créent et gèrent leur propre entreprise pendant quelques mois d'une année scolaire.

Ils occupent chacun différents postes clés dans les départements ressources humaines, commercial, financier et technique, et développent des compétences qui leur seront utiles toute leur vie. En effet, les jeunes perfectionnent non seulement leurs techniques de vente, mais apprennent également en quoi consiste vraiment la gestion, la publicité, le marketing, la comptabilité et plein d'autres notions encore. Vous avez sûrement déjà entendu parler des mini-entreprises de notre école ; mais qui sont-elles vraiment ?

'Where did the little spoons go?'

We've all stolen spoons before. No? Okay.