On Thursday 9 June, the annual Education Prize was awarded for the best VWO profile papers of the past year. From the 441 entries, the jury chose 12 exceptional pieces of work on a wide variety of subjects. The lucky authors received a scholarship of €1500.
One of the three winners for the Cultuur en Maatschappij Profile is the paper by Aron Brouwer (19) and Marthijn Wouters (17) from the Murmellius Gymnasium in Alkmaar.
Kennislink spoke with the proud Aron about their work "The dirty hands of Willem van Oranje".
Ever thought you would win the Education Prize?
No, we had never considered ourselves that we could win a prize with our piece of work. We just went into the archives and did some research. Our history teacher Peter Hoek gave us a 10 and he was very enthusiastic about the subject. Together with the school, Mr. Hoek has decided to submit the paper for the competition.
Is mister Hoek an inspiring history teacher?
Yes, huge! I have only learned from him since the 5 e but I was afraid of him since the 1 e haha! Everyone respects him without him having to make an effort. I like subjects best with a good teacher and for Mr Hoek we wanted to make the piece extra beautiful. He was very involved, even outside of school, and checked every chapter several times. We really wouldn't have made it without him.
How did you actually come up with this topic?
We went through a lot of historical magazines and chose 100 topics from them. Mister Hoek has made a selection of 5 and in the end this is it.
Why?
Because we regularly encountered in the literature that William of Orange did not behave so neatly during the Revolt. But he never came out as wrong or bad in the conclusions. We wanted to know to what extent this positive image corresponds with reality, with the historical sources from that time, and how this image came about.
And how did you approach that?
We started with a survey at Alkmaar Central Station about the image of William of Orange. Of the 300 people surveyed, 80% were positive about the Father of the Fatherland. In addition, we have read a lot of literature and we have been able to view original sources and letters in the archive. This showed that the image of the Father of the Fatherland was deliberately created by, among others, Marnix van St. Aldegonde and Willem van Oranje himself.
The Regions needed their own hero as a role model during the Revolt, as did the countries around them. William of Orange wanted to fulfill that role and even allowed himself to be called 'Father'. But he wasn't all that popular with the populace, especially towards the end of his life. And when it is in the 18 e and 19 e century goes worse with the Netherlands, we go back to the heroic history of the Republic and William of Orange. As founder of that Republic and the Father of the Fatherland.
But the positive norms and values that are then attributed to him do not correspond to reality. He was more modern and more humanistic than the surrounding monarchs, but later chose to get his hands dirty in an intolerant and medieval way. For example, he had monasteries and villages looted.
Orange also greatly overestimated himself and was rather bad at organizing his troops, causing them to lose regularly. All in all, not such a positive picture, but that is not reflected in the literature about him and about that period.
That is quite an unconventional conclusion.
Yes, we are the first to list these negative points. We realize that the outcome of our research could spark discussions, but we just like that. I like a good discussion!
And how did the research help you?
I've wanted to since the 1 e become a classroom history teacher but through this research I want to try to move forward with science. I will be studying History and Philosophy at the UvA after the summer and hope to be able to do research afterwards. Marthijn has no idea what he wants to study yet, but it will certainly also be an Alpha study!
And do you have any tips for others to win the KNAW Education Prize next year?
Be critical! And another tip:look at scientific work and imitate that way of working. With footnotes and all. The jury likes that!
by Arno and Marthijn can be downloaded as a PDF.