After consulting Margreet, Huib called Patrick at the beginning of the evening to ask if he could come over and talk about the way they were treating Rosalie, and about education. He was most welcome that same evening. Margreet would stay at home. She felt like spending her evening delightfully working on her new tapestry. The tapestry she had made for Lisa and Sjaak was already hanging in their living room. She had posted pictures of it on the website and social media, received many nice reactions to it, but so far she had not received any orders. And actually, she didn't mind that at all. She felt like trying something new, something that she could picture in her mind but had not tried before. Flowers had come to her mind, non-existent flowers, but resembling real ones. The picture reminded her of Elly's work, birds recognisable by their shape and posture, but in different colours, so that they were completely different.

Her first tapestry, which hung in their own living room, also depicted a kind of field of flowers, but was actually in the flat plane, two-dimensional. The flowers she now had in mind were to be more three-dimensional. For the first flower, a substantial one, she decided to choose shiny satin or silk. She found a grey-purple shiny fabric in her hobby closet that matched the picture she saw before her quite nicely. For accents, she chose a really purple organza, one of those lovely see-through fabrics, net curtain-like, but different. She chuckled at that description. She loved organza, it was so delicate and combined well with a non-transparent fabric underneath. It gave nice nuance differences.

She laid both fabrics on top of her base fabric, which she had already zigzagged along the edges against fraying. She recalled the picture again in her mind. That shiny fabric, she would have to cut a strip from that, long enough to form the outline of the bottom edge of the flower, and wide enough to double it lengthwise, so that, as she would fasten the strip in a circle, the edge would stand out a bit, get that three-dimensional effect. She envisioned it, estimating how long and wide the strip should be. The longer she worked on it, the more she enjoyed it, having a feeling, a certainty, that it would succeed, that she could make what she saw.

.

While Margreet was working creatively at home, Huib explained to Patrick and Bea, that he admired their creative way of dealing with Rosalie, that the way the girl lived was amazing, how she taught herself things and was so happy in it.

"What I am wondering now is this... Rosalie is not yet compulsory education now, but..."

"... in six months' time she will be!" complemented Patrick.

"Exactly, and what are your plans? Do you want to send her to school anyway?"

"No. No, absolutely not! She wouldn't fit in there at all, and I'm mainly talking about the system in which education is trapped. Children there are put through the wringer, squeezed into a mould, losing their individuality completely. That short time Rosalie was at school in our previous hometown was a disaster for her!" Bea looked at Huib with wide eyes. She had felt her daughter's frustration well enough.

Huib nodded: "I experienced the same thing. We did talk about it at home when we were all together. At home I had a great time, was allowed to live in freedom, to choose for myself. Erik, my father, sometimes steered me a bit, where it came to woodworking, but did so from within, he knew what I needed. And I enjoyed that. But at school I hated it, I felt so trapped there! And I keep thinking about it since Gloria is there and Rosalie comes to us regularly, how the education Rosalie is actually giving herself is bearing so much more fruit than a school could ever manage. Of course, she owes that not only to herself, but also to you. You set her free and give her what she needs, and she's going like a train! And don't get me wrong, this is not about turning our children into super-beings who learn everything at a faster pace and at a higher level than schoolchildren. In fact, it has nothing to do with that, although with Rosalie I see it happening spontaneously, but that's fine as long as it's spontaneous. We have gotten impressions from Gloria that she will be a dreamer, sitting quietly on the swing looking ahead when I saw her as if in a vision. And she would love painting, making paintings. I think it's nice for every child if they learn to read, write and calculate. You all need those basic skills, I think. But if she had absolutely no click with geography and history, I'm just mentioning something... would her life become less, worse? I don't think so... if that doesn't have her heart? She will almost certainly focus more on what she can do with paint, no idea how and from when, but she will want something with it, want to indulge in it. Should I then force her to sit still on a school chair and do other things?"

Patrick smiled at Huib. "It is quite obvious that we are in complete agreement on this. And because Rosalie is up against compulsory schooling, we are also brainstorming how we want to move forward, how we can move forward. We have seen from Rosalie that she is learning an incredible amount herself. Indeed, the most important thing in this is that it comes from herself. That will really have to remain the basis for our choices. Ideally, we would like to keep her at home, homeschool her, and then nicely in our own way. But the education inspectorate makes certain demands. Anyway, we would have to make reports on her progress. It bothers me! But if that were the only problem, I would do it. It's something like having to clean your toilet every now and then. I don't like that either, but it is convenient to do it every now and then. However, the problem with education is also, they make quite a few demands on you as a parent. I even considered going for primary school teacher training as yet, but then I have to learn how not to do it, you see? Then I have to learn their system, do internships in it, and that would be a prison for me."

As Patrick was silent for a moment, Huib jumped in: "You would have to have a teacher there, someone who has the diplomas, but has experienced that it doesn't work at all how things work in the schools."

"Nice thought," Bea thought, "but where do you find someone like that?"

Huib grinned: "With us at The Shelter! Her name is Ineke, she talked to Bianca, our new staff member at the guesthouse, about her desire to work with children, about her training as a teacher, and why she found her internships awful, namely for the reason we find teaching awful too. She dreams of teaching, but in a natural way. She made Bianca feel what she longs for, but was also honest enough to reveal that she had no idea how to go about it. Long story short: Bianca told her about Rosalie, Ineke talked to us about it, and Margreet arranged it so that Ineke could meet Rosalie in a relaxed homely atmosphere. Ineke experienced Rosalie at the table and later talked to her for a while, about how she learns things. Bianca and Ineke had been thinking that perhaps there should be some kind of discovery centre, where children who wanted to explore on their own could do so freely. If parents are able to let their children live with them, let them be free, let them discover what they like themselves and learn easily... like you are doing with Rosalie... then those children would be perfectly at home there. I have also thought about children of parents who still keep their children completely in a pattern. I doubt that those children will be able to learn on their own at such a centre, to learn the way Rosalie does. I just don't know."

"I think they will be able to do it eventually, with some help," Bea thought, "but I think they will then become obstinate at home, because they will be pushed back into the pattern there. But honestly, I'm not so afraid of that. Such parents would almost certainly not choose a discovery centre for their child, because it doesn't click with their own vision at all. By the way, the 'discovery centre' phenomenon is exactly what we ourselves came to in our conversations. We now do administrative work, mostly financial. The nice thing is that it allows us to earn enough money to live here, and buy what we need. But we have increasingly come to realise that this has not really been our heart. Actually, we've been looking for something else for a while, we've already talked to you about that. We haven't applied for anything yet, because we feel your advice, to only respond to a vacancy we really feel a click with, is the best. But when we started fantasising about a discovery centre, we felt we got excited. We are also starting to envisage it more and more, a building with all kinds of rooms and corners, where children can work on their own. They can walk around discovering what they want to do that day, something new, or the same as yesterday, deepening or extending yesterday's work. We still find it quite difficult to see for ourselves exactly what would be needed then, what kind of stuff to buy. We do have ideas, but we feel it is far from complete. It feels like it should be a building that you can easily expand, add new rooms, so you can create new discovery corners."

Huib smiled: "So that means you need a building structure, where adding new rooms doesn't have to take weeks. And there are, they are delivered as packages, put down, windows in, done. Just in a nutshell... I know Simon hates it, he thinks that is not building, but if I would explain to him why it would be necessary, he would probably be behind you. On the other hand, it can also be good to do it his way, 'real building', as he calls it. In turn, children learn from that too. And I think there's no problem starting small. If the plans are approved, with expansion possibilities included, then you just have to snap your fingers to put the builders to work. I think, the moment children present turn out to need something you don't yet have, that's the perfect time for expansion. You don't have to have everything fully ready immediately, you can't even do that, because you don't know what the children who would come would need. So it will never be able to become a system, you will always have to follow the children. Suppose you get a child who has it all in him to become a drummer. Then a soundproof room might come in handy, so that other children can quietly get on with their own work. Or deliberately not soundproof, lockable but not soundproof, because that's the way life is, that we hear other people's noises. Just thinking out loud... But back to basics, I love the idea of a discovery centre. I know Margreet would love something like that for our children too, and I know Ineke would much rather do work like that than what she is trained to do. She has a real genuine interest in Rosalie and in how she lives. Rosalie has further fuelled her desire. So as far as I'm concerned, you already have staff."

"That sounds good, but even then, there is a practical problem, just assuming we get permission from the education inspectorate and get planning permission for building it. Then we still need money. And I don't expect we can get a subsidy, and actually we don't want to, because that might make us more dependent on the government and the rules, the conditions. But getting a building like this up and running, the stuff you need, expansion in prospect... and in the meantime quitting our current job. How are we going to do that?"

"Parents who want their child to go there will probably want to help pay to the best of their ability, but I realise that won't get you there. However, I am convinced that if it is a plan that comes from within you, a plan that really suits you, your soul will also point the way to the people who can help you financially." Huib smiled, "I think I already know who would like to help you with that. I'll see how I can quietly tell those people about the desires you and we have, and then see if they respond to that of their own accord, what they would like with it. I won't keep you in ignorance about that any longer than necessary, but I would still advise you to make a plan, on paper, well, on the computer of course, you can always print it out. Describe what you want, your goal, what you experience in your heart what is needed for children, how you want to carry it out and what you need. Basically everything that comes to mind. Also make a list of basic materials you will need, also for furnishing. Dream up the whole centre, see everything in front of you, how it looks, how you work there, how children are busy, describe how you want it to be. I'll let you know more about that financial side as soon as possible!"

As he spoke, Bea had stood up, turned on her computer and a moment later showed him what they had already gathered in terms of wishes and ideas.

"Ingenious!" exclaimed Huib, "you guys are already much deeper into it than I thought! Awesome, guys, expand this with anything that comes to mind. This should work out well! Wow! I'm so happy about this, I'm going home now, Margreet will want to know what you guys think about our twists and turns. It's still years away for us, almost five years, but that doesn't take away from the fact that we've already thought about it regularly, fantasised about it. And you already have our fantasies largely written down. Wonderful! Thanks for this delightful conversation, we'll see each other again soon!"

To chapter 20. The power of the very beginning

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