Tim ten Wolde – perhaps the youngest primary school director in Groningen – is not sure whether he has tics, aka Tourette’s syndrome. A torment that is no longer a torment. ,,This is me. Just look at me for two minutes.”
“Sir, why are you acting so strange with your face?”
“Master, why are you coughing all the time?”
“Sir, why are you blinking so much?”
School director Tim ten Wolde (33) can dream the questions. Children ask them without further ado, because they see something striking about him and are curious about what it is.
He always sits down for it, the class hangs on his every word. “It’s good of you to ask,” he replies. “I’ll explain it to you. Do you see something else about me? I have tics, it’s called Gilles de la Tourette. I can not help it.”
He looks endeared as he continues. ,,I explain what Gilles de la Tourette is, sometimes I show a film and a conversation always arises. Then a child just reveals what is bothering him. And another suddenly dares to say that his father also has Gilles de la Tourette. I like that. If you dare to show your vulnerability, you open doors for others.”
Gilles de la Tourette’s European Day
The Gilles de la Tourette Foundation will hold European Tourette’s Day on Wednesday 7 June. With this she wants to draw attention to the neuro-psychiatric disorder, with the aim of creating more recognition and understanding.
Tourette, named after the French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857 – 1904), occurs in 1 in 100 people. Symptoms include motor tics (such as blinking, snapping fingers, and shrugging) and vocal tics (such as coughing, sighing, and humping).
With Gilles de la Tourette, people often immediately think of uncontrolled swearing and name-calling, but only a small proportion of those diagnosed with Tourette have those symptoms.
‘A vulnerable child’
For years it was no fun, Tim ten Wolde thought, to have Gilles de la Tourette. He knows no better than that he has tics, from an early age in Hurdegaryp where he grew up. His father was a general practitioner in Leeuwarden, his mother a kindergarten teacher in Groningen. ,,I was a vulnerable child, I was different”, he outlines.
He remembers that children often imitated him. “Then they stood in front of you and blinked hard with their eyes. Or they also started to cough, just like me. It was taunting, really taunting.”
Things didn’t go well at school. “I spent more time in the hallway than in the classroom. I had an attention problem, they said. I was very active and saw all the birds flying. They found me difficult.” Even after Gilles de la Tourette was officially diagnosed with him.
He held his own, but wondered all the time if he would ever get rid of Tourette’s, if a cure for his tics would one day be invented, why this had to happen to him of all people. He was also diagnosed with dyslexia. He says: ,,I would rather have played good football, so to speak. I wasn’t really ahead. With the Christmas musical I was tacky, while I was on stage. I felt lonely and scared at school.”
Despite his low cito score, he went on to the havo in Leeuwarden. His embarrassment for his tics became so great that he made a deal with himself: in class he tried to hold back his tics. He didn’t blink, didn’t cough, didn’t jerk his head. He sat frozen in class, busy with nothing but Tourette’s.
“Sometimes I went to the toilet at school to get plenty of exercise. Then I actually caught up. And if I had cycled home from school at the end of the afternoon, I would really be discharged at home.” He imitates Tim and laughs.
Director of De Petteflet
This Friday morning, Tim ten Wolde is in the schoolyard of De Petteflet, primary school in the Groningen district of Kostverloren. He chats with colleagues, greets a child, asks another child how his dog is. He is wearing sweatpants, trainers and a white shirt. ,,This morning I participate in the sports day for the juniors and can then immediately continue in the Teams meeting. Nobody sees my sports outfit.”
He grins. Flashes.
He has been director of De Petteflet, a Jenaplan school with 325 pupils, for more than a year. School also where 6 or 7 different directors were at the helm in a few years. “This school needed stability. I met a group of colleagues who were working hard. Pedagogically it went well, but when I looked under the hood, I saw neglected heroes.
Yes, he calls his colleagues heroes. He respects their patience, their qualities, their desire to bring children into the world. He says: ,,I set the course, here and there in the old-fashioned way, so that math and language education gets back in order. It lacked a plan, a collective feeling. I can bring good enthusiasm, I give people with knowledge the responsibility and I am honest. Therefore, the child is the winner.”
His first sentence during the selection committee? “You must be thinking: what kind of busy, blinking boy is sitting here opposite us. I have Gilles de la Tourette.”
He got the job and is perhaps the youngest primary school director in Groningen. “The kids call me mayor,” he says. The other children stick to master. Master Tim.
De Vitruviusman van Leonardo da Vinci
He hadn’t suppressed his tics since third grade high school. “I thought, maybe this is it. This is who I am. It was a kind of turnaround, the sun started to shine. I was good at sports and getting along with others, I decided to go to the ALO (Academy of Physical Education) and gradually I started to appreciate Tourette’s.
The real turning point came in the second year of the ALO when, like everyone else, he had to give a presentation about himself. His fellow students all did this via PowerPoint. Not Ten Wolde.
He spreads his arms diagonally above his head, spreads his legs, like Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, but in clothes. ,,That’s how I stood in front of my group, against a white wall”, Ten Wolde looks back.
,,This is me. Just look at me for two minutes,” he said to his fellow students.
There he stood, perhaps more naked than the Vitruvian Man, for he showed himself including Tourette. His face moved, his eyes blinked, but he couldn’t help it.
He impressed his classmates in those silent two minutes. Some became emotional, others began to ask him questions. “From that moment on I started shouting it from the rooftops, if the situation called for it.”
From that moment on, his ambition to influence society also awoke. He had felt meaningless for years and now wanted to move on meaningfully.
He says: ,,Everyone is unique, I believe in that. I may sound woolly now, but I believe that if you embrace yourself, you can be an inspiration in society. I want to show children that they are good as they are, whether they wear orthotics, support FC Groningen, are quiet, busy or dyslexic. Have understanding for each other, because together you are society.
He is averse to the desire for higher, better and more, whether it concerns parents who want to take their child to pre-university education with tutoring or an ever-increasing monthly salary. “It has no value to me. I go to school every day whistling on my bike and next summer we rented a van to go on holiday with.”
Other schools sound him out as director, the ICT world offers him a higher salary, parents in the school yard ask him if he please stay a while, and politics – wouldn’t he like to go into politics? Ten Wolde nods. Who knows, he says. And: “For now, I’m here.”
Tim ten Wolde
Tim ten Wolde is 33 years old, was born in Groningen and grew up in Hurdegaryp. After secondary school he followed the ALO after which he became a gym teacher. He had his first job at the ISK (International Switch Class) in Groningen, after which he became a gym teacher at the VMBO. Before he became director of De Petteflet last year, he was a school leader at the Mytyl school for special education in Haren for 4 years.
Ten Wolde is married and has two children aged 2 and 5. In his spare time he plays golf.
2023-06-07 05:00:00
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