Organisation Education Police chief Janny Knol and lecturer Bart teach guest lesson to Dream School pupils Written on Wednesday, April 16, 2025 Bart teaches general legal subjects at the Netherlands Police Academy. Together with police chief Janny Knol, he taught a guest lesson on decision-making for the Dutch TV programme Dream School, in which high school drop-outs are offered support, guidance and inspiration while planning their future steps. The youngsters put on Virtual Reality (VR) glasses and took a virtual class designed for Police Academy students. Learn to trust your own choices Bart: ‘We wanted the youngsters who take part in Dream School to experience what it’s like to make decisions as a police officer. The lesson’s central message: you may learn to trust your own choices. Police work is all about making decisions quickly, often in a split second. To be able do this, you must rely on your knowledge, experience, and moral compass. We wanted to show young people that this not only applies to police officers, but also to themselves: sometimes, you have to make difficult decisions in your own life as well.’ Janny agrees with Bart. ‘VR and role-playing enable them to experience what it’s like to have to make a decision in a split second, and how important it is to be able to trust your own inner ‘self’ to do the right thing. It’s not easy for anyone to determine what is right and what is wrong in each situation, and what’s my own position. That’s a skill you need to train; you have to learn to trust yourself.’ The lesson started with a proposition: ‘My view of the police is mainly influenced by social media.’ Bart: ‘That was an immediate conversation starter. The pupils talked about their own experiences with the police. We wanted to put these views into perspective, because often, you only see the final situation, but not how it came about.’ ‘A number of pupils have bad experiences with the police,’ Janny says. ‘And you can see that this affects the way they approach us. I also noticed it in the questions they asked. On the other hand, I think it’s super cool that they still made an effort to get into a real conversation with Bart and me and in doing so, they crossed their own barriers.’ Tension and recognition After that, the pupils got to work with the VR module ‘Checking Professionally’. This module is used to make the topic of ethnic profiling a topic of discussion in basic police training. Bart: ‘On Dream School, we had the youngsters play the role of police officer. They received a report about a group of youngsters who were allegedly bothering people, and their job was to talk to this group. I noticed that the pupils felt tense when they put on the VR glasses; some of them were not sure if they wanted to take part. And it is quite something: you literally step into the shoes of a police officer for a while, while personally you might have had bad experiences with the police.’ ‘But slowly, they got into their role. They started consulting: ‘What are you seeing?’ ‘I’m now going to ask for an ID.’ Part of the group deliberately escalated the situation, while others asked the right questions. The youngsters were actively reflecting: ‘Am I actually allowed to do this?’ and ‘Why am I approaching these youngsters?’ They realized that small choices in behaviour, such as checking or approaching someone, also determine how other people look at you. One of the youngsters explained that if police officers are standing near a group of young people, the people around them often think: ‘You see? It’s always these youngsters’. Even if there is not much going on.’ ‘I hope that this experience makes them realize that, at the end of the day, a police officer is a person with feelings too,’ Janny adds. Virtual Reality in basic police training Bart uses VR in his classes: ‘At the Police Academy, we use VR in different ways. The main advantage of VR is that it provides a real experience. Your brain believes what you are seeing and hearing, even if, rationally, you know it’s not real. That gives you the opportunity to train situations that might be difficult or dangerous in real life. VR is also a good way to test if students can turn theory into practice. For example: when are you allowed to arrest someone or enter a house? In the VR scenarios, students encounter these situations and have to make decisions on the spot. This enables us to see whether the knowledge has been transferred correctly, and whether they apply it correctly.’ Training actors as a learning tool ‘In addition to VR, we make frequent use of training actors during the basic police training course. This was also shown in the Dream School episode. The actors reenacted situations that police students have to react to, such as aggression, or people with mental health needs. The actor, in turn, reacts to the police student’s behaviour: if a student is empathic, the conversation remains calm, but if someone is too harsh or authoritarian, the situation will escalate. That way, the student will learn what works well and what doesn’t. The good thing is that we can tailor these situations exactly to the student’s development points, making it a powerful learning tool. It closely approaches practical reality, but at the same time, it is safe enough to allow for ‘mistakes’ to be made. And making mistakes is valuable and instructive, but without the consequences they would have in a real-life situation.’ Providing inspiration and guidance as a lecturer Teaching the guest lesson was a very instructive experience for Bart. ‘Young people are a challenging audience, but also an immensely valuable one. If you manage to inspire one member of the group to make a better choice, that’s already an achievement. At the same time, I like my work as a lecturer at the Police Academy very much. Our students make a deliberate choice for this line of work, they are motivated and learn quickly. Guiding their development towards being police officers is really beautiful to do. Whether you inspire young people to get their lives back on track or educate police students to become competent trainee police officers, it all revolves around making choices and learning to trust yourself.’ The episode is available on NPO Start (in Dutch).