Eng. Hanneke Maassen, MEM, Master of Floristry

Position: Teacher trainer, teacher researcher-researcher, Master of Floristry
Professorship: Boundary crossing practices of teachers and researchers
Email: h.maassen@aeres.nl
Social media: LinkedIn

Aristoteles’s phrase ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’ is one of Hanneke Maassen’s mottos. She began her career in flower cultivation and floristry. As a cultivator, she occupied herself with cultivating and developing plants at those moments when the circumstances for growth are ideal. As a florist, she arranges shapes and colours in such a way that the aesthetic value of each individual flower is enhanced.

She incorporated these ideas in the education sector. She has been working in education for over 20 years as a teacher of theory and practical classes in secondary vocational education, as an education manager in secondary and higher vocational education, and as an educator of teachers who teach ‘the development of educational learning pathways’ in higher vocational education.

Hanneke has been associated with the Boundary Crossing Practices of Teachers and Researchers professorship at Aeres University of Applied Sciences since September of 2019. She conducts research on the possibilities of Arts-based Research for training students in teacher training courses. Creative development is a 21st century skill. In the AHW teacher training course, creativity is provided in relation to thinking skills, and in the knowledge base of teachers in, for example, the fields of floristry and consumptive.

Besides this, the professorship encourages its students to apply their investigative ability, which is expressed in various research projects during and in the final stage of the study programme. Usually, these are reported in writing. Hanneke explores the question whether students have sufficient possibilities to create (other types of) professional products in which creativity can have a (greater) role. She especially focuses on the possibilities of (aspects of) Arts-based Research as an approach to research.