Comparative studies

The biggest chunk in our schedule must have been the comparative studies with Iben.
I must say I really enjoyed these lessons! I love it when people dare you to be critical about what’s happening around you and challenge you to think for yourself. Iben did that in almost every lesson.

The lessons within comparative studies have a wide range.
It started with the comparison between the Danish school system and the system in your own country, and ended with looking at pictures from a teacher’s point of view and telling what you saw in it. It is not surprising that these lessons were different for every person. Every experience leaves a different impression in each person. By listening to other people’s opinions, you start to look at your own from a critical point of view. Why is it that I think this, but another one doesn’t share my opinion? I love it when people challenge me to look at my opinion differently.

I just want to say this last thing: Keep the comparative studies for the Erasmus years to come!

Storytellers - (not so) Danish literature and film

During our first two weeks in Denmark, we had two lessens of Danish lit and film.
Again, I was really looking forward to these lessons, because I’m very interested in literature. In Flemish, we have a saying: ‘Op je honger blijven zitten.’, which means that you are not satisfied because you had higher expectations than what happened in real life.

I thought it would be more theoretical, that we would be given some texts which we then had to analyze. Sadly enough, we were given a few words about Denmark’s culture and got the assignment of making a short presentation about our country.

We talked for a short time about Karen Blixen and then saw a movie about her life. I think it’s a pity that we haven’t learned more about her books, maybe read some sections of it and then discussed it. Okay, we now know about her life, but not about her style of writing.

The week after, we all presented our country and our city to each other.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but I still expected that we would learn more about Karen Blixen. Nope, I was wrong again. This time, we watched a movie about H.C. Anderson. Again, we didn’t discuss any of his fairy tales, even though everyone knows them. We watched half a movie about his life. I didn’t really learn something interesting about Denmark or Danish literature and film.
In fact, during these three months, I learned more about the countries of the other Erasmus students than about my host country. I think that’s sad.

International week

Monday, march 15th 2010
All of the Erasmus students and international student gathered around in the new cafeteria for introductions and some explanation of the program.
Personally, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people in the room. When you’re used to be with 26 other people, 45 seems like a crowd. Even for me, it felt a little bit uncomfortable. Who are those people? I can imagine what the others thought of us, a crazy Erasmus group of 27.
So, it was time to get to know each other. Everyone presented themselves, and afterwards, Jette explained the schedule.

After the short introduction, it was time to learn more about the different countries that were represented in the room. The group was divided into groups, each representing their own country. Of course, because there were a lot of Belgians, we were divided into more than one group. We had to make drawings about our country. After two months in Denmark, and presenting ourselves and our countries more than once, we knew what to draw.
Afterwards, we were given another country other than our own, to make a drawing about. If I have had Spain or the Czech Republic, it would have been fine. But now, I had to make a drawing about Austria. Pff, I can’t even locate Austria on a blind map if my life depended on it. After some discussions in our group, we were able to pinpoint some of Austria’s famous things.

After lunch, we were given a short Danish lesson by some third year students. Then, I was again confronted with my little knowledge of the language, but it was still fine. I enjoyed it.

The Danish lesson was followed by a short explanation about the Danish school system by Jette. The presentation took about half an hour, but even I, after being here for almost three months, don’t understand it completely. It is so different from ours.


Tuesday, march 16th 2010
Tuesday was a long and hard day.
First of all, we had to chose two workshops that were given around campus at different times.

The first workshop I chose, was the cooking class. We prepared a proper Danish lunch for ourselves and the rest of the group. We were given more information about typical Danish meals and how they are prepared.
Then it was up to us. We knew what the Danes eat for lunch, but now we had to prepare it. Because I am a very picky eater, I used some of the typical Danish ingredients and mixed them up with some Belgian customs. At noon, we all ate our lunch together. Hygge!

My second choice of workshop was the one where we had to create a pocket film.
Lynn and I teamed up with Isabel and Marie, another international student from Belgium.
First of all, we had to write down 3 things we find strange about Denmark, things that intrigue us. Then, we had to investigate why those things are the way they are.
We chose the following subject: ‘Why does the traffic light turn orange before it turns green?’
Our theory? In every light, there lives a little person. The orange person can play when the light turns red, but also wants to play before the light turns green again. That’s why the light turns orange before it turns green. Tadaaa, another mystery solved.

At night, we prepared a buffet with typical foods from our country. With about 20 people, we tried our best to cook the meal of a lifetime. And what can represent Belgium better than French fries and waffles? The right answer is: Nothing, except chocolate maybe. After pealing 15 kg of potatoes, we tried to fry them in a small frying pan. The fries have to be pre-cooked and then fried again to make them golden brown and crispy. It took about 5 people and 3 hours to prepare all of the fries. Still, you can never do wrong by me when you’re preparing French fries.
It cost everyone a great deal of blood, sweat and tears, but the buffet looked stunning! I tasted one thing of each country, and didn’t have any more room for anything else. I’m shy to say that I almost stuffed my face..

But the buffet wasn’t all about the food, it was about talking to each other, singing songs and having a hyggelig time.

Wednesday, march 17th 2010: International day!

The day started at the assembly hall, where we were given a presentation about internationalization and globalization and how to teach it to our children. I couldn’t tell you whether I liked it or not, because it was all in Danish. Even after Jette’s translation, my mind was slipping away. I’m sorry for that.

Time for another workshop. I chose the workshop didactics, which was taught by Iben.

Then, it was our time to speak. We each had to team up with people from the same university or college and prepare a small exhibition. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of interest from the students towards our college. Their loss. =) For us on the other hand, it was nice to see where the other Erasmus students live their lives at school. We have heard them speak of their college and university a lot of times, but now they had the opportunity to proudly present it to us. And so they did, and they did it well!

Jette called us all together in the assembly hall after the presentations to go over the program for the next day. To be honest, I was glad to be able to go home after a long and hard day at school.


Thursday, march 18th 2010
Sadly, the PE lessons in the morning was cancelled. Like I told you before, I’m not really a sporty person, but I still like Jakob’s lessons. The lesson was replaced by a literary lesson by one of the visiting teachers.

Time to go to Ribe! I was really excited about this part of the day. After a bus drive of about 45 minutes, we arrived at Eysberg, to see the lock (sluis). It was impressive to see. In Belgium, we also have a few locks, some nearby my hometown. I can understand that some people are even more impressed by it. Because of the wind, I returned fairly quickly to the bus.
Once we arrived in Ribe, I couldn’t wait to see the Viking museum. All of the museums I have visited so far are really interactive. It’s amazing how much you are focused on the child. This is what Belgium lacks. To visit a museum where children can touch and smell and experience things, you have to travel miles and miles away. In museums like these ones, I even feel like a child. It’s amazing how many of us played dress-up and fought with the swords. That’s what a museum should be like, that’s a place where children learn!

At night, we had a Eurovision song contest. Belgium was once again divided (just like in real life =) ). We were represented by 3 groups (which made our chance at winning bigger).

I was impressed by all of the performances! I knew that we all had some musical talent inside of us (except for Lynn and myself), but this much? I enjoyed listening to all of the performances and had a really good time. Everyone was cheering everyone on.
Until my heart stopped for a second: ‘And now, the third Belgian group is up. This is the group of Caroline and the others.’ Little did they know that we chose a song, made a dance to it and practiced it only an hour before the show? We just all went up there and enjoyed ourselves. Apparently, it worked. Just like in 1986, Brian called: ‘And the winner is: BELGIUM, group number three!’ We all started clapping our hands for the winner, and only later realized that WE are group number three! We were given a beautiful basket filled with Easter treats.

Still, my favorite of the day was Viki, our runner up. She performed all by herself, representing Hungary at her best!

Friday, march 19th 2010
My day didn’t start that well. I was woken up in the middle of the night by a terrible headache.
Unfortunately, the headache didn’t slow down during the day.
In the morning, Lynn and I finished our pocket film, but then, I had to leave the university behind and had to seek the company of my bed and my friend called Dafalgan.
Therefore, I wasn’t able to say goodbye to the international students at the farewell lunch.
A sad ending to a fun week, full of repetition. =)

Identify yourself! ... by your language

What happened?
In language and identity, we were confronted with our own language and how it identifies us. Deuheu, look at the title of the course.
We were each given a portrait of a person. In that portrait, we had to place the languages that we speak in a specific color at a specific place. We then had to justify why we used those colors and why we placed them at that part of our body.

I chose these for languages: Dutch (Flemish), French, English and Danish.

I placed Dutch in my hands and my heart, because it’s my mother language and I use my hands when I’m explaining something or when I’m very excited about something. I chose the color red because it’s a color of passion.

I placed French in my head because I can speak it, but then I have to think a lot about the grammar of the language. When I have to speak French for an hour, I become very tired. I chose the color blue because I find French to be a cold language.

I placed English in my head and my stomach. The English language comes quit naturally to me, because I grew up with English programs on TV. Therefore, I have a gut feeling when it comes to speaking the English language. On the other hand, when I have to write in English, I still have to switch on my brain. So I placed it in my head as well. I chose yellow because it’s a warm color and it makes me happy. =)

I also included Danish in my language portrait. This lesson was given during the second week, so my expectations about learning Danish were still pretty high. I placed Danish in my eyes, ears and mouth, because it’s a difficult language to speak. During my stay here, I tried to keep my eyes and ears open to learn more about the Danish language, and to pick up some words here and there.

After the language portrait, we had to make an ‘Elfchen’ about one of the colors we used in our language portrait. Afterwards, we had to present it to each other. By linking colors to words, you notice the different meaning of each color in other cultures.

What can we learn from this experience?
In Belgium, we have a multicultural society. Some children have Flemish as their second language, and only speak it at school with their friends and teachers. The further you go into town, the more nationalities you meet. Sometimes, there are only 2 or 3 children out of 20 who have the Belgian nationality. In those types of classes, it is probably useful to do this exercise. It teaches the foreign kids to be proud of their heritage, and it teaches the other children to respect other cultures and nationalities. There’s a big chance that I’ll end up teaching a multicultural class, and if I do, I’ll certainly use this exercise!

PE

Before going to class…
I have a confession to make: I am not really a sporty person. I used to be, but during the years, I became pretty lazy. Therefore, I wasn’t really looking forward to the PE lessons, especially because they were in the early morning, when I could just sleep in.
But no, real Belgian as I am, I stood up, drank some coffee and put on my most negative face at the beginning of the lesson.
After five minutes of persistent stubbornness, I started to enjoy the lessons. They reminded me why I used to love sports. The fun games, adrenaline flowing through your body. I love it!

During class…
I loved the way Jakob taught us. I can use some of the games we played in my teaching job next year. It was really useful and, I hate to admit it, I enjoyed it very much! It was fun that the lessons were taught at a child’s level, not the level of an adult. I especially loved the lesson where each country had to present a game from their home country.
During the last lesson, we worked with a lot of materials. Everything was available for us. It was up to us to create a trail with these materials. Everyone then had to do the different exercises that our colleagues had made for us. After that, there was room for a little bit of theory; the didactics of PE in Denmark. It’s strange how this can be so universal.

What can we learn from this?
I learned, from my own experience with the lessons, that you can use PE and movement to get to know a child better, to get them to relax around you. As a teacher, you always want to talk to a child, to know what he or she is all about. I think that, if you just observe them during a PE lesson, you can get more information from them. If you give them space to let go and just enjoy themselves, you will get a better view of who they are and how they interact with each other. That is just as important as their academical skills.

Danish lessons

What happened?
Let’s cut straight to the case: I was a little disappointed by the Danish lessons.
Before I came here, I expected to be drowning in the Danish lessons, so I could communicate with the people on the street, in the shops, at the café. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. After five Danish lessons, I have learned the following:
- how to say my name
- how to say where I come from
- how to say which language I speak
- how to say ‘thank you’ in 7 different ways
- the numbers from 0-100
My impression after the first lesson was pretty optimistic. I was very proud of myself that I could say some Danish words, even if the pronunciation wasn’t always right. After the second lesson, my enthusiasm dropped. We repeated what we’ve learned the week before, and didn’t learn that much more. What frustrated me more, was that I still couldn’t order a simple bread in the store. We expressed our thoughts to Jette, who told Lone. For our last lesson, we all brought a recipe from our home country. Lone had brought some folders from supermarkets. We had to make a poster about our typical food with images from the folders. We also wrote the Danish names for each ingredient on the poster. This was actually meaningful for us.

What can we learn from this experience?
Looking back, I still think I would have loved an intensive language course. After two and a half months, I can now order a bread in the store, but I can still not have a very simple conversation with a Dane. I feel helpless each time I have to say: ‘I’m sorry, I only speak English.’ I would really like to have learned the language during my stay here in Haderslev.

Where can we improve?
I would like to suggest an intensive course in Danish for the following Erasmus students. I think it is part of the whole experience to learn the language of the country from your stay. It helps a lot with the integration. Sadly, I still feel like an outsider. The gap between the Danes and ‘the foreign students’ is still pretty big.

The Danish school systems and my vision upon them..

On Thursday, the 4th of February, we visited a primary school in Haderslev. Together with five other students, we visited Realskole, a private school.
After a short introduction, we observed a few lessons in year zero. The children are 6 years old.
What surprised me the most, was that the children don’t get a lot of lessons during the day. They only have four hours. In Belgium, children of that age have lessons between 08.30 and 15.30. The transition between preschool and primary school is smoother here in Denmark. In Belgium, when children finish preschool and enter primary school, they only get 1,5 hours of playtime in-between the lessons. In Denmark, there is a lot of time for them to play. I think that’s better.

The classes in Denmark are similar to the ones in Belgium. A lot of theory is visualized, so it’s easier for the pupils to remember it. I did notice that the pace is slower here. In Belgium, we have learning plans with everything a child needs to learn is written down. I think that’s why the pace is higher in Belgium.



In the comparative studies with Iben, I’ve learned a lot! I learned why the pace in Danish schools is much lower than in Belgian schools. In Scandinavian countries, they focus more on the total development of the child, rather than the cognitive development. They have built up their entire school system around the visions of Rousseau, Montesorri, … The child is more important than the adult, the individual is more important than society. The children are challenged to make their own choices, to chose their own path in life. Cognitive knowledge comes second.
This is the total opposite in Belgium. In our country, we put cognitive knowledge first. Children are tested all the time. The outcome of these tests, may have consequences for the child. If a child from the first grade can’t read or write the way he or she should, they are held back and have to do the year again.

What is my opinion about this subject?
I think that both school systems have got their pro’s and con’s. I think the child should be a teachers first priority. If a child isn’t stimulated in the right way, or if he or she doesn’t feel safe with you and in the classroom, it will never come to a good learning process. Still, I place cognitive abilities of a child at a higher place than they do in Denmark.
The school system in Belgium is built in a way that a child will not be able to learn if they don’t have the knowledge of the lower grade. That’s why I still think that the children have to be tested. On the other hand, Danish children get their motivation from within. In Belgium, children learn to please their parents, their teacher,… This might be one of the reasons children don’t like to go to school in Belgium. A lot of children in their puberty are ‘school tired’. They just sit there without learning anything and sabotage the others.

What can we learn from this?
I know for certain, when I go back to Belgium, I’ll try to implement what I’ve learned here. Some teachers are focused on the cognitive abilities of the children, and forget that they are little people, who have to learn from their mistakes. I don’t want to be a teacher that the children are afraid of. I want to be their confidant, their mentor. Children learn from example. As their teacher, you can teach them more from your actions than books ever will. Some teachers forget about this important aspect of the job. They’re only there to transfer knowledge. I don’t want to be that type of teacher. I want to challenge them, appreciate them as they are and give them the ability to grow. Sounds great, doesn’t it? =)
(We are a 4-star class!)