Week 3

Personal Development

Writing in my journal last night, I could not believe that I was noting 'Day 21' at the top of the page. Judging by the amount that I have written in my journal the past 21 days, I have been busy and obviously excited to explain all the new things that I have experienced.

We have only had two classes in university this week due to the Winter Break, and so I have had time to become more familiar with the local area and the city. Doing shopping, hanging out with friends and exlporing has been really fun. I feel that I am now settled in my new surroundings and the apprehension of living somewhere different is no longer on my mind.

I have enjoyed doing more things on my own this week. On Tuesday, I went for a walk in Copenhagen and took in a lot of new sites around the canals and harbour. It was very beautiful. I then took some time out to write a few postcards to my family. Sitting in the coffee shop on my own, surrounded by people talking a different language was no longer out of the ordinary and when I went to leave to go home, I got out the door and thought to myself...'I am in Copenhagen.' It was a strange feeling because that was a moment where the awareness of being here had completely left me, and reminding myself was a very strange feeling.

Wednesday evening was also spent in the city. I visited Rundetaarn (The Round Tower) which was built at the time of King Christian IV to serve as a student's church, library and observatory. Finished in 1642, it is one of the most famous structures in Denmark and stands around 34 metres above the street. The height of the tower may not be impressive, but the views of the city once you reach the top are amazing. Going at night, and seeing all the buildings lit up was really impressive. The other advantage of going at night was having a chance to visit the tower's observatory (the oldest functioning observatory in Europe).

A Science teacher's dream, the refracting telescope has a 80-450 magnification - amazing! I will definately be going back on a clear evening.

Cultural Development

This week celebrates Lent and the 6 weeks before Easter. In Denmark, they have a similar festival called Fastelavn - a carnival held the weekend before Ash Wednesday. The holiday does not seem to have much of a religious signifigance anymore, and is sometimes described as the Nordic Halloween, as children enjoy dressing up and gathering treats for the festival. On the Sunday afternoon, the children are involved in an event called 'slå katten af tønden' translated as 'beat the cat out of the barrel.' To me, this sounds very drastic, but Kirsten assures me that it is just the traditional name as a cat used to be placed in a barrel MANY years ago. Nowadays, the barrel is filled with sweets, and the children take it in turns to hit the barrel until all the sweets spill out. We went to such an event near Ballerup with Kirsten and her grandchildren. Seeing all the children dressed up was really fun. (My favourite costume being the child dressed as a whoopie cushion - if only that was available in my dressing up days.)

We attended a Danish food event this week with our Erasmus group. The event was held by a lecturer and Home Economics teacher. For a couple of hours we learnt about the Danish food culture. It made me realise how health conscious Denmark is. It is not uncommon for a Danish family to have to fill out forms and surveys about what they eat. I thought it was great that they also restrict a lot of food coming into the conutry if it has been too processed or contains too many additives. We then had a turn at cooking a traditional Danish meal. We were split into groups, and each group provided part of the meal. Starting with Franksbrød (French bread), we then had Frikadeller (meatballs) with red cabbage salad, white cabbage salad and potato salad. I was very proud of my input into the red cabbage salad, and a little disappointed it wasn't one of the favourite dishes. I quickly got over it when we were given Danish Apple cake (a type of crumble) and Danish Roulade for dessert - it was very tasty and I am still recovering after the amount I ate!

Professional Development

We started our Comparative Education classes at the end of last week. Our lecturer split us into groups so that we had to sit with people from our home university. This was the first time that we have been divided in such a way and was a little strange at the start. Each group had to design a poster with the title 'How to teach in such a way that every child learns.' After making the posters we all presented our ideas. It was really interesting getting a perspective of the differences and similarities within the countries and it really opened my eyes to various education systems. The similarities were a lot more signifigant than the differences - the main one being the issue of inclusion with mainstream schools. Every country was able to talk about how their education system is trying to deal with inclusion and their personal thoughts.

This week I have met with my Visual Culture Group. Our first task in Visual Culture is to compare Blaagaard/KDAS to our home instutuations and to find one thing that we would like to discuss. My group consists of a 'representative' from Spain, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Even though the task of getting everyone's experience together is challenging, I am very fortunate to be given the opportunity of hearing about other universities and educational courses. I realise that most universities our quite similar in their courses with education, but it is more the physical appearance of the institution that differs - from student rooms, to canteens and bars.