Week 6

Personal Development

Week 6 has been another busy week which has seemed to fly past. Between exploring the city, seeing friends and university work, I have not had time to really think about the fact that we are now into the second week of March! It’s crazy!

I had a great day last Friday. It reminded me a lot of an ordinary day at home, but seeing I was doing all the ‘ordinary’ things here in Denmark I felt a little more excitable… I began the day by waking up early and going into university to do some reading for Monday. The day was another beautiful blue-sky day, so I felt happy enough going in so early! Greg and I then took a train into the city.

Now that we are in our sixth week of being here, we like to explore different parts of the city – even if this just means getting off at the metro stop before or after the city centre. To be honest, Copenhagen is not that big. Actually it is not uncommon to be walking down the street and bump into someone you know. Yes – just like Northern Ireland. I only know approximately 50 people by name (if I really try), so this hopefully illustrates how compact the city centre is. This hasn’t happened once, by the way, but four times! Anyway, getting off at the metro stop before the centre seemed like a big deal at the time, but once we got up the escalator we realised that we were in fact just at the bottom of the main street. Exploring the side streets and new shops is very cool though, and I always like to imagine what I would bring home if I were even just £1000 richer. We came across a great street act on the way to H&M (reliably cheaper). The main singer, playing acoustic guitar, was amazing and sung really chilled out music. We chatted to the guy afterward, and he seemed very down to Earth – asking about living here and so on. When we got home, we stalkerishly googled him, as you do, and discovered that he was actually on the Danish X-Factor!

Meeting a famous person = done.

That evening, we went to a bar in the city centre. It was a great way to end a good day. The bar was quite chilled out, so it was nice just chatting with others from our International class. I am very fortunate to be in such a great class. At the start of our programme, I thought it was strange that we would all be in the same class for all our subjects, but it is great. I have also learned so much more about other countries, as well as Denmark, and even picked up a couple of words in Spanish – very fun!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and getting caught up on homework for the busy week that lay ahead. I managed to take breaks from working to go for walks, visit churches, and on Sunday evening I explored Frederiksberg again – it is a really beautiful part of the city and walking through the street as the sun set was really beautiful! I am very excited about longer days and warmer weather.

Since Monday, my week has been very university orientated. An extra class had been moved to Monday due to a cancellation late last week so I spent more time in university than I initially thought. It was strange figuring out my diary this week, as for once, I had to cancel some things to make time for others. This is the first time I have had to do this since arriving in Denmark. I really appreciated the extra time I have had since coming here, as it has made me realise how busy I am at home and how stressful it can be. However, I enjoyed feeling like I have commitments here – just another example of how the reality of living here is sinking in!

Cultural Development

This week, Kirsten, our landlady, invited us upstairs to watch a documentary on the Prince and Princess of Denmark. Sitting in the living room, as Kirsten excitedly explained what was going on (the Princess had just given birth to their first son. The programme was in Danish – but I got that bit), I realised how important the monarchy is to Danish people, and how loyal they are to their country. Even at birthday parties, or special events, the Danish flag will be placed on the cake. Gift or card shops have a lot of Danish decorations and cards for every event. In Northern Ireland, this could be seen as a negative and offensive act, but here, all parts of the community feel comfortable to do this. Another thing I observed from the programme is how laid back security is in the country. The Prince – the next King – was able to drive himself around, without the need for roads to be closed, security to be out and major disruptions caused. The same can be said for the Parliament building. You can walk right into the building, and if you are lucky, you will come across a politician. There is very little need for security here, which shows the honourable and trustworthy society the Danes live in.

I went to church again this week with Kirsten. Afterwards we were invited for lunch in the hall. Even though I was surrounded by older people, all talking Danish, I discovered how much I enjoyed being in their company – people are very friendly, and even though some of them could not speak a lot of English, they made me feel very welcome and comfortable. I have been told that Danes sometimes get a reputation for being quite introvert, keeping themselves to themselves, and not making conversation unless having to…kind of like Northern Irish people on a train or bus. Fortunately, I have only experienced kind, warm-hearted people who are willing to help out wherever possible. We had a soup-like lunch. To be honest, I am not a fan of soup with meatballs and dumplings in it. In fact describing the soup now is making me feel a little queasy. However, I was hungry and wanting to be polite, so I ate it all up. The Danish Dumpling Soup with meatballs is a traditional lunch in Danish homes, and I was proud of myself for trying yet another Danish cuisine.

Professional Development

We began this week with another class on the Multicultural Classroom. In the first part of the lesson, we discussed the levels of integration within a classroom. The levels allowed us, as teachers, to decide how much multicultural education we were going to input into put in the curriculum, depending on the age, topic and subject. The second half of the class was putting our knowledge into action. We prepared an observation chart for rating the levels of multicultural education within a school. We then watched a Multilingual School on a video, and discussed what level the school was working at. This was a really useful exercise, as it made me more aware of how to make any classroom multicultural within today’s globalised world.

Comparative Education focused again on the Folkskole (for age 6-16 years), and we were able to discuss similarities and differences between education systems. I am learning a lot about the practices here in Denmark, as well as the rest of Europe, and I am glad that I have the opportunity to broaden my knowledge through the International Module.

We had a very interesting class for Globalisation and Professional Change this week. The challenge for this week was ‘How to go global in schools and learning environments for children and youth today.’ Within the introduction, we recognised the importance of ‘going global’ and the effect it has on our lives. The key words; like communication, co-operation and collaboration, open-mindedness and information all stood out as important parts of going global, and it was interesting to discuss these. We then spent time looking at some classroom resources on the web that will be useful when out in schools. I found out so much information about cross-curricular projects and themes that you could use within the classroom, even if you are not teaching Local and Global Citizenship. The benefits of having such resources, means your knowledge expands, as well as your contacts from places throughout the world.