I visited, last week, a public school. It was my first visit in a danish school since I arrived in Haderslev.
I was first surprised to see pupils from seven to seventeen. The danes go to to the same school from seven to sixteen or seventeen years old, making no difference between what we call in Belgium "primary school" and "secondary school".
I spent the morning with a class of the fifth grade, so pupils who were eleven years old.
Some observations:
Morning assembly:
Every morning, children from several classes gather in a room to sing together, and to listen to a little lecture about a subject chosen by teachers. This assembly is a very good transition between the arrival at the school and the beginning of the lessons. It is a nice way of welcoming the pupils.
Technology:
When I entered the classroom I had quite a shock. There was a
smartboard in the classroom. In Belgium, even in my university we don't have that technology. And here, I saw one in a classroom of a public school.
After that first great discovery, I had an even greater sur
prise when observing a lesson during which the pupils had to make a folder about a planet. And to make those folders, they had
laptops. Each group - of two or three pupils - had a laptop to work with. And each laptop had
wifi access to internet. I was very amazed as in the primary schools in Belgium, some schools don't even have computers, and most schools only have a few computers in a special room...
Relation teacher-pupils:
First, the pupils call their teacher by her first name. And they do that for every teacher or other person in the school. No "sir", "mister", "miss" or other formal word.
Then, the pupils work for themselves, and not because the teacher asks to. Which means that after having given the instructions of the activity, the teacher is there to help pupils who have difficulties, prepare something for the next activity and can go out of the classroom to prepare... all the pupils work! No "policeman" role here, the teacher is not there to check that the pupils work. Still, the teacher told us that sometimes she had to be a bit strict to make sure everybody works... But it looks much less frequent than what I know in Belgium. I think the pupils are more mature, earlier independent, in Denmark.
Languages:
Everything was in danish of course. I might have missed some interesting things because I don't speak danish...
BUT, those eleven years old pupils had been learning english since they were nine; and therefore they could understand my questions in english, and they could easily answer me! Eleven years old pupils speak a good english after only two years of learning...
All in all, that first visit was very interesting. I expected some differences but not that much. Of course, a morning is not enough to know how the school works, but yet, I am very glad I had the opportunity to live this experience.
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