TeamDenmark Group 1 🇩🇰

 

Fun in the Sun with Group One!!

Denmark was a blessing to visit as a final learning and sharing experience to have to our NIE journey! Read on to join us in our fun ☺️

Denmark Reflections 

The observations we made are admittedly small scale and may not be truly reflective of Denmark’s schools and society. Reader discretion is to be advised.

Denmark as a country and as an Education System provided another perspective that was eye-opening for us teachers from the Singapore and the Singapore Education System. The innate cultural differences in both countries influence what each system prioritises and how it functions. As what a teacher said, “Education is the soul of society” and as we can see, Singapore and Denmark are vastly different societies and thus placing different levels of importance on the different nuances of life. Denmark as a welfare state and Singapore as a meritocratic state thus vastly influences how the education system has been propagated. 

The balance of these perspectives enabled us to reflect upon both systems and some things that resonate are still how the child is at the core of what we do as teachers and as a system. The goal is still for the child that passes through our hands to grow into one that is grounded in his values and is able to make sound, reasoned decisions to thrive in society. Both countries recognise that there is only so much that we can do, considering the VUCA world that we live in and so are making continuous efforts to update and upgrade the education system. 

When we first interacted with their system, admittedly we did think that it was the paradise we were looking for, especially after recognising the cons of our own classrooms after the TP experience. But though things may look perfect on their side, the teachers there have their own difficulties and troubles — truly, no system is ever perfect. What we can do is to decide a path, embrace the constraints, work with and around it, and evolve within this path. 

 

The whole of TeamDenmark and our families finally met for the first time! We were really looking forward to spending this time together to experience and learn something new from Denmark! Spot us in all the different NIE shirts (The black open-house one is obviously the nicest duhh) 

 

NGL, this was one of the most nerve-wrecking days and yet EMPOWERING day for our team as a whole since it was not only the first of 7 days that we were leaving our safe-spaces behind but we were also the ones setting the tone for the entire trip! Thankfully we had the best leader EZE 狗 prepping so much pre-trip & leading us YAYYERZ

Some pictures from the flight there! THANKYOU SQ

First impressions of Copenhagen - A very welcomed breather from our TP2! Compared to the locals (and even some of us), we were walking so so so so so much more quickly 🏎🏎 The facade was so beautiful and their city was so peaceful 😽 Look at us in our fits!

 

Pro-Tip: NO NEED DOWN JACKET (unless you are really really afraid of the cold) Free up your luggage for more shopping or some nicer fits! 

Views @ Vesterbrogade 

 

Our pictures truly do not do the place justice 😭 Highlights was that there was a marathon on the day that we visited, so some of us joined in cheering for those running! The fact that they were even running in the cold was so astounding >.> And of course, the food!! BEST PASTA & BURGER in the entire city (or at least according to us!) It was freeing to just walk around and pop into shops that caught our eye! GL bought some Singapore-friendly tops from a thrift shop and Rox even got a pair of converse for ~SGD30?? Hands-down the best purchase imo! 

Next up, Istedgade! 

Did someone mention booze?? For those of us that were visiting Europe for the first time, it was truly mind-boggling how cheap and satisfying the alcohol was. PLUS there is no condensation around the glass >.> the average temperature of 12 degrees truly was shiok! 

So, Istedgade was like our second home this entire trip. First time we were there, we were just enthralled by the views there. Fun fact, it is home to the Kommune, which you can understand as the GRC of the area but they even make decisions regarding the education as well! More on that in Day 2.

Emily’s Day 1 Reflections

Denmark is such a nice country to walk around! Maybe its the novelty of it, but I must say that the city of Copenhagen is so beautiful! took quite a few pics of the architecture and the surroundings as we walked around, which is definitely a first for me because i don’t normally keep an eye out for such sights.

Also, quite a few people greeted us as we walked around, both in and outside of the hotel. That was when I realised what a Singaporean I am in terms of how standoffish we are to strangers, where we don’t really go up and say hi. I did compliment a stranger on a dress she picked up at the thrift store — she did look so beautiful in it! Going to push myself to be more friendly, and at least say a good morning and all!

Kastellet!! 

One of the most scenic places throughout the entire trip! We had too too much fun here breathing in the fresh air and just enjoying the views (by that I mean taking a lot a lot of photos!) Here are some sneak peeks of the place! 

Amelianborg Palace 💂‍♀️

“In my time in the palace ….” 👑

Go google the history of Amelianborg Palace yourself! When we were here, we got the chance to visit the museum and browse at the collection titled “A Queen’s Jewellery Box”, which showcased and told the story of some of Queen Magarethe’s prized jewels 💎 They had audio guides accompanying us at each major exhibition from which we could hear more about the jewels than was just shown on the display! Talk about multimodalities! 

To see more, please enjoy the reflections of Groups 2, 3 & 4! We shan’t spoil everything here 🤙🏻

Education Related Observations 

1) Randersgade Skole Public School 

Display of the student’s own 👻 horror-themed 👻narratives in the school library 

Class discussion of the characters in “The Gruffalo” 
This is quite similar to what we actually do in the Primary English Classrooms pedagogically! 

Cue cards on the student’s table for the teacher to point to! Interesting to see some of the classroom management strategies in action 😛

This was very first Danish school that we visited and oh boy was it sure an eye-opening experience! On a hindsight, this was a very suitable school for us to visit, because we got to see how public school is authentically done before listening to their teacher education @ UCC. Talk about seeing the theory in practice! 

We were very impressed by how there was still some order in the very flexible arrangement that they have in their classrooms that look so different from the Singaporean Primary Classrooms. There did not seem to be a strict enforcement of classroom routines, with how the students could walk around the classroom without being punished. This is where understanding the child and his intentions are very important, because the students were not randomly walking around, but rather walking to get their things from their personal cubicles scattered around the classroom. This would definitely not be allowed in the Singaporean classroom because it is seen as chaos in our extremely structured classrooms. 

Some food for thought is, how do we balance structure in the classroom as well as respecting the child’s autonomy? Denmark’s classrooms seem to offer a solution via well-established TSR. The fact that the teacher and the students follow each other (including the same classmates) up for at least three grades offers many opportunities for this interaction. One observation we noted was the unplanned use of circle time at the start of the lesson. This circle time was used for the students to voice out any troubles that happened during their break time, and each students’ opinion was valued — the perpetrator was also given a fair chance to explain his side of the issue instead of it being a case of the class Vs him. Our group was very impressed by this for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, it empowers the students in taking ownership of their actions and this no longer becomes a case of the teacher trying to solve their problems but it becomes a class-level issue for the students to discuss. Secondly, this provides authentic opportunities of the students to develop and reinforce their socio-emotional capacities. For those of us teaching at the primary level, this is a gap of great concern that we have recognised in our students. The teacher’s rules and routines become more impactful as it is no longer confined to the four walls of the classroom. 

With this knowledge of the child, the teacher would know if the student was intentionally being malicious or was just simply being a child - having fun and having some unplanned accidents happening in the process. 

2) University College Copenhagen - Campus Carlsberg 

Here, we got to hear more about the teacher education of Denmark Grade 0 - Grade 9 teachers. Interesting fact, is that for one to teach beyond Grade 9, they actually need to have a degree, not just the degree of the subject that they are teaching but a Master’s Degree! A big influence of their teacher education and teaching system is that Denmark is a welfare state, reflected in the dialogic discussion we had with the staff there during the lecture. Thought it was more meaningful that we got to observe a school first before hearing about the Teacher Education so that our understanding of their system was from a more inductive bottom-up viewpoint rather than the typical top-down approach that lectures tend to take. 

We got to hear from their English Education and Geog/History Education office which was quite eye-opening. (Ask Zeke more because he was clearly the most interested in the entire dialogue about English education pedagogies). The pièce de résistance of the campus was their playroom! They even had a whole slide and jungle gym spanning two levels! 

 

This entire room was motivated by the idea of playful learning the classroom, which sees motivations in game-based learning, gamified learning and learning by inquiry. These buzzwords come together in this realm of playful learning. As of May2022, they are still in the research phase and have yet to make any concrete stands of what constitutes playful learning and some of its aspects. 

* We did observe more schools but we are once again leaving that for other groups to reflect on! Hope this has been a meaningful read for you! The entire pre-during-post process of the Denmark Trip has done much to consolidate teaching for us as Singaporean Educators and inspired us in what we want to see in our classrooms. While changes take time to enact, we believe that it is ever possible and we can always start in our classroom and soon it will propagate into the system. 

Remember, think big start small, move fast.  

PEACE UD! 

 

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