Kulsbjerg Skole
Skolevej 1, 4773 Stensved
Teacher and grade: Per Larsen, 8th grade
Official language taught: Danish
Group members UCSJ: Elisabeth Joensen, Juris Kalnins, Binita Shrestha, Alba Montalbán.
The school is located in a very nice area of Denmark, Stensved. It is a satellite town of Vordingborg in South Zealand with 1,545 inhabitants (2013). Wonderful lakes near a huge and dense forest make, from Vordingborg to Stensved, an awesome landscape. I am living 4.6 km from the school, so I was using my bike to get there, and therefore I had the great opportunity to enjoy the views, which I believe are also part of the culture of the population living here.
The school holds a total of 929 students, of which 93 belong to the 8th grade, and are divided into 4 groups (a, b, c and d): Language&culture, Body&Movement, Science&Mathematics. There is also a group called special group, which are people with different problems that make them have difficulties to fit in a normal class, so they have teachers working with them in one of the corners near the classes, with the ultimate goal of helping them to integrate. I am especially interested in that project so I will try to follow how is their progress.
I will stand out some things that really took my attention, and compared with the Spanish system, I would think that Danish system is very advanced, even though now I see it just logic and rational.
- They have a lot of flexibility on the schedule: the fact that they decide how many hours to spend in every subject, depending on the needs, raises the quality of education.
- They are constantly reviewing the situation of the class.
- They divide the students of each class into the smallest groups, and combinate the hours of every subject depending on what they need, in constant observation, both individually and collectively. The teachers are constantly having meetings and in contact with each other, allowing them to know the situation of the class and find the best solution to the potential problems.
- In the same way, they divide the students of each class into the smallest groups, depending on their level and the difficulties they have to learn a specific subject. In the end, all of them will make the same exam, but the pupils that need special help on this specific subject, they get more self-confidence in a class that they can follow, while learning keeps being funny and encourages them to get to the level of the other students, covering their specific needs.
The pupils in this school learn how important are the freedom and they experiment with its concept. They have the freedom already, for instance, to go to the toilet when they need to, without asking permission to the teacher. Is this kind of freedom what makes the students feel responsible of their decisions, and what they are actually learning is that they are capable enough to decide what they want, so it gives them confidence and self-esteem (I can trust my own criteria).
Juris prepared a very interesting activity, to check what was most valued between our students. He printed in a smalls papers 10 words, and he asked for numerate them from 1 to 10, being 1 the most important and 10 what they would consider the less important thing. Afterward, he made a graph with all the answers of the pupils, being 50 in total, and here are the results:
Personally, I think that was very relevant to understand the mentality of Danish children because I believe that this graph even represents the general beliefs and values of Danish society. The concept of family and friends is highly valued, as well as freedom and education (very well done at the schools, so children think this way). However, religion is the least important in children's lives, which, in my opinion, the normal course of the world society, according to evolving. Certainly, when we talk about freedom at schools, we talk about it in many ways:
- Physical: pupils are allowed to move around during their classes (besides the time where the teacher is explaining the activities), and to get out of the school (some of them does it to go to the canteen or somewhere else to get their lunch, which is not possible to do it indoors).
- Methodological/organizational: teachers are allowed to distribute school hours between subjects, depending on the need of students.
- Ideological: school promotes free thinking, as well as mutual respect. Thus you find pupils that respect the decision of other students, about their dress or sexual orientation (there were homosexual people not hidden from others, as it happens in my country).
Honestly, I feel that I do not have enough tools/knowledges yet to criticize the negative sides of the school, because even though there were a couple of things I did not understand (like the amount of the freedom and the trust that the teachers show to the pupils, or the flexibility to (it seems) consent all their demands) because I am used to observing other ways to teach in my country, I also can see that it seems to work! So even though I did not get yet how this process is working and why, they might be doing it pretty well, when the students are happy and passing the exams successfully.
Another highlight was all the activities that the children get involved in a lot of social activities. For instance, they made a party where they pretended to be political, and therefore, they had their own name for the party and wrote their own electoral program. That makes them aware of the needs that people have in the town, and they learn to fight for what they want while making plans and caring for others develops on their minds. Per, their English teacher, showed me, very proud, a piece of paper hanging on the wall, where they were written all the proposals coming from the party.
Per also told me, that every Friday someone has to bring a cake for the rest of the class. I haven't seen that before either, it is so cute! I think it is a cozy way to learn to share and spend a little spare time with the other pupils, so in my opinion, it helps, together with the other extracurricular activities, to create bonding among students.
Other very interesting activities that I have been talking with the English teacher :
- They spend 30 minutes per day to read a book, a magazine, or other reading matter that they feel interested in. In this manner, the school promotes culture, as well as encourages them to acquire the good habit of reading, together with all its benefits.
- The excursions that the school organized. Sometimes they do it to break the routine, and put into practice what the have learned in class. And sometimes they do it to show to the pupils a job so it can arouse a special interest to learn more about it. They went to an open field and to a botanical center with biology class one day, to a fur factory another day, and very often Per participates together with his pupils in competitions that organizes the runner club, being him, precisely, the webmaster of it. I have not seen a teacher so close to his pupils before, that was a great surprise. You can find the web link below:
NYRÅD LØBEKLUB - By Per Larsen
