Cat howl and movement in one week…

Tuesday, the 23rd of February we had our first lesson of PE. I was a bit frightened, because the Danes are known as sportive people. In my mind, I could see us running 5 laps around the university, just to warm up… Luckily, that wasn’t the case. We just played some typical Danish games. I really enjoyed it. There were a few games I’d never played, for example the ‘bull in the red sea’ or the ‘carrotgame’. A very handy lesson for our future, because we can play them with our pupils as well. Another advantage is that we got to know each other a bit better…


The same week, on Friday morning 8 o’clock, we had music… I bought some coffee in the cafeteria, but I hadn’t got time to drink it, because the moment I walked in the classroom, we got a paper with some songs on it. That moment I realized that this wasn’t going to be a passive lesson. (Which I always find wonderful on a Friday morning). No no, we were going to make our own music… The people who know me, know that I’m not the world greatest singer. I inherited the singing talent of my parents, meaning: none…. Although I was really trying, the only sound that came out of my mouth sounded like cat howl… I think Stefanie would agree, because I was standing next to her and I saw her making painful faces…


After this painful experience of the music class (especially for the people who stood next me) , we had our second lesson of PE. This time we could use everything that was in the room to make our own exercise. Stefanie and I made a ‘climbing-exercise’, with success.
the exercises of our colleagues were all very different: from walking over a beam to hula hooping.
So, not very difficult exercises… Until we had to do them with a blindfold… I don’t know about you, but I’m not really comfortable if I’m hanging upside down with a blindfold and a head as red as a tomato. Anyway, I think God loves me, because I didn’t fell. He did punished me for an occasional swear by giving me a lot of muscles ache the day after.

A comparison of the Danish and Belgian school system

The first week we went to see a school nearby the university.

Immediately it became clear that there are a lot of differences between the Danish and the Belgian school system...

1. The number of hours

In Belgium a school day starts at 8.30 and ends at 15.30.

08.30 - 10.00: Lesson

10.00 - 10.15: short break (playing)

10.15 - 11.40: Lesson

11.40 - 13.15: Lunchbreak (eating + playing)

13.15 - 14.25: Lesson

14.25 - 14.40: Short break (playing)

14.40 - 15.30: Lesson

This is the schedule for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday they only have to be in school until 12 o'clock.

In Denmark the school starts at 8.45 and ends at 13.45, with an hour break from 10.45 until 11.45.

2. The amount of teachers

I can tell you two different things regard the amount of teachers:

The first thing that's different from our country is the fact that there are more teachers for one class. In Denmark, every teacher had his/her specialty and teaches that in various departments. So you can teach children who are 8 years old, but you can also teach children who are 12 years old. The advantage of teaching children of various ages is that you get a lot of variation. Another advantage is that the teachers are very good informed about their specialism. This is sometimes a problem in Belgium. We have just one teacher per class. This means that the teacher has to know and give everything; from mathematics to geography and spelling. We are not specialized in just one or two things.
However, a disadvantage is that you always have to adjust your teaching style and activities every time you go to another classroom, another age.

The second thing that's different is that in Denmark there's more than one teacher in the classroom at the same time for only 10 or 15 children. In Belgium there is one teacher for 20 children. I prefer to have my own class, without the interference of someone else.

3. The safety of the schools

In Denmark, the schools are not 'protected' at all... There's no fence, there's nothing locked and the children are put outside to sleep... This is unimaginable in Belgium. There are always fences around the school. Not because we are afraid that the children will run away, but because we don't want that strangers can walk into the school whenever they want to. Belgium has a history of kidnapping.

4. The surveillance

At first, I didn't believe it when Ibe said that there's no control of the teachers what so ever... They don’t have to follow a certain syllabus. I think this has both advantages as disadvantages.

A very big advantage is that they don’t know the word stress. What isn’t done today, will be done tomorrow. The second advantage is that the teacher can choose what he wants to learn the children. However this can also be a disadvantage. For example if a child moves to a different school. It’s possible that those children have learned completely different things… Then I think is very difficult for this child to keep up with the other children of his (new) class. Another disadvantage of this system is that you don’t know (especially as a parent) of your child is educated the right way. Is the teacher doing what he has to do?

So, my provisional decision is this:

Both the Belgian as the Danish school system has his advantages and his disadvantages.

The Belgian school system is too much focused on the “learning”. We don’t really look at school through the children’s eyes. We look to school through our eyes. And that is where we go wrong.

The Danish school system on the other hand is very ‘child friendly’. But I think that they are sometimes a bit too focused on the children. Sometimes they just have to learn certain things…

So, in my opinion, if we combine these two school systems, we get an ideal mix of ‘child friendly’ and ‘learning’.

These are my experiences until now, maybe they will change during another visit at the school… I’ll keep you posted!

Copenhagen, the city that never sleeps...

Finally! It was time to leave for Copenhagen! I was really excited, I heard a lot of great stories of this city…
After 3 hours on the train, we arrived in the capital of Denmark. Immediately, when you get off the train, you know the city tells a lot of stories. The energy of this city really carries you away. I didn’t had eyes enough when we walked to our hotel.
We got 15 minutes to get settled in. Then we took a little tour bus. This way, we got to taste a little bit more from Copenhagen. The only thing that really amazed me, was how expensive the public transportation is around here.


After this pricy trip, we walked to the Round tower. I think this was one of the peaks of our trip to this vibrant city. The Round Tower does not have an elevator, so we had to climb the winding. With my tongue on the floor, I arrived at the top. never the less, it was worth it.







The view from up there was phenomenal! We could overlook whole Copenhagen! For the first time in my life, I did not know what to say…







Afterwards, we walked into the longest shopping street of Europe: Strøget. On one side, you had shops like Prada and Chanel for the wealthy people. On the other side you had shops for people like me… At the end of Strøget, you had the Town Hall Square. Here you can find ‘The golden weather girls’. These girls used to tell the weather, but nowadays it doesn’t work anymore. After this first tiresome day, the bed in the hotel looked better than ever…


Thursday morning, at 7 o’clock my alarm went off. Normally I would just put it off and stay in bed for at least 10 more minutes. But not this time! I jumped out of my bed (bumped my head) and into my clothes, brushed my teeth and I was ready to go downstairs for some breakfast. After 3 cups of coffee, I was ready to explore more of Copenhagen.

The Thursday adventure started by walking among the riverside to ‘the Black Diamond’. There we waited for the boat to come, but it never did… So we started walking. I wasn’t too disappointed, because I’d probably died on the boat because of the freezing cold. And this way, we got to see more of Copenhagen. During our walk to ‘The Little Mermaid’, we passed Nyhavn and the Toaster, better known as the Opera House. Both the harbor as the opera were impressive. Nevertheless, I think the modern architecture of the ‘toaster’ and the Royal Library don’t really suit the old city…
Nyhavn on the other hand was, in contrast of its name, a really old part of Copenhagen. There was a romantic atmosphere here. We didn’t had a lot of time to contemplate about this. We had to keep walking or otherwise we would freeze to death…

After a long walk, we arrived at the famous ‘Little Mermaid’. It was smaller than I’d expected, but I’m glad I’ve seen it. From this fairy tale, we went to Amilienborg castle. We entered the domain and I was amazed… Four impressive buildings, a giant square and two guards. The queen was at home, because the flag was proudly waving in the wind.
On the inside, we had the chance to learn a bit more about this castle. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by this. Except for some royal dresses and paintings, there wasn’t a lot to see… I’d hoped that I could learn more about their way of living…
After a delicious lunch and a deeper exploring of the pedestrian street, we met at Rosenborg Castle. I think this castle is much more beautiful and spectacular than Amilienborg. The garden was beautiful (the snow has its advantages) and also the inside of the building was phenomenal. You could really see how these people lived in at that time. I taught it was the most interesting thing we’d see so fare.
After our trip in the renaissance, we got some more free time. Because the temperature dropped even more. A few Erasmus students and I decided to go to a café and drink some thee. When we finally warmed up, it was already time to go to our restaurant at Riz Raz. When Jette told me it was a vegetarian restaurant, I was a bit scared. But I have to say that my horror was a waste of time. The food was delicious! I really enjoyed that evening. The food was great and the company was even better. A perfect way to finish the second day in Copenhagen.


Friday morning, my alarm again went off at 7 o’ clock. Although I was still exited to go to the national museum, I didn’t jumped out of my bed this time. This excursion had been wonderful, but at least equally tiring… After we had our breakfast and I had my caffeine, I was ready to go. We packed our bags, left them at the Danhostel and left for the National Museum.


I first went to see the exhibition about the ‘Rainforest’. It was beautifully made. The moment I walked into that room, I felt I was at the other side of the world… Although it wasn’t a museum, especially for the children, there were a lot of things to do. For example, you could sit in a typical boat from over there.


The second exhibition I went to see was the children’s museum. All the other museums I’d ever seen were nothing in comparison with this one. If I was a teacher in Denmark, without a doubt, I would go and visit this museum. The children could learn by playing. Something we try to do in Belgium, but it doesn’t always works… Even I, a 21 year old student couldn’t ignore all those activities and tried everything out. It was great!
The third exhibition was about the Danish history. Very interesting as well, because although we are staying in Denmark, we hadn’t seen a lot about this land. The thing I will always remember, is the next sentence: ‘We are red, we are white, we are Danish dynamite.’ Once again, it shows that Danes are very patriotic. They really love their country, they are proud of it. And so they should be.


After a two hour overload of information, Aurélie, Sophie, Ether, Marie and I decided to go the most famous brewery of Denmark: the Carlsberg brewery. After asking a lot of people instructions about how to get there, we arrived at the ‘beer palace’. We paid 60 kroner to get in, but it was worth it. We got to see the whole history of the Carlsberg brewery. Of course I got thirsty from all this information, so afterwards we drunk a freshly drawn Carlsberg beer. I like this beer, but as a Belgian I have to say our beer is better…
And with the beer taste still in my mouth, we left Copenhagen, the city that never sleeps. I’m sure this will be one of the moments in the whole Erasmus experience, I will cherish the most.

What color are you?

In this lesson we did all sort of things. We started by making our own ‘language portrait’. We all got a blank person. For every language you speak, you had to choose a colour that you found was matching to this language. My language portrait looked like this (picture).

The red colour represents Flemish, my mother tongue. I choose red, because it’s a warm colour. I placed it in my heart and all in the body, because this is the language that is running through my veins. I will never forget this language, it’s in my heart.
The iceblue represents German. Although my mother is German, I can’t really speak it, so that is why I put it in my feet. I also think it’s a cold and hard language.
I choose yellow for the English language. It’s a language that brings people closer together, because almost everyone can speak it. I put it in my head, because this is the language we are using the most now.
French is the darkblue color. I think it’s a very romantic language, that’s why I put it around my heart. I colored my legs and arms in darkblue, because I use them a lot when I’m speaking French to make myself more clear.
Last, but not least: purple for the Danish color. I gave it a warm color, because I would like to learn this language. I’ve put it around my heart, because I will always remember this Erasmus experience.
After we talked to each other about our portraits, we had to write an eleven word poem.

Goosebumps
Death, love
In my heart
I think about you
Everlasting

I think it’s a good type of poem to use with children. It always has the same structure. Especially for the children who are not good at writing, this is a great exercise.


The last part of the lesson we talked about colors and what they symbolize. It’s funny how colors can have different meanings in different cultures. For example the color ‘black’. For me, it represents ‘death’, but for Ondrej it represents ‘elegance’.
Because Belgium, and Antwerp in particular, is a multicultural country, this was a very interesting lesson. I will definitely use these exercises, because it can teach children that languages and colors can have totally different meanings for each individual. It can teach them to have respect for other cultures and opinions.
And also for the teacher the result of these exercises can learn him/her a lot about a child and his/her way of thinking.

Off to an adventure

31 january, 7.45 AM : It was time to leave Belgium... After a wet and emotional farewell, I jumped in my car and took off to Denmark, Haderslev. I was a bit scared, but mostly I was excited. We didn't had to many problems on our way here. Only the weather scared us sometimes. When we arrived in Haderslev 8 hours later my excitement only grew. The appartement was great: warm, big enough and with wireless internet. Haderslev is a very warm and sociable town. We leave nearby the centre, where all the shops are.

1 february, 8.30 AM : Nine, our buddy, picked us up to go to the university... We only had to walk about 10 minutes. The size of the building amazed me... They are a lot bigger than in Belgium.
At 9 o'clock the adventure continued. We got to meet the other exchange students. I never saw so many nationalities in one room... it was great! Jette gave us a lot of information about trips, lessons, practice,... It all looks very interesting. I especially look forward to the danish lessons.

1 february, 4 PM: Stefanie and myself went looking for a supermarket. We chose the "Netto" store... It was quite expensive, so the next time we have to buy food, we're going to look for a Liddl.

In general, I can say the first day was wonderfull... Now I can only hope that my further stay in denmark will be as great as my first day here. I'll keep you informed!