Stefanie and I followed a teacher, named lisbeth Thompson. A very nice and warm teacher who really loves her job. She is specialized in 2 subjects: music and English.
In Belgium, you’ve got only one teacher for one class. In Denmark you are specialized in certain subjects and you only teach those subjects. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages:
- An advantage of working with specialized teachers is that they know (almost) everything about their subject and love teaching it. This is a big problem in Belgium. Because we have to teach everything, we just know the basic things about each subject. So if you compare the music lessons the pupils get here with the ones the pupils in Belgium get, you can say it’s a night and day difference. The children in Denmark learn al sort of things: rhythm, singing, theory, listening to music, and other exercises. While the pupils in Belgium just learn to sing some songs. I was really amazed by the knowledge of the children. For example, the children of the second grade can easily read rhythm, while I just learned to do this in my university. Another thing is that the Danish pupils are very familiar with music. They dare to sing very loud or play music, while in Belgium they are a bid shy to do these things, because they are not used to it. Lisbeth told us this has to do with confidence. The children get music lessons from when they are very young. They don’t know it differently.
So I would prefer that they hire people in the Belgian schools, who are specialized in music to transfer their knowledge to the pupils. Music can also help the children with a sort of things: from a better concentration and listing to a better coordination.
- Another advantage is that you as a teacher get a lot of variety by teaching from grade zero until grade 10. In Belgium sometimes a teacher gets fed up with always teaching the same age over and over again. You don’t have that problem over here.
- A disadvantage however from having different teachers for one class is the fact that the children always have to adjust their selves to the teacher. By this I mean the following: every teacher has his own way of teaching and his own rules. I think it’s very confusing for the children. With one teacher they can run around in the class, with another teacher, they can’t. A result of this is that the pupils sometimes have lack of respect. I talked about this with Lisbeth and she couldn’t agree more. She said that especially the older pupils don’t always show respect for their teacher.
In our school system, the value ‘respect’ is the first thing the pupils learn. You will never see pupils act the way they (sometimes) do over here. As a said earlier, Lisbeth is a great teacher, but sometimes she has to be more strict. There were times that she was explaining an exercise and the pupils were just talking and running around. In Belgium, such behavior will never be tolerated.
Another thing that really amazed me is that the teachers here work very expressive. In Belgium the way of teaching is often very sec. We learn the pupils the theory and afterwards the practice the theory by making exercises. Sometimes the pupils practice the theory by playing a game. But usually, they just have to practice things by writing and making exercises in their workbook.
Over here, that’s not the case at all. Here they learn by playing. I really love that kind of didactics.
For example, we saw the lessons English of the 6th grade. They were learning about Scottish clans. In Belgium we would learn them this by giving them a text that they can read or by just teaching them about this subject. Here, in Lisbeths English lessons they taught the pupils those things by letting them make their own clan. Every clan had to make a tartan, a crest and a history. I was really amazed by this. The end result is nearly the same, yet the children of Denmark had a lot more fun than those in Belgium would have.
Stefanie and I had to accompany a clan and help them by making their assignments. I once got really crossed with some students, because they were complaining about what they had to do. When I explained them how they would have to learn this in Belgium, they realized that this assignment wasn’t so bad after all and they stopped complaining.
If I’m honest, I have to say that I could never teach in this system. For me, the system is to chaotic. The classes are a mess and the pupils don’t always give the teachers the respect they deserve. An advantage of teaching here though is without a doubt, the didactic system they use. I really fell in love with the way the teachers teach their pupils something. I definitely going to put that in my bag and take it home with me.
Nevertheless, this beautiful way of teaching doesn’t compensate the disadvantages. I think I’ll stay in Belgium and try to teach my pupils things by playing.
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