Danielle's May Sem Blog: Day 15, School visit

Day fifteen (day three of Odense): This day was one of my favortie days that we experianced in Odense, and that was because we visited schools on this day. It was crazy because we visited three schools in one day, but it was so worth it because we learned a lot. The first school we went to was called Rising School. The school was 40% immigrants, which was interesting. When we first arrived we were greeted by the prinicpal and then greeted by some students in the 8th grade who would show us around the school. The school had a very neat and brand new science classroom that was two stories! They also just started a philosopher hallway that had famous quotes and on each classroom door it had a famous philosopher such as Martin Luther King Jr. When we finished our tour we were invited into the 8th grade classroom where we were asked a lot of questions. Some of my favorites were, What do you like about Denmark? Why do you want to be a teacher? Try saying Rød Grød med flød (which is a Danish word for berries and cream). I did actually remember that word from camp that the Danes taught me, but I still could not say it right. One of these days I would love to learn Danish and Icelandic! This trip has taught me so much about appreicating other languages. Also at the first school they had a traffic school behind them, where real police officers taught the kids how to cross the road, and how to use signals when biking. (because almost everyone rides bikes to school, and everyone rides a bike to anywhere)

Here is the 1st school. You can see every classroom has a door to go outside!

This really cool playground thing!

The science room!

Traffic School!

The second school we visited was a very multicultural school. The prinipal had told us that it was 99% all immigrants or refugees at the school. When we walked into the classroom we were working with, you could tell by the apperance of the students that not one was of Arian race. But I thought it was rather interesting. The teacher had told us that the students would give us a tour around the school, and I was really excited because two of my tour guides were Muslim and they were happy to share their culture with me. It was something that interested me because I did not know much about the Muslim culture because I have never had the oppertunity to open up with them. It was also interesting when the students asked questions comparing Denmark to the U.S. It was also really interesting and cool to come back to the clasroom and share Dancing with them. No matter where you go dancing and music can always be shared. It was one thing that I enjoyed alot, because I am a dancer myself. A couple of the students taught us a traditional Arabic dance which was really neat to learn, and we taught them how to 2-step. The one thing that I also noticed that both schools did was allow their students to go outside around five times a day. The students said that after almost every lesson they get a break to go outside. In both schools the students were allowed to even go in the woods behind their school. This was one thing I thought that the U.S schools would never do, because they are trying to cut recess which is really sad. If the students don't get an outside break they can also get a dance break, which we saw in the third school we visited where they were "brewing" (being responsibly engaged in the world) by dancing to a Portuguese song called "Ai Se Eu Tu Pego" The teacher actually had the students dance and then she would pause the song and the students would have to freeze, and whoever moved would be out. It was almost like freeze tag but with dancing, it was really cool to watch the students cheer eachother on and dance!
Also the third school we visited had a teacher who taught math in a uniqe way and that was through soccer. While the students were playing soccer he had them figure addition, probability, angles and other math equations. He also stated that several students are above thier math grade level with encourperating math into soccer! I would've loved this!

I loved the Danish schools, I wish the U.S worked like them with traffic school, the use of outside breaks, and several other things.