Western Denmark Tour

As promised I have found the time to add a new post. The past weeks have been so busy. On Thursday we left for a 3 day field study to Western DK. We set out to visit areas in Denmark with high concentrations of immigrants, refugees and their descendents to learn first hand about the problems of these segregated areas and the challenges the minorities face integratind in the the Danish society. Through several academic visits we were able to learn about approaches teachers and consultants use to teach Danish language to ethnic minority children. The schools we visited ranged from schools with high population of ethnic minorities to more traditional Danish fold schools with almost no ethnic minorites.

Our first stop was in Odense, the second largest city in Denmark, about a 2 hour bus ride from Copenhagen. Here our group of 40 students was split into smaller groups and sent to different schools. My group consisted of the full year students, about 9 of us. We were sent to a Egehuset Treatment Center which is located in Vollsmose, an area where about 10% people are Danish and the other 90% of the population is from other countries. Egehuset is a treatment center is for children 0-14 years old with social special needs, those who are abused, have alcohol problems in their family, mothers who had been sexually abused, etc. Basically this is the "last chance" place for families to seek help before their children are taken away. The treatment center is made up of 15 staff members. Egehuset is currently working closely with 8 schoolchildre,n 12 children between the ages of 2 and 6, and about 10 mothers with babies. The center works closely with parents and children in the community, where both the child and the parent receives individual treatment sessions. Their basis is to build a good relation there are any damages. Every morning there are different specialized sessions for the children 2-6 designed to meet their specific needs. The children 6-14 have a trained staff memeber visiting their schools as well as their houses to have sessions with their parents. The treatment center focuses on creating an environment of trust, both towars parents and children. The stress to parents that their objective is NOT to take their children away, they want to integrate the families back into society slowly. The families come to them during the day then go back their homes at night. Staff are trained to educate the families, whether it be on how to bath a baby, sit with a young child, cradle them, put them to sleep, etc. They use clay to bring the children and parents closer to each other, creating activities for them to share time doing. I found this center very interesting. Their goals were clear and the ways they went about things were very interesting. They had one situation where they were working with a young boy was out of control. After years of working with him, rolling around on the floor for hours just holding him close, craddling him for hours at a time, they asked him why he stopped fighting with them. His response was "cause I know you like me" It is things like this that give me so much to think about and many times bring tears to my eyes. A 5 year old boy fought for years and was so unhappy simply because he did not feel like he was liked. Sometimes we all just need to take time out of our lives to pay attention to things like this. Not everything is so black and white, somethings need to be looked at for longer, because for everything I do think their is a solution... we just need to dig deep enough to find it.

Our next stop was the Hans Christian Andersen museum , then we stayed in hostel in the city that night. Random short funny story... we went out to wander around the town that night and met some random drunk guy who talked with us for an hour or so about how he visited King Tuts tomb and took some coins back with him. He was a coin collector, and actually carried around 3 coins dating back from the 1600's... it was pretty crazy. I dont know how much of that visiting king tuts tomb was right cause he made some comment on how if you steal a coin its bad luck (its only good luck if it is given to you), but when i brought up the curse on those who steal from king tut he said that he and the king have an understanding with each other.... thats where things got a little sketchy. I'm not quite sure where the whole conversation was going, but he wanted us to guess hid granddaughters name, somehow i think i guessed right, don't ask how or why, but it was Nefertiti (have no idea how to spell it). it was a weird night, i was so intrigued by him though, while my friends were trying to escape the whole conversation. The really funny part though is... he offered to give us his name and number in case we wanted to talk to him in the future, so for the sake of remembering the whole experience I said yes... little did i know he pulled out a bank statement with all his information on it and wrote his number on it... it was SOOO weird, and NUTS!

Friday we went to visit a typical Danish folk school (kindergarden-9th grade) The school had 805 students, with less than 2% ethnic minorites. The priority is the students education and well being. They believe that students with low self-esteem are often subjected to bullying and that bullying then inhibits learning. Therefore they created this program to prevent bullying. They have the students once a week massage each other under the principle that 'the one you touch, you won't bully'. Apparently, the % of bullying has gone down over the years due to this program and the school has become well known for being the first to create it... I came home and talked to my host family about it and my host sister who is 13 has done it in her class here in Farum. My thoughts on the program... at first i was a little skeptical, but after we tried it i must admitt the back massage was pretty sweet and i can see how it might help. It's hard to explain without doing though... anyways, so things I found pretty different with this school than with the US schools... the children had cooking classes, where they took their shoes off and walked around barefoot. to being with you have to understand that these children come to school everyday and bring an extra pair of shoes because it keeps the school clean if you dont wear the outside shoes, indoors. Seriously though, we went into classes where kids just simply had on socks or slippers, or nothing at all! It was the CRAZIEST thing ever! but, i have pictures of it!! In the cooking room, young children were using the oven on their own without assistance at all. We walked into one classroom and saw young children playing chess and danish scrabble. I must say I am 21 and have no idea how to play chess. Scrabble i thought was a great idea because it helped the young kids with learning danish.

After visiting this school, we went to the ARoS, an art museum in Arhus, the second largest city in Denmark. ARoS was given a unique gift from the artist Ron Mueck who had created a landmark for ARoS with the sculpture "the Boy". Soon I will post some pictures of this sculpture as well, it was pretty incredible. When looking at his face, you'll see that his mouth is covered, so all that shows are his eyes. Therefore, your first impression is usually that the boy is frightened or angry, but if you walk around the sculpture you will see that he actually has a bit of a smile on his face. It's pretty neat.... when i put the pictures up you can see it all, and how big the statue is. just imagine how tall he would be if he weren't croutched down....

"Den Damle By" (The old town)- This was an open air museum we stopped at. It was comprised of 75 restored buildings brought from all over Denmark and reconstructed as a provincial town, complete with a working bakery, silversmith, bookbinger and so on. Most of the buildings there are half-timbered 17th and 18th century houses. There is also a water mill, a windmill and a few buildings from the late 19th century. It was such a change to be to an open-air museum, actually my first time too!

That night we stayed at a youth hostel in Skanderborg. It was kinda in the middle of nowhere, back in the woods, but was sooOOOOooOoO nice. We had little cabins right on the lake. I must say though, if you're in europe... its a tradition! If you swim, you swim nude... that's just the way it is.... need i say more?

Saturday was the last day of our field study. We drove to Jelling-the city of the Kings to visit the runic stone. A thousand years ago in the middle of the viking period Jelling was the residence of the Danish kings. Two kings for certain lived there, Gorm known as "Gorm the Old" died in 958 and his son Harald "Blatand" (Bluetooth). These kings left monumnets: two enormous mounds and two runic stones, a large one and a smaller one. Gorm is famous because the list of kings in Denmark originated with him, and the present queen of DK is related to him in complicated ways.

The last stop on Saturday before we returned to Copenhagen was to LEGOLAND. This is the largest tourist attraction in Denmark outside of Copenhagen. More than 1 million guests go there every year. The children look at legoland like our children look at disney world in the US. Many danish children actually beg their parents to take them to Disney World oneday when they hear about it. Personally I think LEGOLAND is way cool though! I wanna go back!! they had this one build you own ride there. you wait online and get a little card which you put into a machine and you can choose the speed of the ride and the different combination of motions you want the ride to go through. It was sooo cool. Then you go in and put the car in the machine, buckle yourself into the ride, and get tossed around, spun around, flipped upside down and more. So basically you have complete control over how fast it goes and what moves it makes. Let me tell you, after a PB and J sandwich and 5 scoops of ice cream, the ride was still crazy awesome! :) I loved it man... so cool!

Well, that was the end of our trip.... it was pretty sweet though. Definitely a nice break from schoolwork and classes. This Sunday our Danish class is going to a fodbold game (soccer). So that should be sweet too. Well, I think that is about it for this blog. There really is so much more I want to talk about, but it is all so hard to fit in (and I know this is still very unorganized, but thats just how it is going to be). When i get back to school though I am hoping to be able to make some sort of presentation, maybe look into putting together a Bergren Forum about the Danish School sysytems. Just a way to present all that I have learned and experienced because there is sooo much I want to share with people! So, that's it. I am hoping to write about my experience at the daycare I attend everyweek in my next post :)

Analysis of The Ugly Duckling (paper)

The greatest thing about literature is the many ways in which it can be read, analyzed, and interpreted. Works can be looked at from numerous different perspectives. I have chosen to write about the Ugly Duckling by observing what I believe has become its surface structure and its deep structure and then to use these two perspectives to discuss how they reflect the roles that exist in society today. In doing so, I hope to give you a new insight to a story within a story.

On the surface, “The Ugly Duckling” is a story of drawn from Hans Christian Andersen’s life. It is clear that he structures the plot and draws parallels between how the ugly duckling in the fairytale feels and how he himself may have felt while facing his own life challenges. From the beginning of the fairytale, when the last and largest egg is hatched, to the end of the story when the “duckling” surprisingly finds himself accepted by every creature around, we can identify events the duckling faces with those experiences Hans Christian Andersen himself faced throughout his own life.

Han’s Christian Andersen, born into a poor family, grew up constantly mocked by others because of his tall, but awkward, body structure. At a young age he moved to Copenhagen to start a career as actor. Throughout this career he faced many challenges which lead to his rejected from the theater just as the ugly duckling in his fairytale was rejected from the group of ducks (presumed to be his own family) due to his appearance. He was a clumsy fellow with little talent. It is evident that many events and challenges the author created for this little duckling reflected these times of hardships in his own life. He grew up in poverty, having parents who were not very well educated. Hans Christian Andersen did not have an adult figure to push him in school; therefore his educational schooling was curtailed. He faced much mockery because of his gawky, awkward appearance and had to survive on his own while fighting to ignore the rejection he received so many times, and the ways he was judged by those around him. In the fairytale, the cat played the role of those people in Han Christian Andersen’s life. That character diminished everything the duckling tried to say by stating that he [the duckling] had no right to have an opinion when sensible people were talking. Here, the sensible people were the cat (of course) and the hen. It is an interesting point to observe that they are not, in fact, “peoples” themselves. Perhaps this was just another way Andersen tied his life to the duckling’s, not only drawing parallels but also by the personifying the characters he created in his fairytales. In Andersen’s life, similar situations arose when he found that no matter what he wrote, or what he did, people were not impressed. Although he was very good at different things, they were not the things that others recognized and he was rejected for not fitting in when it came to things that other in society were familiar with.

This analysis of the fairytale’s plot structure and elements is a well known way of looking at the story, as it has been a popular way of not only looking at this fairytale of Mr. Andersen’s, but several other fairytales or his. It is, however, an analysis only of the surface structure. The story can also be analyzed for a deeper meaning by comparing the surface structure to the way all of society works. Hopefully, in the end, society can benefit from it.

As the ugly duckling in the fairytale finds himself transformed into a beautiful swan surrounded by all of the other swans and creatures who once rejected him, he hears a young child exclaim that He is the most beautiful. Throughout the story, the ugly duckling calls the swans he sees “royal birds.” At the end he becomes one of these birds and exclaims “such happiness I did not dream of when I was the ugly duckling.” In society, I think many people are constantly comparing themselves to others every chance they get. There are only few to accept who they are and then work each and everyday to their fullest potential to become the best they can be; to challenge themselves, question everything they do, and then reflect upon each experience in the end. Society is full of ugly ducklings that cross paths with cats and hens, however few have the attitude that the ugly ducking in Andersen’s fairytale has. Most people dream of looking like someone else, wishing they would be treated as the others they see are, and find themselves trying to live up to others standards, rather than their own. The ugly duckling gave all he can to life and fought for himself rather than listening to the other animals. Andersen did the same while striving to stay true to himself and not listen to what others had to say. He and the duckling tried not to bother others and just exist as they were, never even wishing to be someone else, no matter how happy others seemed or how easy their lives appeared. He used all of his inner strength to be himself, something many people cannot do. He survived a long and cold winter on his own and in the end, after doing what he thought was right, despite what others said, he came out with an attitude that would astonish many; “he was too happy, but not proud, for a kind heart can never be proud. He thought of the time when he had been mocked and persecuted. And now everyone said that he was the most beautiful of the most beautiful birds.”

Literature is so uniquely written with the ability to represent ones life, or more important life as a whole. Perhaps if more people took what they learn from analyzing the surface structure of “The Ugly Duckling”; the way Andersen’s life can be compared to this story, and apply that to comparing the way society is, they would learn a great deal. We need to open our eyes in society and in a way be more like the ugly duckling. Perhaps there are just too many cats and hens running around that we find it too hard to be ourselves since we are always judged.

Broadened Horizons (paper on expectations and goals)

The opportunity Alfred University has given me to travel to Denmark has been incredible. I am hoping to teach and learn from everyone I meet and be able to reflect upon this experience myself carrying all of its lessons wherever my future brings me.

My goal is to take what I learn about another culture, society, and educational upbringing through this course, and apply it to what I do in my future. As an Assistant Taekwondo Instructor in my hometown, I work with a very diverse group of children on a daily basis. At my practicum site they devote an entire part of the school to children of different backgrounds. I am looking to develop skills through working with these children to help me become a better instructor for the children I teach. Through observing the multilingual children at Majebo Bronby, I will have the opportunity to learn from the pedagogues, see how they communicate with the other children, and share ideas with my peers. By the end of this course I want to be able to reflect on what I will have learned to use it in next semester’s program. I am hoping to tie together the different styles of teaching I come across, apply what I learn from my supervisors, and bring suggestions and new ideas back to my professors and peers at Alfred University.

Many people are not aware of other approaches to education. I have chosen this program because it is giving me an opportunity to examine a different approach to early education and childcare in the context of social system I am not familiar with. This practicum will give me another way to educate others and I will be facing a language barrier with the children I work with. I am expecting to give insight and experience to the children I work with while having the opportunity for the children to give something back to me as well.

Week 1.... Cloudless Sky's in Denmark

What a beautiful week this has turned out to be in so many ways! The flight to Denmark was long, but overall pretty nice. A Swedish guy sat next to me for the flight from Neward to Stockholm. He was just finishing a several week visit to the US which he set up and traveled by himself. It was interesting to hear what he had to say comparing the two countries. Hearing from someone who was just finishing a similar experience definitely made me feel more at ease about the journey I was about to embark on. So, after talking about cultural experiences, the Swedish and Danish relationships, European geography, and even similar interests we shared with martial arts, I tried to drift off to sleep in hopes of fighting this jet lag I knew would come too soon. Unfortunately though, sleep did not happen, but sooner than I knew it, our plane was landing in Stockholm, Sweden. It was about 8:30am on the east coast in the US when we landed. I had met up with my very first friend whom I must mention because if it weren't for him we would have ended up in the wrong passport check line (thanks dan!). Of course, apparently it was tradition to buy beers when we arrived there (why i'm not sure), but seeing that it was still morning as far as I was concerned and I don't really drink much, I figured I'd just get my butt kicked by some CA, MN kids in ''bullshit'' sober... figures. By the time we reached Copenhagen it was 10:30am (of course Europen time). The skies were blue with few clouds, unlike Sweden where it was raining. Customs went fine, we exchanged money and met up with more DIS students. The group I had found on this flight was pretty good. All 5 of us American students were very different which made the time we had even better. We hung around with each other for most of that day until the end of orientation when we were picked up by our families. Then I had to actually go somewhere on my own! I will admitt I was pretty nervous.. what was I getting myself into?

My family... Farum, Copenhagen... I live with a mother and father who have two children. Charlotte is 13 and Pernille is 21, but she lives on her own about 25 min from us by car. The houses here in DK are much smaller than those in the US and their lifestyles are very different. Sometimes we have breakfast together in the mornings, but because we are all leaving at different times, it does not always work as planned. My host mother runs a daycare out of her house, so each morning about 3-4 toddlers come over for the day. Her kids are between 0 and 3 years older. In a later post I will talk about the different possibilities for childcare in DK, because their school system is very different from ours, so different you will be very surprised! The train station is 15 min from the house by foot or 5 by bike. Then there is a 40-45 min commute for me to the city of Copenhagen. The DIS building is not far from where the train drops me off, but then again what is considered far in DK is probably unheard of for most Americans. People in Denmark walk.... a lot, period. There is no question about it, at the end of the day your legs will be killing you. Biking is very popular though. Think of NYC and imagine 6 bikes for every taxi cab you see and you might be able to imagine how many bikers are in DK. It is hard to think about being in another place without really being there. Were my thoughts about this experience different then what I am actually experiencing now? For the most part, yes. The people are very different here in Denmark and even though i had heard and read much about the culture, it is very different to see it firsthand. There is a big language difference even though almost all Danes speak english. Sometimes I walk through the streets listening to their language... Danish seems more than just a language though, for the Danes to me it looks more like a way of life. Perhaps that is hard to understand without being here. I guess in a way I feel like it is not just the fact that they are from DK and I am from the US that seperates us, but rather the language. As much as i try to relate to them, there is always a barrier up, a wall that separates us because I do not understand everything they do. For example, the danish language does not have a word for excuse me, so you'll find many times that the Danes will tend to just push past you if you are not walking fast enough. Is it rude? Perhaps to an outsider it. I am always still very surprised, but I have found myself almost falling into doing the same thing, which let me tell you feels so weird! I usually just remind myself that they speak english too so will understand me when i say ''excuse me''. Although, the last thing you want when you are in another country is to stand out.

This week has been jam packed with so many tours. I feel like I never really have time to relax much. Yesterday (Saturday) we went on a canal tour which was pretty sweet. Many of the sights we had seen while on the walking tours, but seeing things from the water was pretty cool too. Copenhagen is really a neat place. Sometimes I feel like rushing and trying to see as much as i can as soon as possible, but i do have a year to spend here. Talking to my family and friends at home is hard sometimes because I just want so bad to tell them everything in great detail about what i am seeing.

Saturday night I rode the train and bus for 3 hours. I'd like to say it was because I was trying to get somewhere and that was the only way, but that would be a lie. No, I don't really enjoy riding the trains and buses either, in fact now I hate riding them even more than I used to! I caught the last train back to Farum, but fell asleep and woke up just as it was pulling away from my stop.... figures. So i took it all the way back to Vestergade (45 min) and hopped on the night bus which takes and hour and 15 min to get home. I must say though, everything is an experience. I was able to speak with an older couple while on the train ride back. We talked a little about politics and New Orleans. On the night bus some random drunk guy, who seemed homeless to me excitingly told me his political views on the US government, but half way through the story started to confuse things. In the end I wasnt quite sure what his views actually were either. BUT, there is one thing you learn while anywhere in Europe... i'm just going to say it simply... be careful what you say about your political views. It is interesting to hear what the Danes and other Europeans have to say though. Everyone in the EU wants to talk about politics when they get drunk, so chances are if you are out, you'll hear about it.

The city is so beautiful during the day and so lively as well. The building are all different colors and there are many side streets full shops where cars do not drive. Sometimes during lunch we'll sit in the Gammel trov by the fountain and eat. Everyone is outside on nice days and the first week was filled with bright sunny cloudless sky's. For Denmark that is really luck since almost everyday it rains. We have really been fortunate!


Okay well, I'm closing for this week... a lot of that was rambling on, but hopefully once I get the internet hooked up in my house I will be able to right more... and tell more about differences between the US and Europe!