3 weeks at HJORTEBROSKOLEN...

Our Erasmus stay is coming to its end. I feel sad when I realize that in 5 days I have to leave our great flat, this magnificent town, Denmark.....but that`s life and we cannot do much about it:)



The most significant event of past weeks were our visits at HJORTEBRONSKOLEN, where we were observing and also teaching....last week. So my last blog`s reports is going to be about this experience.



The school building itself is quite modern and spacious. It is situated in the southern part of Haderslev, at the edge of the town...



In the building the swimming pool is available and nice playground which seems to be an essential part of every danish elementary school- a perfect place for pupils to spend their breaks there.


Following things worth being mentioned:

- all teachers usually spend their breaks together in the large stuffroom with tea and coffee available X in the CZ teachers usually have their own cabinets( usually for 2-3 persons).

- the atmosphere at the danish elementary school is more peaceful in comparison to the Czech one, teachers are not shouting at the pupils all the time as it is typical for the CZ schools.

- Danish pupils are better disciplined.

- " Learning for the life" - danish pupils usually know that they are taught things they can use in their real lives X in the CZ unfortunately pupils have to learn many facts by heart that are often useless, but it is getting better nowadays....

- the danish school system is very decentralized, we could say that every teacher prepares his/her code of conduct for each individiual class.

- it was really surprising when we realized they didnt have enough money for buying textbooks for the pupils. And those ones they had are really old, eg. 20 years so I think they cannnot be actuel in many aspects.

- we taught 6 lessons at all and in my opinion 5 of them were really successful:) We were two teachers in the lesson-me and misa- and it helped us a lot...:) We taught 6th,7th and 8th grade!

- at the end we received a certifacete that we spent 3 week at hjertebroskolen, observing and teaching...( I hope it will impress our future employer- a headmaster...:)

At last but not least I would like to thank Hanne Theilgaard- the coordinator who helped us a lot and was always ready to answer our questions:)

modules I havent mentioned yet: M3

M3: Globalization and Citizenship, the subject was taught by two teachers, Torbjorn Ydegard who is very friendly and exudes serentity and spreads peaceful atmosphere all around himself and Henrik Baekgaard whose lessons were very amusing and incetative and who uses modern means( eg. movies) to involve students and make them thinking about the problems of todays world....thats why I like both of them:)
We were dealing with many things, maybe the most important was the freedom of speech:where are the limits and where they should be, is freedom of speech endengared?----> eg. by DURAN II and the claim that talking openly about religious thinks could be outlawed.
We realized many interesting thinks, but I can give here only few examples: - that tolerance in society and at school may have something in common with religion----> Catholic( only one way of doing thinks...) vs. Protestant( many smaller churches, liberal....) countries.
- we tried to decide how the pupils could be taught in democratic way---->note: I also appreciated that Torbjorn always writtes our ideas on the blackboard and then we discussed them.
- Marshal Rosenberg and his non violent way of communication was introduced to us-----> giraffe vs. jackal + we should be familiarized with peoples NEEDS.
- we worked with Obama`s inaugural speech---- we tried to search sentences with the theme of citizenship and then we made short pocked video about democracy( arguing about the last piece of cake and how to solve it in democratic way)
- when using short movies in order to teach pupils about evil in the world we should choose characters that are complicated, not black and white, so that the pupils could identificate with them....

I enjoyed this lesson not only because it isery similar to what I study but it also gave me many topics to think about.

modules I have not mentioned yet: M1.

M1: very large module consisting of many subjects and lessons. Probably the largest one was Danish with two graduating students Christiene and Ciene who had very difficult task in front of them: teach us rudiments of Danish language. The task was difficult especially for two reasons: 1. Danish is said to be the 2nd most difficult language to learn..2. I ( I think that all of us) did not have real motivation, because 99% of danish population is able to communicate in English.
So my motivation was to learn a few phrases because I know that people always appreciate when you know at least basements of their language+ learn names of foods so I wouldnt be lost in the supermarket:) I also have to say that twice I took advantege of my knowledge of danish numbers when talking to a shop assistant who didnt speak English....so my expectations are fulfilled:)
I would also like to mention our history teacher Jorn Buch who is a really great person with enormous pieces of knowledge. We had three lessons with him, one lesson about the history in general, second one about history of the region and one extra about 2WW......I admire his way of teaching and the fact that time to time he mentiones some curiosities from the history of erasmus student`s countries. And now I also know that there is a special law in Denmark that the flag mustnt touch the ground:)

The International week:summary

The international week is over now and I must say that it was very interesting week....having in the class 14 more students from various parts of Europe was grateful experience. We also had one special guest from the Netherlands in our flat and it was really nice and friendly girl:)
In my opinion the most significant events are those:

Monday: " Get-together-evening" in the canteen with delicious food, singing and playing games....

Tuesday: Excursion to Ribe, where we visited Vikings museum and on the way there we observed " black sun"= enormous amount of birds gathering together, I must mention the weather that was briliant.

Wendesday: The very fast run with Alex along the Haderslev fjord during the sunset......:)

Thursday: Definitely " Eurovision Song Contest". I was satisfied with our performance although we had some troubles with music instruments and I can`t sing:) But Hungarien band was simply amazing and I also appreciated Polish girls......

Friday: Specialities from different countries, principal`s hot dog and beer and unplanned walk to the haderslev mill....it was nice ending of this wonderful week.......................

trip to the north- me and misa`s bicycle......

On Saturday morning Misa has went to Hamburg to visit one old friend of her and her city bike stayed home.....and I decided to make use of this occasion!:)I rode this bike firstly to Christiansfelt, where I visited local cemetery and from Christiansfeld I continued to Hejlsminde,which is beautiful town just at the sea coast, I rode around local lake or pond and continued northward....after appr. 30 minutes I reached a roe farm and at this place I decided to ride home.....small but nice trip.....we( me and bike) really enjoyed it:)

jette`s moving cinema.....

On Friday 7th Jette introduced us to the Danish cinematography....she explained us shortly the history of Danish cinematography and showed us many examples of various danish movies, some of them i would like to see with english subtitles, eg. " Angels in fast motion, Art of crying together, The bench, Terribly happy....."She also told us a lot about DOGME 95, the film movement initiated by LvTrier, using only natural light in their movies, hand- held cameras, present time, real locations....very interesting lesson!

The portrait day

On Wendesday 4 th we had art and were we drawing ourselves...it was really entertaining lesson and after being given several good pieces of advise I was able to draw self-portrait which is quite similar to me....it is great success:)