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:)

internationl food and poker night and long run

On Saturday 28 it was one month since we arrived. Also international food day was planned for this day. I am not going to describe how COMPLICATED it was to arrange it. Some of us suggested having poker night instead of food night so finally we decided to put them together....leave alone that only 10 of us participated and that we had only polish(and czech in fact....) and spanish national food, it was nice evening. And after waking up I was still able to follow my training plan and set off long run...I was running to "haderslev fjord park"( I cant recall its proper name...)and I really enjoyed it, the weather was foggy and it was slightly raining-the weather I like very much when running:)My final time was appr. 2:40 and I only regret not having my camera by myself:)

Danish students trained to be teachers of English....

On Friday 27 we - me, Misa and Eliska- were allowed to see how typical lesson for Danish students who are trained to be teacher of English looks like.....and we were quite impressed!According to what we saw I think that in school they are dealing with things which they are going to deal with also during their career. They analysed many textbooks- their advanteges and disadvantages, but what I appreciated the most was the part in which they analysed essay written by some teenage girl,types of mistakes she made,etc.

today`s music lesson....

I can`t help making a small note about today`s music lesson which didn`t proceed in a good way. I know that total majority of us( although many of us are afraid of admitting it when being asked)do not like singing very simple songs like eg.#BADABADADADADADADABADA SONG"for many times....I know that maybe for the first time it is quite funny, i would stand it even for the second and the third time, but WHY should we sing this songs so often....I even darent count how many times we were singing this song:)Today we could say that we were forced to stand up and sing this "song". I did not want to be a "troublemaker", so I stood up also and although I didnt sing I felt very humble and I think that the others felt the same. I know it was last music lesson but this event have spoilt my whole day.....:(

Practical Visits

On Wednesday 25, we had again practical visits and I went to HJORTENBROSKOLEN, which is situated in southern part of hadesrlev, quite away from the place where I live and that`s why I had some difficulties with finding the school but finally I managed to get there, almost in time:)The school itself is placed in quite new and a very spacious building, but the amount of the pupils is only about 400...it means that every pupil has plenty of place for himself/herself:)I was allowed to observe three history lessons and two english ones...at the very beggining I observed history class for the pupils with learning difficulties, I was said that there can`t be more than nine pupils in classes like these and I also appreciated the textbooks, which are organized "thematically" - not chronologically- until the 5th grade. In one of the english lessons the pupils were practising English on school notebooks where special learning program is installed, I even tried some of these activities and I think that for the children it must be much more interesting than ordinary lessons....On the other hand, I was also surprised- but this time in a bad way - when another english teacher told me that they don`t have enough money for buying textbooks for each pupil. So I enjoyd this visit very much and it is probable that I will teach some lessons in this school and I am looking forward to it very much, because I have no doubt that it will be unforgettable experience....:)

4th week-summary

Today I realized how the time passes fast here in Denmark(in 5 days it will have been one month since we arrived)and also that it`s quite a long time since I wrote down some new reflexions. So am going to briefly describe what has happened this week. On Monday we presented school systems of particular states and now I know eg. that in Hungary and Poland mark 1 is the worst mark that a pupil can recieve whereas in CZ 1 is the best mark:)note: in Denmark are used following marks: 12,10,7,4,2,0,-3....0 and -3 mean that the pupil didnt pass. This system has been used for few last years and it replaced older one with marks 13,11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,3,0 and some teachers liked this older one more because it enabled to appreciate students who worked really excaptionally well.
On Tuesday and Friday we presented our countries which was really interesting only the hungarian history was maybe little bit toooo long:)On Friday I also took part in the School Carnival and it was good event....I saw many wonderful costumes there( and also my buddy, which is not very common event.....:)but I have to say that in my opinion the music played there was not very suitable for an event like this....not bad for listening to, but for dancing it was not very appropriate kind of music.And today we finally reached the sea...by bus but who cares:)And also the islad Aaro and it was windy but lovely experience:))

trip to aarhus

Because there is winter holiday in Denmark our school program is not so demanding:)
On Tuesday we visited Aarhus and it was really amazing experience althought we would have need much more time to enjoy it at 100%....especially art museum called Aros worths visiting and spending there the whole day....we had hardly two hours:(On Wendsday were planned "excursions with buddies" but unfortunately our buddy had no idea what to do with so I suggested us following the fjord again and maybe finally reach the sea......the result was a 6 hour walk through meadows, fences and swampland but the sea stayed untouched by us again.....so maybe next time:)

reading lamp adventure

Yestarday it was a week since we had arrived to Haderslev and it is maybe time to write several new reflexions.....on saturday we(me and Misa) went for a walk, we wanted to follow the fjord and maybe reach the sea cost but after about 45minutes we came across the flea market in the harbour( it is held every first saturday in month) and there we bought 2 table lamps( we really needed them....), we paid for both of them only 50 kronas and it is approximately 17 times cheaper than in the normal shop...our trip was over but we do not regret it:)And on Saturday evening we took part in Gosa and Krisztina`s birthday party....it was great party but I feel sorry for those unlucky people living in dormitory....it is so far away from the city center...........

Hertug Hanse Skole Visit

Today we visited the typical Danish elementary school named "Hertug Hans Skole". Local teachers were very nice and allowed us to become the part of the class. At the beginning we observed the german lesson and then we worked with three girls who have some learning troubles. I was surprised by several facts: the candles that are very popular here in Denmark were also in the class, the lessons were longer than in the Czech republic( two 45 min. lessons instead of one) and the pupils when being left alone, even without teacher´s presence, work very well....I am afraid that this wouldn`t work in the Czech rep....We are going to teach several lessons at some danish school and I really look forward to it.

first impressions and training plans...

The city is really picturesque and what I also appreciate about it are many new places and roads where I can run, because here in Denmark I am gonna train for the Prague International Marathon which is held on May 2009. I will start my 3 month training course on February 9 so now I am just running only for pleasure, trying to explore as much possible terain as possible, enjoying the sights, etc. The training plan I am following is available at page http://www.beh.cz/, the auther is named Pavel Paberad and its desinged for those whose ambition is run it about 3:30...I followed this plan 2 years ago and my final time was 3:15 but at that time I had really good training partner( Tomik Eisner-3:02) and also the whole season was better- I took part in more races and I achieved better results and maybe even my motivation was stronger...so I daren`t say that I will break my record but at least I will try to get under 3:30 and maybe.......but stop dreaming, and start working!!!