Practice

Last week Ine and I went to our Practice school. We had to go each day of the week from 9 to 12 o'clock.

It was very interesting to see how different the system is from Belgium.

In Belgium the kindergarden consist 3 classes. You have one class for the three-yearolds, one for the Fouryearolds and one for the fiveyearolds. In Denmark it’s not quite thesame. In Denmark children from 3 to 6 year old are sitting all together in a kindergarden. Each class in Denmark has 2 teachers and 1 'helper'. In Belgium we only have 1 teacher.

The focus in Denmark lies on being independent, taking care of yourself and social skills. I was suprised how much the little children could do themselves. The teacher explained that the older children are an example for the young ones. The younger children copy the behavior of the older children and learn a lot this way.

Once a week there is a 'schoolgroup'. That's for the oldest children who are getting ready to go to the first grade. In the schoolgroup they make exercises an learn some of the letters.

I liked the practice because I was in my natural habitat, surrounded by children I mean. I love them, but it was very sad I couldn't bond with them because I don't understand them and they don't understand me. So it became kind of boring after a while, because I couldn't do anything to help, unless it was with signlanguage which allready is a challenge for young childeren.

A very cool part of the practice was that one boy had a birthday, so i get to experience a real danish birthdayparty. It was very strange, because all the children are invited inside the house of the birthdayboy during the schoolhours. Normally they all take citybusses, but now the house was not on the route of any bus so there was a hired bus who took us to the house. I was very amazed by this. In Belgium this could never happen. If we want to plan a trip, it has to be prepared weeks in advance, we don't always have a bus, and taking a citybus is out of the question because it's way too dangerous.

That's why I'm very happy to have experienced this party. It is nice for the birthdayboy. You could see that he was very proud to show all of his toys and his house to his classmates. It's also very nice for the other children to take a look into somebody else's house, and learn about differentiation and different lifestyles.

Before a party like this, the children are being told some guidelines about how to behave in somebody else his or her house, on a citybus, in the towncenter.... So it's not only a fun happening, it's also a way to teach children how to behave in public and learn them some social skills.