Red, Sunset...

It is 27th of March already! We are almost in April now, and days are getting longer and longer in Denmark. As we adjusted our clocks one hour forward yesterday, from now on we will have more daylight and late sunsets, which we have been missing for a long time. So, today, just on the day of setting our time one hour forward,  I had one of those perfect late sunsets watch. I enjoyed the sunset and all the beautiful colors of the sky in Vesthavnen (Vesthavnen, Brovejen Bridge; Vordingborg, Denmark), in Vordingborg. 

I have recently had a lot of problems with my computer. Today I decided to work a little on our video presentation in the evening but to my surprise my computer didn't work and I was very sad about it because I have all my data, photos, videos on my computer. I was quite worried about losing all of my data when my computer didn't work. A little bit upset about my computer, I just wanted to go for a walk and when I see the sunset from my window, which is the moment I decided to watch it from the harbour so that I could maybe feel better. Instead of walking, I cycled around 3 kilometers to the harbour to catch the late sunset on the west of Vordingborg. There it was! I had "a spectacularly red sunset" watch from the harbour. The colors on the horizon were so beautiful that I forgot all about my computer and got relieved with this exquisite show. Of course I remembered to take some pictures, too. Now, it is time to enjoy the long days and beautiful weather here in a northern European country, which presents probably the most beautiful natural phenomenons with its Northern lights, beautiful sunsets and long days with a lot of daylight.

Spring in Denmark and St. Patrick's Day 17th of March

Winter is almost over! Well -unluckily- only theoretically! Normally, 21st of March is the beginning of the Spring and when spring begins, it is supposed that trees turn into green, flowers blossom, and it gets warm and warm everyday . However, it is still quite cold in Denmark. Now, it is 0

°C  in Vordingborg but "the felt air temperature" ( also known as the apparent air temperature ) is -6

°C (Weather Forecast in Vordingborg) due to wind chill factor. It hasn't been snowing for a long time, too. So, the sky is gray, the trees are brown and it causes gloomy and boring days especially when it is cloudy - just like today. Even boring to talk about it, right?  Still, since today is St. Patrick's Day, I prefer talking about green, which is one of the most important signs of st. Patrick's Day. It is the day of GREEN! So, let's discover what is special about today?

About St. Patrick's Day!

The person who was to become St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Wales about AD 385. His given name was Maewyn, and he almost didn't get the job of bishop of Ireland because he lacked the required scholarship.

Far from being a saint, until he was 16, he considered himself a pagan. At that age, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. During his captivity, he became closer to God.

He escaped from slavery after six years and went to Gaul where he studied in the monastery under St. Germain, 

bishop of Auxerre for a period of twelve years. During his training he became aware that his calling was to convert the pagans to Christianity.

His wishes were to return to Ireland, to convert the native pagans to Christianity. But his superiors instead appointed St. Palladius. But two years later, Palladius transferred to Scotland. Patrick, having adopted that Christian name earlier, was then appointed as second bishop to Ireland.

St. Patrick's Day parades in USA - Chicago River 

Patrick was quite successful at winning converts. And this fact upset the Celtic Druids. Patrick was arrested several times, but escaped each time. He traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country. He also set up schools and churches which would aid him in his conversion of the Irish country to Christianity.

His mission in Ireland lasted for thirty years. After that time, Patrick retired to County Down. He died on March 17 in AD 461. That day has been commemorated as St. Patrick's Day ever since.

Much Irish folklore surrounds St. Patrick's Day. Not much of it is actually substantiated.

Some of this lore includes the belief that Patrick raised people from the dead. He also is said to have given a sermon from a hilltop that drove all the snakes from Ireland. Of course, no snakes were ever native to Ireland, and some people think this is a metaphor for the conversion of the pagans. Though originally a Catholic holy day, St. Patrick's Day has evolved into more of a secular holiday.

One traditional icon of the day is the shamrock. And this stems from a more bona fide Irish tale that tells how Patrick used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity. He used it in his sermons to represent how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit could all exist as separate elements of the same entity. His followers adopted the custom of wearing a shamrock on his feast day.

The St. Patrick's Day custom came to America in 1737. That was the first year St. Patrick's Day was publicly celebrated in this country, in Boston.

Today, people celebrate the day with parades, wearing of the green, and drinking beer. One reason St. Patrick's Day might have become so popular is that it takes place just a few days before the first day of spring. One might say it has become the first green of spring. 

( retrieved from wilstar.com on the 17th of March, 2011 )

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY DENMARK!!

A Visit to A Boarding School in Næstved - Herlufsholm International School

A small part of Herlufsholm School And Campuss

Last Thursday, together with some of my friends, Sevgi and Uğurcan, we joined an interesting project. One of our classmates in English Class, Brenda,  invited everyone to attend a panel in a boarding school in Næstved where she works as an English teacher. As I have already been in Herlufsholm International School and I had been quite impressed by the presentation of the school given by one of the students, I was quite sure that it would be interesting to attend this project too - and now I see that I were not wrong.

American Ideals As Expressed Through Music

Poster Examples prepared by the students for "English Day"

In Herlufsholm International School (Herlufsholm Skole), we attended a presentation of USA given by Brenda, as a native of USA. The panel was about American Ideals Expressed Through Music so there were many surprises about music. Brenda had invited some other friends to attend the panel and they sang different songs from the most popular music figures of US, from Michael Jackson to Elvis Presley. It was quite fun to sing along and dance with the other Danish students. Also, it was a different experience to hear about USA from the viewpoint of an American. The panel was within the context of "English Day". Thus,  everywhere, everything and everyone turned to English at this 
amazing boarding school. Posters for English speaking countries all over the walls of the school, songs in English, English food and everything had something to do with English. It was a very interesting project for us, which inspired me to have the same kind of projects when I start my teaching.

Herlufsholm Boarding School

When it comes to Herlufsholm International School, it is a private  day and boarding school for boys and girls (co-educational since 1950s)  in Næstved, Denmark. It is founded by Admiral Herluf Trolle and his wife Brigitte Goye). It is the oldest boarding school in Denmark and at first it is founded as a monastery. Untill recently it was  a boarding school for boys but recently it has gradually opened to day students and girls. 

Suså River and Herlufsholm Boarding School

The school is located by a river ( Suså River ),in Næstved and it has a huge green campuss , which has also quite Gothic appearance with the church (from the Middle Ages) in the school garden. The school also has a seperate library ( one of the oldest in Denmark ), a museum, a gym, a small hospital, a few house for teachers and dormitories for boarding students. Students have to wear uniforms, which is unique to this school in Denmark. 

Teaching Practice And Reflections

After a while I am back to write on my blog. Teaching practice has come to an end in a short time and now we are back in lessons. It was one week of practice with observing different lessons with different classes. In general, it was a good project to observe different lessons and and try to make a movie. It made me feel like I am doing  a kind of documentary of Danish schools - which are quite different than Turkish schools as I mentioned on my blog before-. 

Doing this project we had a few problems with bureaucracy. For instance, they didn't allow us to make a movie inside the school for the first three days of our observation and when you think that we only had four days to observe the lessons and the school , it was quite unfortunate for us. We could record only on our last day of practice. Also, they didn't allow us to record interviews with individual students; we could only make a video of group works or whole class. Besides, we expected - more or less- to observe English lessons. However, lessons we have been observing were mainly music and math class so we couldn't get to see much about our own subject. Still we tried our best to reflect upon our observations in our movie. Now that the teaching practice period is over, we are working on our movie.  In two or three weeks, we will make a presentation of our movie about democracy in Danish schools and  our teaching practice period. 

Iselingeskolen, Vordingborg

In one of the classes we have been observing, there were a dyslexic and an autistic (Autism) student. And as far as I learned from the teacher, they sometimes have quite hard time to deal with the students with special needs, which shows that teachers should always be ready to deal with these kind of students who have some learning difficulties and/or disorders. Also in the school we observed, teachers do their best to integrate these students with others and they are taught with the other students, which shows that Danish schools have a kind of inclusive structure. Especially teachers try their best to make sure that nobody is excluded somehow in the classroom even though some of the students who have learning difficulties might sometimes be too unwilling even to say a word. Also as I learned from the teacher, the school supported the dyslexic students with a special kind of computer to help them read and write better. (To learn more about Dyslexia, click on this) Finally, although Danish schools are generally multiethnic, I haven't felt any kind of exclusion of students from different ethnic backgrounds in the school we have observed. This might be thanks to the idea of integrating all the students in the same school, teach them Danish language which is the dominant language in the society and treat them equally. Allthough music and history lessons could be quite Danish, the idea of being different than the majority does not seem to cause problems but the idea of dominant Danish culture in these multicultural Danish schools is open to discussion.

As I have been observing, Danish schools have a quite informal environmet and structure compared to Turkish schools. First of all, students are more comfortable in the classroom in terms of relations with the teachers. Students can stand up, work while standing, change their place without permission from the teacher; come into the classroom without knocking on the door while the teacher is in the classroom and most importantly call their teachers with their names. In Turkey, on the other hand, teachers have a kind of authority. It is not as strict as it is always reflected but students are expected not to move that much in the classroom without permission depending on the age of the students. There is generally a kind of formal distance between teachers and students. Students have to wear uniforms and teachers wear suits unlike Danish schools where teachers are a part of informal structure of the school as well as students. 

In Danish schools, there are student councils where two students from each classroom express their opinions, suggest, and make some changes in the school which is quite democratic even though they don't have much power to make changes. Student centered learning can be seen as a foundation for Danish education system. Students needs and interests are taken into consideration. Students are not given too much homework and in the classroom they work cooperatively. Students are divided into group of four or five students and each group has a kind of leader, a slow learner and two or three average students; to strengthen the idea of cooperation within the class. Also the idea that "students might be at different levels at the same time" is paid much attention. Slow learners are encouraged by the teacher to catch up with the other students. 

When it comes to Danish education system, Danish primary schools are also a little bit different from Turkish schools. For instance, pre-school class is voluntary whereas it has been obligatory in Turkey for the last two  years. Then, 9 year of "folkeskole" ( The Folkeskole consists of one year of pre-school class, nine years of primary and lower secondary education and a one-year 10th form )  -  the years up to the age of 15-16. Danish schools are supported by tax-based governmental and municipal funding and regular students do not pay any tuition fees in public schools and universities. Whether the education is received in a publicly provided school, in a private school or at home is a matter of individual choice, as long as accepted standards are met. It is education itself that is compulsory, not school. On the other hand, in Turkey, high school is also compulsory. One year of pre-primary education and 8 years of primary education ( 5 years primary, 3 years secondary ) and then 4 years of high school is obligatory. 

To get an overview of how the Danish Education System is structured: 

retrieved from  www.eng.uvm.dk on the 14th of March,2011

To learn more about Danish Schools and Danish education system go to www.eng.uvm.dk .