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 .