Children in a Multicultural Context

I woke up extra early to finish reading for homework that I neglected to do the night before. There were a lot of similarities between the articles and topics we covered in the stolen childhoods class with Judith Wagner. 

Both Lindsay and my class started at 2pm, so we went into town to hang out and grab lunch beforehand. Lindsay needed some fun and functional shoes to wear, and we have been looking for well over a week now with little luck. Today we put our game faces on and did our best to be efficient when bouncing between stores. We were successful. Lindsay bought three pairs of shoes. In her defense they were all absolutely adorable and arguably a necessity. Lets face it, fun shoes are always a necessity.

Today was day one of the second session of classes. I will be taking Children in a Multicultural Context with Maja Sbahi Biehl for the next three weeks. After basic introductions, we jumped into discussing the structure of the Danish education system.

The first level of education is pre-school which includes they main institutions: vuggestue and børnehave. Vuggestue is for children between six months and three years old and børnehave is for children between three and six years old. The children will then move to primary education, or folkeskole. Folkeskole is a type of mandatory school in Denmark that is for children 6 to 16 years old. Folkeskole is either private, public, or independent. Through 9th grade, this school covers a variety of subjects in preparation for final examinations which one must take in order to graduate and move to secondary education, and with a high enough score, later go on to college. Children have the option of taking a 10th grade in order to improve their grade point average. Surprisingly this is a highly utilized option. In the United States, you would be hard pressed to find a student opting for another year of school, but many Danish children choose to utilize this additional year. Ages 16 to 19, children go to gymnasium. Gymnasium is part of the secondary education system and usually takes two to four years. This type of school is not mandatory, but many children choose to attend to prepare for college. Some schools are academically oriented whereas others are more practically oriented, training students for jobs.

After class I met up with Lindsay and Brooke to walk around town and get dinner. I wasn't incredibly hungry and was still feeling slightly under the weather, so I decided to bike home. Every time I bike home I always pass a beautiful park with a pond, benches, and a nice place to lay out. It was a relatively warm day and I had nothing to do, so I quickly jumped off my bike before causing a traffic jam and walked over to the water. There was a lot of bird poop everywhere, so I had to choose a location carefully. I wanted to be in the sun to soak up some vitamin D and I also wanted to sit by the water, but beggars can't be choosers and I found the first space clear of feathers, bird poop, and other people. 

I sat for a few minutes enjoying the view and reflecting on the past few days. Before opening up my backpack to grab my book, I noticed some movement in the water. Looking around I soon saw a momma duck and her ducklings swimming right in front of me. They must have been searching for some dinner because all I could see was their little heads buried under water with their tails sticking straight up. At one point the mom and one of her ducklings jumped up on the grass just a few feet away from me. I must have been sitting very still because they didn't seem to acknowledge my existence. Regardless of where you are in the world, there is always something very refreshing and rejuvenating about sitting outside and enjoying nature.