Week 12 in Copenhagen

Week 12 in Copenhagen

This week has been another extremely busy, but interesting week. The majority of my week has involved school placement, however I did spend a lovely day at Tivoli gardens in the centre of Copenhagen and that evening enjoyed a meal at the Hard Rock Café, as well as enjoying a concert from a Danish Rock band. Every Friday, there is a concert on in Tivoli gardens during the season, called Friday Rock, which includes a wide variety of famous bands and musicians. You are only required to pay the entry fee into the gardens to hear the concert, which is a bargain in relation to Copenhagen prices and the bright lights of Tivoli in the evening are not to be missed.

I have had yet another week of six o’clock starts, so lots of earlier nights too. I can’t believe that I only have another week of teaching practice left. I feel like I have only got into the way of doing things and got to know the staff and the pupils and the experience is nearly over. I have also realized that this is the last full week for some of my Erasmus class, many of them are leaving at the end of next week and not staying on for the extra month to complete the individual assignment, so hoping that this coming week there will be a lot of time to socialise with them before they leave. The most amazing things about this experience is the contacts that you make across Europe, it is great knowing that you can perhaps visit them in the future. Already, I have made plans to meet up with some of the friends I have made here in the future and it is very exciting. Many of them are extremely keen to come to Northern Ireland, we must have done a good job selling the place.

I have really enjoyed the weather this week, the sun has been shining almost everyday and it even makes it easier to get up in the morning! I have loved seeing the change from severe winter conditions to the freshness of Spring- I don’t know why this has really impacted me, but I think because I have never seen a winter like that before and it has made me appreciate the seasons even more. Also I think that people in Denmark are generally healthier than people at home and they spend much more time out walking, cycling and sitting in the parks. I intend to spend a lot more time in Frederiksberg Park ( my favourite place in Copenhagen) now that the weather has improved. On Tuesday, we finished school early and myself, along with Katie and our two Austrian friends went to an Italian restaurant in the DybbØlsbro area of central Copenhagen. I really enjoyed this afternoon, we were able to sit all afternoon enjoy delicious food and it was a buffet too, so there was no need for dinner that evening!

Cultural Development.

This week, Tivoli gardens was the biggest cultural event. Everyone had told me that Tivoli is a must when you go to Copenhagen. It is only open half the year, apart from a couple of weeks in the winter for the Christmas market season. The gardens hold one of the oldest theme parks in Denmark, as well as a vast number of restaurants, cafes and even an aquarium. The park is very attractive and there are many different types of flowers, as well as a lake with its own pirate ship. I would definitely recommend that you buy the day ticket for the rollercoasters, as it is very expensive to just go on one or two rides, paying individually for them. Next time, I will definitely invest in the day pass.

The town centre has also been very busy recently due to the great weather, I have noticed that there has been a lot more tourists in the centre of town. I went to the New Harbour area on Saturday, which was packed full of tourists and locals. One of the most enjoyable places to spend an afternoon, it is a real cultural activity to prepare some food and sit on the harbour wall enjoying the view of the canal along with the vast majority of vintage ships. Often at the harbour there will be a few different musicians scattered along the harbour. Near to where I was sitting there was a great string band playing- I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world like the New Harbour in Copenhagen, it is definitely a one off.

One of the things I have noticed in Copenhagen, especially this week which has troubled and even upset me was that fact that in a country where there is so much wealth and the cost of living is so very high, there is still extreme poverty. It is very much a common practice to see men and woman looking through the bins to try and find plastic bottles. In Denmark you can take you bottles to any supermarket and exchange them for cash, or credit. Many people still throw their bottles away, in this case it provides a ‘living’ for people in poverty within Copenhagen. On Saturday I saw a Mother and Son collecting the bottles at the end of the evening in New Harbour after everyone had enjoyed their day, it really made me think how lucky I am.

Professional Development.

This week in school was extremely busy, the pupils were finishing off their projects for their presentations towards the end of the week. I was really encouraged at how hard the pupils worked on their projects and how much they had researched into their chosen topic. The start of the week was very intense as we were helping each of the pupils put their projects together and sometimes because of the language barrier this was extremely difficult. On one of the afternoons, we were asked to come and watch one of the younger Grades present their chosen topics for presentations. They were obviously not required to research in as much detail. They were asked to chose a destination and pretend that they were trying to advertise it, they had to include cultural facts, activities and history. The level of presentations was so high and they even presented in English as we were visiting their class, I was so impressed.

On Wednesday evening, we had to go straight to uni from school, so I was up at six that morning and was not back in the flat till after nine so I was very tired as you can imagine. The reason we were in uni was because some groups were presenting their Comparative Education research, my group were not expected to present until Monday evening, however it was very interesting listening to all of presentation which involved a variety of chosen topics ranging from bullying, classroom management and stereotypes.

The last part of the week, we spent listening to the presentations. I was very interested in how the teacher was going to assess each of the projects as I will be focusing on this element for my individual assignment which I will complete in May. Although Grade 7 were not expected to complete the project as an official assessment until Grade 9, they were still given feedback on their presentation. The feedback was based on a number of areas for example, how the group worked together, the research they carried out and how they presented their findings. This class presented in Danish, so at times it was difficult to understand, however I was able to get the basic outline of their presentations and I thought that on the whole the level of maturity in regards to their product was very high, if they can built upon this over the next two years before the official presentation, they will do extremely well.

Hope that you are all well!

G.