vasqueze asked: Hi Hannah, I will be a DIS student for the 2012-2013 academic year. I am in the process of choosing my courses and all. Are there any courses that you recommend or not recommend? I am in the Child Diversity & Development program ..I'm still kind of confused on how the core classes, practicums and all of that works, can you try to explain it to me?
Hey there! That is so exciting that you are in the process of deciding all of your classes and all that jazz for DIS. As fun as it is looking at all of the great programs, trips, and classes, I do remember it being a pretty overwhelming and somewhat confusing process. Once you get here, the orientation process is fantastic for all of the pieces of the puzzle coming together. With the CDD (Child Diversity and Development) program, you have both a core class and a practicum. This is a little bit different than most of the programs at DIS. Mondays will be reserved for your core class day, and Thursdays will be reserved for your practicum. This means that you will schedule all of your other classes for Tuesdays and Fridays because Wednesdays are reserved for field studies (every class you take will have 2 or 3 field studies so that you have a hands on learning experience.) Your core class will be 3 hours long on Mondays, and your Practicum will be assigned to you when you arrive, but you will get a questionnaire to help place you in a site best for you. Just in case you haven’t seen this already, here are the descriptions of all of the practicum options.
I am in a Vuggestue, which is for children between 0-3. At first I was a little bit worried that this would just be like a nursery or daycare service, but the Danish Education system is unbelievably different than in the US. We do lots of fun activities with the kids like adventures to a nearby deer forest, trips to a lake, painting days, and planting mini gardens. It is all about a hands on learning experience.
As far as other classes go, you will probably only be able to take 3. I would very highly recommend Pregnancy, Birth, and Infancy in Denmark. It is is great cultural experience as well as insightful if you are interested in child development. We have done everything from go to a labor ward and cut umbilical cords to actually practicing acupuncture for pregnant women (we just did that today, it was super fun!).
If you are looking for another type of cultural experience, I would also very highly recommend the Photo Journalism class. You will definitely be pushed to the limits of your comfort zone, but your creativity take you in directions you never would have imagined.
Hope that helps a little bit! Please let me know if you have anymore questions about housing options, adventure trips, program trips, or any other shenanigan you might be curious about.
Anonymous asked: I am very interested in working with children. It sounds like your exposure so far has been very enlightening. Would you recommend your specific program?
This program has really opened my eyes to working with children on both an individual scale and on a global scale. I love that we are able to get hands on experience with children in a learning setting while at the same time learning the ins and outs of the Danish education system. I would most definitely recommend it to any and everyone! Please feel free to ask me more questions, I would love to talk about it!
Anonymous asked: Hi Hannah, my name is Bryan Boyce and I'm currently spending the semester studying abroad at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). I really have enjoyed reading some of your blog, especially your "A Little Glimpse of Home" post, as my parents are coming this weekend and I am trying to figure out what to show them in Copenhagen. I was hoping you could help me by checking out my blog ( search gettingrealdanish,blogspot) and leaving a comment or two with your thoughts on it. Thanks!
Hi Bryan, thanks for checking out my blog! I would be more than happy to check out yours and leave a few suggestions on fun things to do with your parents. It’s great that they are able to come visit you. I’m sure you guys will have a blast :)
A sneak peak at hannah and Hannah’s adventures in Budapest: the beautiful and famous Danube river framed by the chain bridge
A view near castle hill in Budapest
Anonymous asked: How cool you randomly got to talk to Mikkel Hansen. He was just awarded the 2011 World Handball Player of the Year by the International Handball Federation 4 weeks ago. You can follow him on Twitter where his handle is @mikkelhansen24 His big idol is LeBron James, so I'm sure that's why he was in Miami to watch the Miami Heat play.
Thanks for the suggestion to follow him on Twitter! I guess it’s about time I get a twitter account, anyway. And yes, it was really wonderfully random to run into him and actually be able to have a conversation with him for a while. He was a really nice guy. I guess that’s one of the benefits of Copenhagen being such a small city :)
Here are some random sites from Berlin. Some are rather self explanatory, but I thought a few deserved a little background info.
The grave is that of the famous play write and writer Bertolt Brecht. His writings and plays were burned in a famous book burning in 1935 because his work heavily revealed his disapproval for the Nazi regime and fascist movement.
If you notice the books that look like they are in a tree, that’s because they are :) There is this really cool tree on one of the streets that has a bunch of cubbies built into it where people can drop off books they don’t want anymore and then take a book or two that they want. There is no one there to monitor the books or a formal system of exchanging them, it’s all built on an honor code. How cool is that?
The bubbling pot of cheese does probably fit into the self-explanatory category, but it was too delicious not to mention. I mean, who doesn’t love melty, delicious cheese with french bread?
The round building with a greenish dome was designed by a King in the 17th (or 18th?) century. When he was asked what he wanted his cathedral to look like, he turned his coffee cup over and told the architect to build something just like that, and voila!
A Little Glimpse of Home
As some of you may know, all of us DISers just rounded out our first week of our two-week (unbelievably much deserved) travel break. For the first time since I have been here, I have been able to perform the role as both a tourist and a tour guide. My mom came to visit for the first half of the break. Although I really hadn’t felt all that homesick because of all of the new experiences and excitement, I realized how much I actually really do miss home and my family and friends as soon as I saw my mom step out of customs.
We planned to spend Saturday through Tuesday in Copenhagen and then head off to Berlin from Wednesday to Friday to visit some family friends, so we had to pack A LOT into such a short time. Despite our limited amount of time, we managed to have
1.A full day of cooking and Tapas style feast (26 courses for 7 people, so I do mean feast) with the host family. We were each supposed to make 3 small dishes, but some people *cough* my host dad *cough* cheated a bit and made a few more than planned.
2. A tour around DIS and the surrounding streets, shops, and historic buildings.
3. A walk to the Royal Library and their famous hot chocolate and chocolate chip scones. Seriously, this alone might be a reason to travel to Copenhagen. Oh have I mentioned I like hot chocolate?
4. A full canal tour-side note, while I thought the canal tour would be something that was too touristy and only enjoyable for people who want a vague knowledge of the city, it was actually a really lovely experience just for the sheer beauty of being on the water and all of the great sites to see on the coast.
5. An extremely traditional Danish lunch, complete with fried herring, liver pate, Nordic shrimp, Frikadeller (Danish meatballs), smoked Salmon, local beer, and Schnapps. You haven’t experienced Danish cuisine until you’ve had at least 4 of the above.
6. A failed attempt at Karaoke. Well, at least we tried :)
I would say that’s a lot for just about 4 days, right? In Berlin, we had a much more relaxing trip because our family friends just moved into a new house with their newborn baby, so we had a chance to catch our breath a little before we got out and explored the city for a day.
Even though we were able to squeeze a lot into such a small amount of time, I think I am going to make a mental note that anything shy of one week is absolutely too short to fully settle into and experience a foreign country. Now if only I would have realized that before I booked my tickets to Budapest and Amsterdam from tomorrow until next Sunday…
Why I love being lost
For those of you that have ever had the misfortune of experiencing my navigational abilities, you should know that I am not exactly the best at directions. I have never really minded my challenged sense of direction and always tell people that it can be a great opportunity to see and experience things that I wouldn’t have otherwise. For the most part, I just say that to make myself feel better, but today…my point has been proven! Being lost has finally paid off, and I now invite you to see why.
Because I have about a bajillion research papers and presentations due by the end of this week, I thought it might be a good time to check out the Royal Library today. Somehow I was able to navigate myself to the library (and had great success with finding books, by the way), but found myself incredibly confused and turned around upon leaving said library. Somehow I managed to wander onto a small alley near the water with a bunch of parked cars. I noticed someone getting out of a car, so I thought I would do one of the things I do best and ask for directions. I could tell he looked incredibly familiar at first, but just couldn’t put my finger on it. I asked him for directions to the train station that I needed, and he told me that it was such a lovely day so he wouldn’t mind walking with me there.
As we began to walk, his face finally clicked in my head. It was MIKKEL HANSEN!!!!!
For those of you who are not from Copenhagen/aren’t in DIS, Mikkel is the MVP and star of the national handball team. He just helped secure his team in a spot in the olympics, and he has already competed in the olympics in Beijing. I mean…he is a pretty big deal around here, if I do say so myself. Oh, and did I mention that he’s 7 feet tall? That was probably the biggest clue that gave it away.
Anywho, when it dawned on me that this is probably Mikkel, I introduced myself just to make double-check and sure enough, it was indeed the handball superstar. We ended up walking around the city for about 20 minutes and talking about everything from the pressure of the olympics to his stay in Miami last summer. He even took me on a detour to the train station to show me the area of town where his apartment is. When we got to the train station, I thoroughly thanked him for the help with directions and the lovely walk. He gave me a big hug (I mean REALLY big…he’s like twice my height). And then we parted our ways. I guess I was too caught up in the excitement and pleasant conversation to realize that I should definitely have gotten a picture with him. I was kicking myself practically the whole way home for not at least asking, but hey, it was a great added excitement to my day and a reason to appreciate getting lost every once in a while.
Long Study Tour: Academics in Tallinn
I hope you all enjoyed the cultural info about Tallinn as much as I enjoyed experiencing it! As fun as that was, the academic visits we had in Tallinn were really what made me trip for me. When I had first heard that we were going to Estonia for part of our long study tour for the CDD program, I was a bit puzzled. Of all the places in Europe, what did Tallinn have to offer as an insight into special education programs? The answer awaits at the end of this blog post…
Our first academic visit was to the Ristiku School (fun fact time! that means clover in Estonian). This school specializes in children with behavioral problems and who are on the autism spectrum, although they believe in integration with “neuro-typical” children so it is not strictly a special needs school. This school visit was mostly just an introduction to the education system in Tallinn and a brief tour of the actual school. It became clear fairly soon in the presentation that the education system still has a moderately sized grey cloud hanging over it left over from the Soviet Union. Children are only required to go to school between the ages of 7 and 16. After that, they decide between a vocational school or higher education. The headmaster of the school explained that the state is still really pushing for most students to chose vocational school to help build Estonia as an independent nation. This causes the problem that about 70% of the students would rather go to higher education and then decide to look for jobs in other countries in the EU. Despite the fact that the education system seemed to be in need of reconstruction, I could see how passionate she was about doing something to improve it, especially for children with special needs. The school’s slogan is even “the child friendly school.” As funny and obvious as that sounds, I could certainly see how they created that environment with the small class sizes and dedicated staff.
The next school we went to visited was the Laagna school, which specializes in children who have physical disabilities, although many of the students also have intellectual and learning handicaps as well. Upon arrival, we were greeted with 4 smiling faces of students at the school who told us they were going to be our tour guides. My tour guide was Andre (name changed for privacy reasons) who was a hilarious and sarcastic 14 year old with a passion for cooking and an interest in diplomatic arts. He agreed to take a picture with me, but only if we both made funny faces, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
After our tour of the school, we actually got to sit in on a whole class. We were split into groups of 5 or 6, and I was placed in a math class. There were two teachers in the class and only 7 children, so all of the children had a lot of individual children. One of the students was without speech, so he had a computer to help him speak and his mother sat with him and helped him as well. The class started off with a round of hangman to get everyone settled in, and the children really seemed to love it! After that, they were all given a worksheet to complete in class, along with a case full of blocks to help them count. I was really impressed with how independent the teachers allowed the students to be while still remaining very supportive. At the end of the class, I asked the teacher what the age range was because I noticed that there seemed to be quite a range. She explained that in this room, the ages were between 8 and 16 years old and that all of the classrooms had such a large range of ages because the children were divided by social and mental capabilities, not just blindly divided by age groups. It definitely seemed to be working in this setting because all of the children appeared to be on the same page as far as the lesson went, and they all got along very well and were so happy.
One of the many happy faces at the Laagna school.
Last but not least, we visited the Helen School, which is designed to accommodate any child with hearing or sight disabilities. While most of the children at this school were born with these disabilities, they also have some students who are suffering chronic illnesses such as cancer which have caused them to lose hearing or sight later in life. We took a full tour of the school and got to see things like their reading room, complete with every sort of brail book you could imagine.
A brail/texture book on nature. And apologies, for the life of me I cannot rotate this picture. I have saved it in a vertical version, but when I transfer it over, it keeps coming up like this. So you’ll just have to tilt your head :)
One of the things that impacted me the most on this tour was the choir and music room. There we met a girl who was in her mid-teens and was completely blind. She told us (in Estonian) that he had a song prepared for us. When she opened her mouth and began to sing, I had shivers all over my arms and tears in my eyes. I am not exaggerating when I say that she had the most angelic voice I have ever heard. They explained that the always let their students follow their passions, and they never limit any of them based on their disabilities. They allow them to explore many hobbies such as music, pottery, and weaving.
As we were wrapping up the tour of the school, we went into one room with several cribs. There was a young girl in one who was trying to sleep, and this was the point in the trip where I had the wind knocked out of me. The tour leader explained that this little girl was one of the many orphans they have at this school. Unfortunately, she went on, a lot of parents feel too overwhelmed to take on a child with hearing and sight impairments, so they give them up. The Helen School did not begin as an orphanage, but developed a partnership with one due to the need. Sadly, close to none of these students ever end up being adopted. I have gotten so accustomed to the cushy lifestyle that I didn’t realize I lived in America, that this made me step outside of myself and realize that there are so many people and children less fortunate than me.
I understand now why we went to Tallinn for our study tour. I was not because they have an exemplary program for children with special needs. It was so we could get a glimpse of a country that is struggling to make things work and improving with every person who is inspired to make a difference. It was so we could see a lifestyle we’ve been lucky enough never to have experienced.
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