Visit to Mon School 📓

Before we left Stege this morning, we visited the local school. We walked through the primary center, where the little Danish children smiled and waved to us, and then we visited the upper grade levels. The head of the school, Fleming, spoke to our group about the recent changes in the Danish education system, including the lengthening of the school day (the school day used to be over by 1 or 2pm, but now the students and teachers are required to stay until 3pm...the teachers are expected to get all of their planning done during this time as well, so they don't have to take any work home). There has also been an increase in the regulations of what will be taught at each grade level (an international trend). Fleming showed us an example of the planned curriculum:

And Azlan presented another La Roche bat as a memento of our visit:

Nest, we heard a presentation by four well spoken young ladies, who explained the different levels of the Danish education system. We were impressed with their poise at just 15 years old.

For the final part of our tour, we visited an actual classroom, where students were working on a variety of projects, from small group iPad assignments:

To listening to a music video in English (a song by Pink), and filling in the missing words to the lyrics:

This school uses a full inclusion model, so there was a student who was blind and another student with Autism who were in the classroom we visited. The teachers at the school are expected to write an individualized education plan (IEP) for EVERY student in their class (not just those with special needs) and meet with the students' parents at least two times a year to review the student's progress.

As we left the school, and were waiting outside, we saw some kids playing basketball, and urged Larry to show them how the game is played. Larry impressed them with a slam dunk 🏀

Everyone enjoyed interacting with the students...certainly another highlight of our trip!