Karla & Dave's 2011 Ed May Sem Blog: May 5, 2011 Radmandsgate Skolen, Harbor Tour, Danish Resistance Museum

Principal Lise Egholm came riding up to us on her bicycle as we arrived at Rådmandsgade Skolen to tour her school. Her high energy, warm personality, and bright red hair immediately clue you into the fact that she is a force of nature.

Lise and two students.

Lise’s school is in two buildings, about 800 meters apart – which is part of the reason for the bike, but many Danes (including Lise) ride bikes to and from work. Grade schoolers are in the building we visited and junior high students are in the other.

The Faces of Radmandsgate Skolen

A recurring theme in most schools we will visit is how schools help immigrant students and their families adapt to a new culture. Rådmandsgade Skolen is about 24% ethnic Danish students, 27% Arabic speaking students (from Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Morocco, etc.), 16% Pakistani, 16% Turks and Kurds, and 4% Somali, with the rest coming from assorted other countries. In total they have 628 students from 38 countries speaking 46 languages. The school is located in an economically depressed neighborhood.

The teachers and staff do much work with the families of students, and Lise told us of several situations where the typical Scandinavian niceness (what we would call Minnesota Nice or North Dakota Nice) just doesn’t work dealing with many other cultures. The Danes are protective of their culture, but welcoming and not exclusionary towards other cultures - except for practices that violate basic Danish values.

Three likely troublemakers.

We talked, photographed, and played with children during their recess and then visited a classroom. Lise seemed to know every child by name. She later told us some of her young students asked if our students were the actresses from the X-Files because they are all so beautiful.

Karla, Amy, and Britta playing "Stomp" with the girls.

Hope and Students

Lise and Karla

Donna with students and her Flat Stanleys

A classroom of eager students.

Library reading materials in Urdu, Arabic, and Turkish.

In the afternoon we took a long walk to Nyhaven and went on a boat tour of the Copenhagen harbor. It was a little chilly for most, but we saw lots of interesting buildings, palaces, yachts, spires, and sculptures – including the Little Mermaid.

I think this is a bull taking down a serpent.

A fountain of clawed flying pygmy elephants.

A mime on one of the walking streets - unfortunately the sound of coins dropping into his donation can made no more sound than he did.

A Danish beer wagon & Clydesdales

Waiting for the harbor tour at Nyhaven.

We're next on this tour boat.

Britta, Amy, Donna, and Megan ready for the tour.

Danish cadets practicing teamwork.

The Royal Danish Yacht

A Danish navy sailing ship.

The Little Mermaid from the water side.

Copenhagen has spires.

A canal-side bar along the tour.

This guy was playing guitar and singing as his friend was driving the boat through the canals.

Another Spire

We also visited the Danish Resistance Museum to learn more about Denmark’s role in World War II. We do about three things on this May Sem that we figure the students wouldn’t do on their own, but that we hope might be informative if not interesting, and this is one of them. The students seemed OK with it.