My practice at Aabenraa

29.09.2008 My practice at Aabenraa

As I said in the last message I will be in Aabenraa at Fjordskolen doing my practice all this week. Today was my first day and it was a long one, I have spent 5 hours at school but I did many interesting things. I find out more information about the children and about the way how teachers work with them and I could also see all these live. The children from the class I am attending are nice, some of them are quite sociable and some of them are less but all were curious about my presence there. I have presented myself in danish, and this brought some smiles on their faces, a very expressive body language, which gave me the feeling that I am welcome in their classroom. During the day I also met the school psychologist and I assisted her while she was testing a pupil and afterwards we talked about different kind of IQ testes used by the Association of Psychologists.
This was my practice day and I can't wait the next one which I hope will bring me and you a lots of smiles :).

Discovering danish education second episode

Diversity vs Education vs Freedom

Hello everyone!

How are you today? Are you enjoying the cultural festival in Haderslev? I think so...;) Ehh I can speak from my own experience that I enjoyed it these days, but I will tell you how in the next episode because now I would like to focus more on the education. And I start talking about my last events I have participate at. Ok then... After I visited Fjordskolen from Aabenraa on Monday and met my psychologist teacher on Tuesday ( information which I gave you in the last episode), on Wednesday I assisted to a presentation held by Isabel, a teacher from Portugal. It was a nice presentation, she spoke about their educational system and while she was speaking I can say that I had the feeling of being home in my country. Why? because I could identify many common features between portuguese educational system and romanian educational system. They have the same structure of education, they use in universities Bologna education system which means only 3 years of university and 2 years of master. Hmm...I am not very proud of this system because I feel like I am runing through all the subjects and I don't have the time to focus on the information that I really need; the rhythm of studing is a little bit fast. It was interesting for me to meet Isabel because she is a clinical psychologist and after she finished her presentation I could have the opportunity to talk to her about this field. She was realy nice and now I can say that I am having an international experience here in Denmark;). On Thursday I went with Judit at school where she is doing the practice and was a nice coincidence to met Isabel there.I had the chance to farewell to her because in the afternoon she was going to Copenhagen and from there to Portugal. It was useful for me to visit that school because it's almost a normal school and now I can see the difference between a special school and a normal school. In my opinion the difference is not that big because I could see freedom in education in each one. In special schools is normal to exist more freedom in education because the children who attend these type of courses learn in another rhythm and they can't be force to do more than they can do or to respect some rules.I think that I was expected to see more authority from teachers in a normal school (maybe because I am used with the romanian educational system which is a little bit different) and it wasan't like this. Teachers are called by their first name and the position of chairs and tables is different becasue they are arranged in a way which allow pupils see one each other and they can easly communicate. It was great to see all these. In my country I have experienced this only at the college, in the others institutes like primary school, gymnasium and highschool things are more formal, the position of chairs and tables is in line which give you the possibility to see only the teacher and the colleague who sit next to you and this can make the communication harder sometimes. And my week ended with the visit at Skolen ved Stadion, a special school, which is located in the back of our college and which looks very pretty. It offers to the children very good conditions.They can have swimming lessons and most of them know how to swim even those affected by some disabilities.I was surprised to see that the school is not a private one and they've got all the equipements and materials they needed.

Discovering danish education system

Hello again!

Did you miss me?:) I hope yes:) because now I come with a different kind of story than you heard in the last message, is about school in Denmark...what do you think? it sounds interesting nuh? yes in fact it is really interesting to do your studies in Denmark. And now comes the question why? I will give you the answer: the education system is really nice because you have the possibility to follow a college without paying anything and also each student receives money in every month for living. This is great because you have all the time in the world to focus on your studies. On the other hand what I have noticed is the majority of practical things which students are doing at school, they learn only those pieces of information they need.

Now, I would like to talk a little bit about me, about what I am doing here. Well, how I have wrote in my profile I am interested in becoming a psihoterapeut and my coordinator, who is a really nice person made a special programme for me and gave me the opportunity to do many practical things than I do in my country. This means that I will go to do my practice in a school with autistic children. I have already been there this week on Monday to meet with the teachers who I will work with. I got to know the town a little bit, as well. Jens, the leader of the school, talked to me more about the activities and the projects which they do in order to involve all the children. He said that this school is a normal school because the pupils study all the subjects which are normaly studied in schools (maths, chemistry, phyisics, German, English).But the difference is on the way of teaching, the teachers have to pay attention on the rhythm of learning of every pupil. I have worked with autistic children for a month in my country but they were more autistic then the pupils from this school because those didn't have language, eye contact and they were agrassive with themselves. And it was a surprise for me that I could talk to them and not in their native language but in English. I attended at English class, it was so interesting because they asked me questions about Romania and actually we had a discussion on Dracula's story and Romanian's lifestyle. It was fantastic to see that they can have a normal life. Of course the work is hard but it worths and the teachers I have met with are so nice, you can see on their eyes the happiness of practicing this job:). I'm looking forward to spend my next week there.
I think it comes the time to finish my story but before I do it I want to say some words about my cognitive therapy class. I am very thankful to my coordinator for this class because my wish is to know more about therapy, about the way of using therapy with clients. And now I can see all these and actually I've got involved in one of my teacher's therapy session this week and for me this means one step in my future career ;).
Ending in a "cognitive style"( cognitive therapy= pozitive thoughts, optimism) I wish you all the best until next time!

First time in denmark - impressions

Yes I am in Denmark for almost 3 weeks now and I can't still believe that I am here, it seems to me a dream but it isn't:). How did I spend my first 3 weeks in Denmark? Well I did more things that I was expected to do. I have visited many places in Denmark: in my first week-end I went to Aarhus with Judit my flatmate; our buddy and his friend arranged this trip and they invited us. It was a nice trip and I liked a lot Aarhus because it reminded me of Venice with those bridges and water canales and I find out that there is the second biggest town (in sizes) after Copenhagen. This was on Saturday but on Friday evening we wanted to know more about how the Danish students are having fun that's way we just went to the Friday bar, (the students's bar because it is placed on the college's yard) where we could find some of the students we've met on classes and it was more easier for us to interact with them;). And we drunk a beer or a øl with them and after this we went to a pub to listen a rock concert. And on Sunday we were too tired to do something and we just slept a lot and we stayed at home, watching tv, drank a cup of tea with biscuits in one word we practised hygge in danish style;). The first week-end ended in this way but it came another one which was full of adventures because we got baptized. Ooo it was really funny all the walk around the lake and the games that we had to play and after the whole walk which was longer than I thought, what came next was actually the purpose of the day. The most funny part of the day was on the way:), we walked and crawled through sticky things and in the end we jumped into a pool with dirty water inside...ya we needed too much energy for that day because after all these, the party was coming. Of course we went to the party and we danced a lot until 3 p.m when we finally came home and rest. Here came the Saturday when " we charged our battery" for the following day when we went to the North Sea and to the German's boarder. I could taste the feeling to be with one foot in Denmark and with the other in Germany. And I was also impressed by the huge beach from North Sea and it was soo nice to sit with the feet in the sea and in the rest of your body to be dressed for the autum with your jacket on:).

During this trip we could know more the germans and we could share our intercultural experience because we were speaking danish, german, english, hungarian an roumanian. I think this is the most beautiful part of this experience you are in contact with so many foreign languages and cultures;).
So a general impresion about Denmark- happy and nice people, everything so well organized, each stone has a history behind, small but cute houses, windmill, remoulade souce(my favorite), a good education system.
I think that's all for today. see you later!
wish you all the best!