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A Danish Perspective on American Education w/ Pernille Ripp
6 Plays4 months ago
I’m thrilled to be joined today by Pernille Ripp — a passionate educator, author, and literacy advocate. She is the author of Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child, Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students, and Reimagining Literacy Through Global Collaboration. She’s also the founder of the Global Read Aloud, a program that has connected millions of students and teachers around the world through the shared joy of reading.
And for all of our benefit, Pernille is also a prolific sharer. After teaching in Wisconsin for over a decade, In her BlueSky re-introduction she noted she was “back living in Denmark because she needed to breathe a bit easier.” And she frequently posts about her experience in the Danish education system, “Fun fact about teaching at my Danish school,” she writes, “when we are sick, we’re not required to write sub plans because we’re sick.”
And by most measures, Danes are among the happiest in the world, despite having among the highest tax rates. Healthcare and PreK-College education is free. Hygge conjures cozy seasonal vibes. Denmark has some of the highest public education participation and teacher pay and some of the lowest student:teacher ratios and class sizes among their OECD peers, including the United States. On a more grim note of comparison, the Wikipedia page for “school shootings in Denmark” contains a single entry from 1994, the only school shooting in Danish history. However, as a PDF, the list of school shootings in the United States since 2000 is 169 pages long with footnotes.
Regular listeners of this show will know just how immediately all of this grabbed my attention. In the past we’ve had guests talk about their experiences with everything from the education system in Trinidad & Tobago to the national Chinese college entrance exam, so I am thrilled at the opportunity to dig into both American and Danish society and education systems with someone who has knowledge and experience in both.
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Transcript
A Return to Denmark: Seeking Hope and Identity
00:00:00
Speaker
And after the shooting in Ovalde and after seeing my own kids having to live in an American society where kids are so dispensable and where we are scrutinized, I realized that it was time to go home.
00:00:13
Speaker
That I needed to move my family so that they could get a feeling for what it meant to be Danish because I was losing my own Danishness.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I was losing hope and I could feel it every day.
00:00:25
Speaker
that it took more and more energy to simply exist in the space of America.
00:00:29
Speaker
And that I was becoming this incredibly cynical, heartbroken version of myself that didn't have the energy to fight back anymore.
00:00:39
Speaker
But we needed to recognize what was normal again, because our normal had gotten so skewed.
00:00:48
Speaker
And what we lived with stress-wise is not the way to live.
Introducing Pernille Ribb: Educator and Author
00:00:58
Speaker
I am thrilled to be joined today by Perniel Ribb, a passionate educator, author, and literacy advocate.
00:01:04
Speaker
She's the author of Passionate Readers, The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child, Passionate Learners, How to Engage and Empower Your Students, and Reimagining Literacy Through Global Collaboration.
00:01:16
Speaker
She's also the founder of The Global Read Aloud, a program that's connected millions of students and teachers around the world through the shared joy of learning.
00:01:24
Speaker
And she's
00:01:25
Speaker
For all of our benefit, Pernille is also a prolific sharer.
00:01:29
Speaker
After teaching in Wisconsin for over a decade in her Blue Sky reintroduction, she noted that she was back living in Denmark because she needed to breathe a bit easier.
00:01:37
Speaker
And she frequently posts about her experience in the Danish education system.
00:01:41
Speaker
Fun fact about teaching at my Danish school, she writes, when we are sick, we are not required to write subplans because we're sick.
00:01:49
Speaker
And by most measures, Danes are among the happiest in the world, despite having among the highest tax rates.
00:01:55
Speaker
Healthcare and pre-K college education is free.
00:01:58
Speaker
Hygge conjures cozy seasonal vibes.
00:02:01
Speaker
Did I get it?
00:02:01
Speaker
Did I get that right?
00:02:04
Speaker
Oh, I tried.
00:02:05
Speaker
I even looked up a pronunciation guide for it.
00:02:08
Speaker
Okay.
Education Systems: Denmark vs. US
00:02:09
Speaker
Denmark has some of the highest public education participation and teacher pay and some of the lowest student-teacher ratios and class sizes among their OECD peers, including the United States.
00:02:20
Speaker
And on a more grim note of comparison, the Wikipedia page for school shootings in Denmark contains a single entry from 1994, the only school shooting in Danish history.
00:02:30
Speaker
However, as a PDF, the list of school shootings in the United States since 2000 is 169 pages long with footnotes.
00:02:39
Speaker
Regular listeners of this show will know just how immediately all this grabbed my attention.
00:02:44
Speaker
In the past, we've had guests talk about their experiences with everything from the education system in Trinidad and Tobago to the National Chinese College Entrance Exam.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I'm thrilled at the opportunity to dig into both American and Danish society and education systems with someone who has knowledge and experience in both.
00:03:01
Speaker
So thank you so much for joining me today, Pernille.
00:03:04
Speaker
What an introduction.
00:03:05
Speaker
I mean, you brought things forth that I hadn't even considered.
00:03:09
Speaker
So thank you so much.
00:03:10
Speaker
I'm so excited for this conversation.
Pernille's Journey to Education
00:03:12
Speaker
Let's just talk about your background, the nature of your student-focused work, your passions and expertise as a teacher.
00:03:18
Speaker
Where do you hang your hat and how do you see yourself as an educator, Pernille?
00:03:23
Speaker
I see myself as someone who shares loudly as I fail continuously.
00:03:28
Speaker
And I think it's such a wonderful thing to be able to share our failures and our successes and our small ideas.
00:03:37
Speaker
And it's an approach I've taken since 2010, the year I was going to quit being a teacher.
00:03:41
Speaker
I was two years into teaching and realizing that the dream crushing I was doing to small children was definitely not the teacher I had envisioned to be.
00:03:51
Speaker
Instead of quitting, my husband, who was very pragmatic, told me that I could change the way I teach.
00:03:57
Speaker
You know, you can't teach, you can't change the children, but you can change the way you teach.
00:04:01
Speaker
And for me, that was really what parted the skies.
00:04:03
Speaker
But I also was never meant to be an educator.
00:04:06
Speaker
I grew up in a family of educators.
00:04:08
Speaker
You know, my mom, my stepdad, my grandma, my aunt, like everybody was a teacher.
00:04:14
Speaker
And I remember distinctly telling my mom when I was in my teens that I was certainly never going to be a teacher because teachers were the worst.
00:04:21
Speaker
And my mom couldn't tell me, wait to tell me when I then graduated as a teacher.
00:04:26
Speaker
But this calling of working with kids was always there.
00:04:28
Speaker
I thought maybe first I was going to be a daycare worker and then it was a social worker.
00:04:32
Speaker
And then it was always something around children.
00:04:35
Speaker
But it wasn't until I bartended for quite a few years and met my husband and he was like, what are you going to do with your life?
00:04:41
Speaker
And I was like, I don't know, maybe go back to school.
00:04:44
Speaker
And he was like, that sounds good.
00:04:45
Speaker
Like, yeah, go back to school.
00:04:48
Speaker
And and when that kind of popped back into my head after I had dropped out from college prior, I
00:04:54
Speaker
It was like, well, now what?
00:04:56
Speaker
And that dream of coming back and working with kids was something that really spoke to me.
00:05:01
Speaker
And so as so many of us, you know, we end up in places that we didn't quite expect.
00:05:06
Speaker
I certainly didn't expect to leave Denmark when I was 18 to move to Wisconsin.
Life in America: A 24-Year Journey
00:05:12
Speaker
My mom was a cultural ambassador for Denmark, um,
00:05:17
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at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was kind of like, well, we're moving.
00:05:23
Speaker
And I was like, okay, I guess I'm moving with because you graduate in Denmark at 18.
00:05:29
Speaker
And she was like, well, come for a year.
00:05:30
Speaker
And if you don't like it, I'll pay your ticket back.
00:05:34
Speaker
But as the story often goes, I met a guy.
00:05:37
Speaker
But that guy, thank God, introduced me to a much better guy.
00:05:39
Speaker
And he ended up being my husband and
00:05:42
Speaker
And so I ended up in America, not realizing that that's where I was going to be for 24 years.
00:05:49
Speaker
Right.
00:05:49
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It was kind of like this, like, oh, I'm going to go to America.
00:05:52
Speaker
I don't know what to do with myself.
00:05:53
Speaker
And then life just happened as it does.
00:05:57
Speaker
And all of a sudden you're looking around, you're going,
00:06:00
Speaker
well, is this where I'm going to be?
00:06:02
Speaker
Okay, yeah, it is, because I fell in love with this American guy, and Denmark has a really restrictive immigration policy, and it was kind of like, here we are.
00:06:11
Speaker
And so I got to teach in Wisconsin among incredible colleagues who I miss very,
00:06:18
Speaker
in schools that were public schools, but also had leadership that wasn't afraid to try new things.
00:06:27
Speaker
And despite being very much hampered by standardized testing and no child leave behind and, you know, all of the things that have gotten thrown at us, I also had leaders that had a lot of guts.
00:06:38
Speaker
And that when I would come to them with my kind of like just out of the box ideas or the little things I wanted to change, we're very good at saying, you know what, let's let's try that.
00:06:49
Speaker
And I was good at saying, can I pilot?
00:06:51
Speaker
You know, that's always how I do stuff.
00:06:52
Speaker
Like, can I pilot?
00:06:53
Speaker
Not doing grades.
00:06:54
Speaker
And they're like, well, you do have to do report cards, but, you know, maybe change the conversation.
00:07:00
Speaker
And I loved it.
00:07:01
Speaker
And it made me fall back in love with teaching because I got to experiment and I got to be led by the voices of the students.
00:07:10
Speaker
And because my brain is always running 100 miles an hour, my poor husband was the recipient of all of my brain chatter, of all the ideas I wanted to share and all the things I was going to try and what the kids were telling me and what I was figuring out.
00:07:26
Speaker
And he looked at me one night, bless his heart, and he was like, have you thought about writing?
00:07:31
Speaker
You really like writing.
00:07:34
Speaker
And I was like, no.
00:07:35
Speaker
And he was like, you know, there's this blog, like people are blogging, I'm reading blogs.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I was like, that sounds fun.
00:07:43
Speaker
And, you know, as one did in 2010, it was like, I'm going to go on WordPress and I'm just going to start a blog.
00:07:50
Speaker
And I was like, well, I'm a fourth grade teacher.
00:07:52
Speaker
So it was like blogging through the fourth dimension.
00:07:54
Speaker
Like, woo, you know, like, yeah.
00:07:56
Speaker
And I wrote a post and it was the typical, like, I'm going to write about stuff that I do.
00:08:03
Speaker
And then I had just joined Twitter and I sent out the post and someone left a comment and it wasn't my mother.
00:08:11
Speaker
Right.
00:08:11
Speaker
Like it was, it was, they were like, I can't wait to read.
00:08:15
Speaker
what you're going to write.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I was like, what is this now?
00:08:19
Speaker
And so 2010 for me was this like awakening of, okay, I totally have to throw out the way I teach.
00:08:25
Speaker
Uh, I'm now connected to educators who are also experimenting with like no grades, no punishment, no rewards, like all of these things.
00:08:34
Speaker
And I have a place to like share my thoughts and publicly fail in order to grow.
Community and Learning from Mistakes
00:08:40
Speaker
And I think that that was such an important aspect for me too, because, you know, I was given the first six weeks of school, you know, like all these very like,
00:08:50
Speaker
you know, generationally given teacher books and they were fabulous, but I couldn't be those teachers.
00:08:56
Speaker
Like I felt like I was constantly failing and that my students weren't good enough.
00:09:01
Speaker
They weren't good enough at sitting still.
00:09:02
Speaker
They weren't good enough at paying attention.
00:09:03
Speaker
They weren't good enough at doing grades.
00:09:06
Speaker
And I realized that I had this really twisted view of what good teaching was.
00:09:11
Speaker
And it was also because that's what people were sharing.
00:09:13
Speaker
And so it was like all this perfection that
00:09:15
Speaker
Oh, today I had the best lesson.
00:09:16
Speaker
And then I would like go and do that lesson and it sucked.
00:09:21
Speaker
Right.
00:09:22
Speaker
Or it was just mediocre.
00:09:23
Speaker
Like it wasn't perfect.
00:09:24
Speaker
It wasn't great.
00:09:25
Speaker
It doesn't feel good.
00:09:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:26
Speaker
It just was like, and so I took a chance because that's what was happening in my life that I just decided to share the good and the bad and, and the hard.
00:09:39
Speaker
And the like, these are the things I struggle with.
00:09:42
Speaker
Like, I know that in this conversation I screwed up or I know that throwing away, you know, like the yellow, the green, red, yellow cups, like it's really hard or the clipboards or all of this.
00:09:57
Speaker
Like, it's so hard because you just want to be like, go move your clip.
00:10:02
Speaker
But here's how you can do it.
00:10:03
Speaker
And here's how you can make it more humane.
00:10:05
Speaker
And so I just shared and that 2010 is when the global relapse started.
00:10:08
Speaker
Cause that was just like crazy idea I had as well and didn't know what I was doing.
00:10:12
Speaker
And, uh, you know, and, and I think, so for me, like being a teacher, um,
00:10:18
Speaker
has been such a big part of my identity, but I think it's just who I am as a human being that I'm curious and I like to try things because sometimes I don't think things through.
00:10:27
Speaker
And then I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to learn from it.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so I got, I got to be a fourth, fourth grade teacher and a fifth grade teacher.
00:10:34
Speaker
And then I took the jump to seventh grade.
00:10:36
Speaker
And these incredible middle schoolers who terrified me beyond belief and who like pushed me harder than any age group ever.
00:10:46
Speaker
And yet who also loved so hard, right?
00:10:49
Speaker
Like when they love you, you are like the best.
00:10:51
Speaker
I still get like Instagram messages from them or emails and they'll say like, I was thinking of you or I just wanted you to know.
00:10:57
Speaker
I just got one from a kid who was like, hey, I'm going to be a special education teacher.
00:11:00
Speaker
And I just wanted you to know, I know you would be proud of me.
00:11:03
Speaker
And I cried on my couch because I was like, yes.
00:11:07
Speaker
And I loved it.
00:11:09
Speaker
And I cried.
00:11:09
Speaker
And it was so hard.
00:11:11
Speaker
And after, I think it was, I don't even know, seven or eight or nine years.
00:11:17
Speaker
And after the shooting in Ovalde and after seeing my own kids having to live in an American society where kids are so dispensable and where we are scrutinized, I realized that it was time to go home.
00:11:31
Speaker
That I needed to move my family home.
00:11:33
Speaker
so that they could get a feeling for what it meant to be Danish because I was losing my own Danishness and I was losing hope and I could feel it every day that it took more and more energy to simply exist in the space of America.
00:11:48
Speaker
And that I was becoming this incredibly like cynical, heartbroken,
00:11:54
Speaker
version of myself that didn't have the energy to fight back anymore.
00:11:58
Speaker
And, and, and we got this opportunity to move home to Denmark, knowing that it was going to be incredibly hard for my husband.
Returning to Denmark: A New Beginning
00:12:05
Speaker
My kids were sideswept by the news, right?
00:12:08
Speaker
Like we're what, like they knew we talked about it, but not like mom, like what mom's all of a sudden moving us.
00:12:14
Speaker
Like, what is this?
00:12:15
Speaker
My family's still in the U S for the most part, but we need it.
00:12:20
Speaker
we needed to recognize what was normal again, because our normal had gotten so skewed.
00:12:28
Speaker
And what we lived with stress-wise was
00:12:32
Speaker
was not like is not the way to live.
00:12:34
Speaker
And so we moved.
00:12:35
Speaker
And so now I'm a second grade teacher in Denmark.
00:12:40
Speaker
Once again, teaching a grade level, I never thought I would teach and loving it.
00:12:45
Speaker
Like it's kids are the best.
00:12:48
Speaker
And once again, I'm under this leadership that looks at me and goes, yeah, you can try that.
00:12:54
Speaker
That sounds good.
00:12:54
Speaker
Like, let us know how it works.
00:12:56
Speaker
Right.
00:12:57
Speaker
And it's just like, I feel so fortunate that I get to continue this rambly path of experimentational teaching and sharing.
00:13:05
Speaker
And now in a totally different place with a totally bunch of different kids and I'm learning right alongside them.
00:13:10
Speaker
So there you go.
00:13:11
Speaker
There's my rambling biography.
00:13:14
Speaker
We got the whole story from age 18 through the present day.
00:13:18
Speaker
So that's it.
00:13:19
Speaker
I'll hit stop on the recording.
00:13:20
Speaker
There we go.
00:13:22
Speaker
No, there's so much to unpack there.
00:13:24
Speaker
I just, I think your approach both to the sharing and also the approach to like classroom learning is one of honesty.
00:13:31
Speaker
And frankly, like that,
00:13:32
Speaker
That is so much more of an honest way to portray.
00:13:36
Speaker
You know, we see so many images of perfection or we see so much, I think, these routines or scripts or things that say, if you just do this, this will be the outcome, right?
00:13:45
Speaker
Like we're like we're programming a computer or something.
00:13:48
Speaker
And I think.
00:13:50
Speaker
good teachers understand that that's not how being in a room full of children operates, you know?
00:13:55
Speaker
And so it creates guilt because then teachers internalize like, oh, I'm just not doing something right.
00:14:00
Speaker
Or it creates resentment against children because we expect them to be something that they're not, you know, in that moment.
00:14:07
Speaker
And maybe that they just can't be because the context of teaching and
00:14:11
Speaker
You know, children's backgrounds are also very indifferent and awesome that it really does, to your point, like take that change of perspective to say, like, I'm not going to be able to change generations of children.
00:14:22
Speaker
Right.
00:14:23
Speaker
Like like the way that childhood is and how kids work.
00:14:26
Speaker
is not something that I can fix, but I can change my own perspective.
00:14:29
Speaker
What I'm so curious to backtrack to that part of the conversation.
00:14:33
Speaker
What did you, what were those shifts for you both in, I don't know, in your like perception, your practice, what were some of the things that were, that you found just like, Hey, I'm not going to be able to cope unless I change this.
00:14:46
Speaker
It was fundamentally life altering.
00:14:49
Speaker
And I don't say that lightly because it was so hard.
00:14:54
Speaker
I was so used to being in control of everything.
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, I was the person that had the list on the desks of which supplies should be in their little supply cup.
00:15:04
Speaker
Do you know what I mean?
00:15:05
Speaker
Like, because I felt like if I gave them that structure and that routine, everything else would be so much easier.
00:15:11
Speaker
But I was absolutely crushing any kind of experimentation they were having about being a human being and community, about how they needed to navigate school.
00:15:22
Speaker
And yet knowing that it still killed me to let go and sit back.
00:15:28
Speaker
I mean, it was like I had to almost muffle myself from going, let me just fix it, you know, or like, OK, we tried that seating arrangement that you chose and it is not working and we are done.
00:15:40
Speaker
So it's and it's a path that I continue to have to recommit to because it's so easy to fall into.
00:15:48
Speaker
Well, I'm the adult and things are this way.
00:15:50
Speaker
And especially like in the system that I'm in now in Denmark, where it is much more adult oriented, there's not as much.
00:16:00
Speaker
Um, students say most places, it's kind of like, it's a, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but it's much more like I'm the adult and, and, and these are the ways that you treat adults and this is how we run things.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so I almost like forgot who I was and I've had to like bring that back into the classroom.
00:16:17
Speaker
It wasn't easy and I still screw up and I still have to kind of push myself.
00:16:22
Speaker
But the one thing that I kept coming back to was asking the kids what they needed.
00:16:27
Speaker
and what they wanted and dreaming with the kids.
00:16:31
Speaker
And I think that that's always been the step into this work is simply just bringing kids' voices into the conversation.
00:16:38
Speaker
And it doesn't have to be anything big.
00:16:40
Speaker
It can literally be, how do you want to work with this material?
00:16:43
Speaker
And my second graders can do that.
00:16:45
Speaker
And they could in first grade too.
00:16:47
Speaker
Can I sit over here?
00:16:48
Speaker
Can I work with this person?
00:16:49
Speaker
Can we use markers?
00:16:50
Speaker
You know, I mean,
00:16:52
Speaker
they are given a playground of choices in order to make better choices.
00:16:59
Speaker
And I think that that was it for me was that I recognized that school is supposed to be one of the safest times that we can experiment with all sorts of things, not just learning, but also with who we are, who we surround ourselves with, how we speak to one another, how we build community.
00:17:14
Speaker
And yet as teachers, out of the best intentions ever,
00:17:19
Speaker
we have narrowed it to be this incredibly tight path for children to walk on in order for them to have the best possible experience, but for who?
00:17:29
Speaker
For the adult, not for the children.
00:17:31
Speaker
And so for me, it keeps coming back to de-centering myself and making myself, of course, I'm still the adult in the room and the one that has to kind of keep the ship on course.
00:17:44
Speaker
And I'm going to step in when I see things that are harmful, but also allowing enough room for play and for experimentation and for failure to
00:17:55
Speaker
And for genuine failure, for screwing up and having an adult that hopefully you see as a safe adult to pick up the pieces with you.
00:18:04
Speaker
So it continues to be hard.
00:18:05
Speaker
And it's why I wrote Passionate Learners.
00:18:07
Speaker
And I just did a new edition.
00:18:09
Speaker
And I never really talk about my books much.
00:18:11
Speaker
But I wrote a third edition of it because I grew from that person that had written that book nine years ago that was a little bit more idealistic.
00:18:21
Speaker
And I needed to also put that into the work, right, of like,
00:18:25
Speaker
So when you have these kind of like student freedom centered views, what does that look like?
00:18:31
Speaker
Really?
00:18:32
Speaker
And where do you screw up?
00:18:33
Speaker
And then how do you give yourself grace and create a sustainable system?
00:18:36
Speaker
Because that's the thing, too.
00:18:38
Speaker
This isn't a self-sacrifice in order for the students to achieve.
00:18:41
Speaker
It's to create and co-create a space that's sustainable for everybody.
00:18:45
Speaker
And that feels exciting and dynamic.
00:18:48
Speaker
So it's a beast.
00:18:49
Speaker
It's absolutely a beast.
00:18:51
Speaker
And it continues to be, but it's not a beast in that it's a lot of work.
00:18:54
Speaker
It's more that you have to keep your own feet to the fire and go, this is worth it.
00:18:58
Speaker
But to do that, you have to have energy.
00:19:02
Speaker
And one of the biggest resources that's being depleted out of American education is the energy.
Chronic Stress in American Education
00:19:07
Speaker
Right.
00:19:08
Speaker
We're exhausted beyond belief.
00:19:11
Speaker
I didn't realize that I was living with chronic stress until I stood on a train platform in Denmark.
00:19:18
Speaker
My first day of work going, I can breathe.
00:19:22
Speaker
Literally, it was such a wild recognition of just how stressed we had been.
00:19:29
Speaker
So that like I had to leave the country, right?
00:19:34
Speaker
And sell all my belongings and stand on a train platform and go, oh my gosh, why do I feel lighter?
00:19:41
Speaker
Because the chronic stress is gone.
00:19:43
Speaker
And so when I think about all of the educators, and not just in America, but many places that every day are showing up and pushing the system and every day are choosing to fight back and are choosing to fight for kids and fighting for themselves.
00:19:57
Speaker
Like I know how much energy that takes.
00:19:59
Speaker
And it is just remarkable how people keep showing up.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:03
Speaker
Yeah, for the future.
00:20:05
Speaker
Oh, that's such a great point.
00:20:06
Speaker
To your point about this, about creating these student-centered structures doesn't mean abdicating our role as adults and our responsibility as adults.
00:20:16
Speaker
If anything, I think it strengthens it because it promotes a more, I don't know, relational, right?
00:20:22
Speaker
Kids begin to understand what the role of adults is in this space from a more, I don't know, holistic level.
00:20:29
Speaker
But kids in...
00:20:30
Speaker
you know, K through 12 are going to be in the lowest stakes, highest support environment they're ever going to be in.
00:20:37
Speaker
And that is the prime space that they should be taking risks and making mistakes and learning from those things and reflecting on it.
00:20:44
Speaker
And, you know, again, the systemic,
00:20:47
Speaker
I think the systemic incentives and the systemic pressure prevents kids from doing that.
00:20:53
Speaker
And I think the systemic pressure prevents the adults from doing that too.
00:20:57
Speaker
So, you know, to the point about teacher stress, it's like that trickles downhill, doesn't it?
00:21:03
Speaker
The system is stressed with precarity and inequality and administrators are stressed because they need to see these outcomes and results.
00:21:10
Speaker
And that trickles down to teachers who don't want to get in trouble.
00:21:13
Speaker
And that trickles down to kids who are
00:21:15
Speaker
you know, constantly like this.
00:21:16
Speaker
And then we look at stress levels and anxiety for young people.
00:21:21
Speaker
And then we look at burnout rates and stress and anxiety for adults.
00:21:24
Speaker
And you realize like, oh my God, the same stressors are systemically are burning out kids and adults alike.
00:21:30
Speaker
And I think
00:21:31
Speaker
That realization can maybe even help sometimes take pressure off of the teachers in the system to say, oh my gosh, I don't have to be perfect.
00:21:40
Speaker
I just need to be able to, you had said, be humane, be humanizing in an otherwise dehumanizing environment.
00:21:47
Speaker
We're all swimming in the same water, right?
00:21:49
Speaker
How can I be?
Denmark's Supportive System: Health and Education
00:21:50
Speaker
the perennial in this situation and recognize, God, this isn't working for me and it's not working for kids.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I'm super curious then to maybe unpack this with you.
00:22:00
Speaker
Like, what were those things when you stepped off that train platform in Denmark that you felt like, I feel lighter because
00:22:07
Speaker
because like, what, what did you feel was lifted in that moment?
00:22:11
Speaker
You know?
00:22:12
Speaker
I mean, so, so many things.
00:22:14
Speaker
I mean, of course there's the big life things that aren't even education related, right?
00:22:18
Speaker
Like we're not one health crisis away from going bankrupt.
00:22:24
Speaker
Right.
00:22:24
Speaker
Like my husband pointed that out one day when I was really missing America and going, did we make a mistake?
00:22:28
Speaker
I missed my, he was like, for Neil, like we had steady jobs, we have savings.
00:22:32
Speaker
Those would be wiped out.
00:22:35
Speaker
Or looking at my kids, right?
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, we may have one of the highest tax rates in the world in Denmark, but my kids can get, I believe it's three college degrees for free, you know, and they get paid to go to school.
00:22:49
Speaker
So really my taxes are going to my kids' college.
00:22:52
Speaker
They're going to my college.
00:22:54
Speaker
I can go back and get like a degree.
00:22:56
Speaker
I can go get a master's degree.
00:22:58
Speaker
Right.
00:22:59
Speaker
Just those two stressors of going, if I have a medical emergency, not only do I get sick leave, but I also get the best care that they can, you know, that they can give me.
00:23:12
Speaker
I'm allowed.
00:23:13
Speaker
I'm allowed to have disasters happen in my life without everything falling.
00:23:17
Speaker
That was huge.
00:23:19
Speaker
But I also think just the incredible emphasis that Denmark has on the work-life balance.
00:23:24
Speaker
I mean, I worked for an incredible boss.
00:23:26
Speaker
I didn't get a teaching job right away when I moved to Denmark because it's really hard for anyone outside of Denmark to get work in Denmark.
00:23:32
Speaker
It's just how it is.
00:23:34
Speaker
It's awful.
00:23:35
Speaker
I try to tell people that and they're like, really?
00:23:36
Speaker
I'm like, oh, yes.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yes, very much so.
00:23:40
Speaker
But...
00:23:41
Speaker
I worked in marketing in Copenhagen and my boss there in my very first evaluation, he said, one of my goals for you is to undo the American toxic work standards that you have created for yourself.
00:23:58
Speaker
And I was like, okay.
00:23:59
Speaker
And he goes, for example, if you're on Slack at 7 a.m.
00:24:04
Speaker
in the morning, I don't want to see you on Slack at 4 p.m.
00:24:07
Speaker
because you've already worked your hours.
00:24:10
Speaker
Or when one of my kids was sick and they were like, well, of course you were going to stay home with your kid.
00:24:14
Speaker
Or when I got sick and they were like, well, of course you're going to stay home.
00:24:18
Speaker
It was all of these little things that allowed me, again, to just be a human being.
00:24:23
Speaker
And I think in the education system over here, you know, my students go to school with me from 7.50 until 1.12.
00:24:33
Speaker
They have four class periods, and they don't want longer days than that, especially for the young kids, because they're exhausted.
00:24:42
Speaker
That means that as a teacher, I have two and a half hours of prep every single day.
00:24:50
Speaker
Sure, we have meetings once in a while, but I can create really engaging educational experiences for my students within my work hours.
00:25:02
Speaker
I also think about how, I mean, there's just so many things.
00:25:06
Speaker
Because kids have shorter school days, even my own kids are 16 and 12 and 11 and 12, not to forget a twin, there's four of them, but their longest day is 2.15.
00:25:20
Speaker
From 8 to 215.
00:25:22
Speaker
And it means that they have a life outside of school.
00:25:26
Speaker
They go to activities.
00:25:27
Speaker
And that's the other thing, too.
00:25:28
Speaker
Activities for children are really, really cheap here.
00:25:31
Speaker
And also, the minute you turn 12, there's youth schools that put on all this free programming, like parkour and canoeing and fitness and e-sports.
00:25:40
Speaker
And it's free.
00:25:42
Speaker
It's free for kids between 12 and 18.
00:25:43
Speaker
And so kids just...
00:25:48
Speaker
have this time and opportunity to be in community together that gave relief to us because for how many years have we said no we can't afford gymnastics we can't afford dance classes we can't afford you exactly or we can't drive you everywhere that's the other thing too or they take the bus there's just so many things that made us feel
00:26:12
Speaker
freer and lighter and also fundamentally no one here is going to take my rights away from me.
00:26:19
Speaker
I'm the mother of a genderqueer child and it's within the LGBTQ community.
00:26:26
Speaker
I am not afraid for their life here.
00:26:29
Speaker
And that to me is irreplaceable.
00:26:32
Speaker
I don't have any politicians who are trying to take away my rights as a female.
00:26:38
Speaker
My husband asked about that because right when we moved here, they had an election and he was like, okay, I'm trying to figure out.
00:26:43
Speaker
He's like, so who are the parties like on the right?
00:26:46
Speaker
And who are the ones on the left?
00:26:47
Speaker
And I was like, no, that's not how it works in numbers.
00:26:50
Speaker
And he was like, okay, so who are they like anti-abortion?
00:26:53
Speaker
And I was like, no one.
00:26:55
Speaker
Maybe the one like Christian party that like they would like to like, you know, but really they're not going to like say it.
00:27:00
Speaker
And he was like, oh, okay.
00:27:01
Speaker
He's like, well, what are they campaigning on?
00:27:03
Speaker
And I was like, well, immigration, because that's everywhere,
Unstructured Learning and Exploration in Denmark
00:27:06
Speaker
right?
00:27:06
Speaker
And I was like, but other than that, it's like, it's little nuances.
00:27:10
Speaker
Like how green do they want to go?
00:27:12
Speaker
What about sexism?
00:27:14
Speaker
But he was just like, so we watched the election and the politicians are getting drunk live on TV and they can only campaign for three weeks leading up to the election.
00:27:23
Speaker
It's fabulous.
00:27:26
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:27:26
Speaker
As an Iowan, right?
00:27:28
Speaker
Like, I feel this in my bones.
00:27:30
Speaker
I know.
00:27:31
Speaker
And he was like, they're all drinking.
00:27:33
Speaker
And I was like, oh, yeah, because there's so many political parties, they have to work together.
00:27:38
Speaker
No party can be a majority.
00:27:41
Speaker
And he was just like, this is the wildest thing ever.
00:27:43
Speaker
So I think just like recognizing that my kids are safe.
00:27:49
Speaker
My kids are secure.
00:27:51
Speaker
And I'm also in a society that for the most part allows me to be a parent first and a worker second.
00:27:58
Speaker
It's huge.
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:01
Speaker
I think about the extracurriculars.
00:28:05
Speaker
That's a huge... My kids are just slightly younger than yours.
00:28:08
Speaker
I got a nine and a six-year-old.
00:28:09
Speaker
And thinking individually, just in terms of, again, cost, you nailed it, right?
00:28:15
Speaker
Cost, logistics, scheduling, all these things.
00:28:19
Speaker
I live in a small town where we're driving all over the place to do these things.
00:28:24
Speaker
And they do come at a cost.
00:28:25
Speaker
And I think...
00:28:26
Speaker
On the macro scale, then, a lot of times, though, access to extracurriculars to safe spaces that aren't school is a huge barrier for a lot of kids and families in terms of, you know, education, access, and, you know, economic security and stability and those kinds of things, too.
00:28:44
Speaker
So it's really, I guess, you know, my kids are fortunate in the sense that I'm, you know, a middle class, you know, family in a place where we can afford those things.
00:28:55
Speaker
And how...
00:28:57
Speaker
A lot of people just don't have access to those because there are so many barriers in place.
00:29:02
Speaker
Not to mention the other huge systemic structural things like healthcare that you had mentioned as well.
00:29:08
Speaker
So even just from a parental lens, the fact that it takes that off your shoulders and allows you to be more present and not to mention your role then as an educator.
00:29:18
Speaker
I guess a question that I have then is how do you see...
00:29:22
Speaker
that those systemic structural supports, right?
00:29:27
Speaker
Like kids in Denmark are coming in with a level of support and, um,
00:29:33
Speaker
social security, socioeconomic security, perhaps that most or many kids in the United States simply don't have?
00:29:40
Speaker
How do you see the results of that, like manifesting in the students that you teach, the way that you're able to teach them, all those kinds of things?
00:29:48
Speaker
I mean, in many ways, and of course, like there is food insecurity in Denmark as well, right?
00:29:52
Speaker
There are kids that are living in poverty, like it's not a perfect system, but it's
00:29:58
Speaker
There's a lot of things in place that make it a better system.
00:30:02
Speaker
But where I think it's so different from the U.S. is that my students coming knowing that school is for school purpose solely.
00:30:16
Speaker
I am not, as their educator, as their teacher, I'm not expected to also be their social worker, their guidance counselor.
00:30:23
Speaker
I'm not expected to feed them.
00:30:25
Speaker
I am not expected to do all of this.
00:30:27
Speaker
And that has been a very huge part of the Danish educational system.
00:30:30
Speaker
We are there to give them the path forward.
00:30:34
Speaker
academically in conjunction with the parents.
00:30:38
Speaker
But in order for parents or the home adults that take care of the children to be our collaborative partners, the parents or the home adults need to have the space to do their job as well.
00:30:50
Speaker
Because otherwise the partnership doesn't work.
00:30:53
Speaker
So I live in a society where parents can demand that they are off to go to their child's school.
00:31:02
Speaker
Right.
00:31:03
Speaker
Like that's you can't say no to that.
00:31:05
Speaker
You can like your workplace can't or where when you have children, you know, of course, maternity is nine months for one of the partners and three months for the others.
00:31:15
Speaker
Your job is guaranteed.
00:31:16
Speaker
There's, of course, always people that work the system and whatever.
00:31:18
Speaker
But like there's there's some big things in place.
00:31:21
Speaker
And when you start taking your child to to pre or to to daycare,
00:31:26
Speaker
And it's fine that you leave at three to go pick up your child, because that's literally the biggest investment you can give to the community is that you're taking care of your child.
00:31:38
Speaker
So I think just that means that we have kids.
00:31:43
Speaker
Some kids, of course, that come in less stressed because their family can be present in a way that not a lot of families are afforded in America anymore.
00:31:54
Speaker
Not every family.
00:31:55
Speaker
I work at a school that has a lot of pressure placed on it for a variety of reasons.
00:32:00
Speaker
And kids come from a lot of different backgrounds, like many of us do.
00:32:03
Speaker
Right.
00:32:03
Speaker
Many of us work at schools like that.
00:32:05
Speaker
So I also see kind of like the families where that's not there.
00:32:09
Speaker
They're not living the Danish dream.
Parental Involvement: Denmark vs. US
00:32:11
Speaker
But I also see my students, like they have this beautiful just expectation of, of course, my parent is going to be at the thing that they're invited to.
00:32:22
Speaker
Right.
00:32:23
Speaker
Of course, my parents can supply us with food for the breakfast, the communal breakfast that we're having, because that's just how it is.
00:32:31
Speaker
Like there's the safety and knowing that, of course, mom and dad or whoever is at home is going to show up and do the things.
00:32:40
Speaker
And I think about how many kids like don't have that safety in the U S. And so I think Danish kids are, you know, of course they take it for granted.
00:32:48
Speaker
I was just asking my own kids about just like, what are the big differences?
00:32:52
Speaker
And they were like, well, we're so much more free here.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I was like, what do you mean?
00:32:55
Speaker
And they're like, well, like it's cool recess.
00:32:58
Speaker
They have like a, a Creek that runs through their school and there's no teacher supervision.
00:33:03
Speaker
Like there's teachers somewhere, you know, around the school.
00:33:06
Speaker
I want to go play at the Creek.
00:33:07
Speaker
Oh, play in the Creek.
00:33:08
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, okay.
00:33:10
Speaker
Uh, and like, it's not a dangerous one.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's a little tiny one, but like, what if you fall in?
00:33:14
Speaker
Well, then you're going to sit in your wet clothes all day, you know, or like live and learn.
00:33:20
Speaker
We had, we had an ambulance at my school because a kid fell down.
00:33:23
Speaker
Right.
00:33:24
Speaker
And broke something on our incredibly like unsafe playground and equipment.
00:33:28
Speaker
And like, that's just how it is.
00:33:30
Speaker
So I also think that the way, um,
00:33:32
Speaker
Like I can feel it from an educator standpoint.
00:33:35
Speaker
It's also that I'm not afraid of getting sued all the time.
00:33:38
Speaker
You know, and like my students or my own kids were telling me that they're like, they don't lock the doors of our school mom, which to me is still wild.
00:33:45
Speaker
Like I walk into their school and I expect someone to be like, hello.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
Can I help you?
00:33:50
Speaker
And then they're like, hello.
00:33:52
Speaker
And you just keep on walking or they go like for recess.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah, there's a few teachers out.
00:33:57
Speaker
But like, you know, we had we just had snow a couple of weeks ago, which doesn't happen often in Denmark.
00:34:02
Speaker
And my principal came around and he's like, remember, tell the kids if they want to do a snowball fight, it's on the soccer field.
00:34:08
Speaker
And then if they're with the bigger kids, you know, they might get smacked really hard in the face with a snowball.
00:34:13
Speaker
And it's just like that idea of like,
00:34:16
Speaker
You get to be a kid in a lot more ways because society expects you to make smart decisions.
00:34:23
Speaker
But that, again, comes with a resource abundance and an energy abundance that I can look at my kids and be like, well, I trust you to make really great decisions.
00:34:34
Speaker
You have this freedom under responsibility, as we call it.
00:34:37
Speaker
And you're going to have to live up to that.
00:34:40
Speaker
And again, that comes from parents who are looking at their kid and going, you are also responsible for your decisions and have the time to have those conversations.
00:34:50
Speaker
So it's this whole system that's just so different than what we're used to in the U.S. I can leave my classroom for a few minutes and
00:35:00
Speaker
Like, that's fine.
00:35:01
Speaker
I can have some kids left back in the classroom.
00:35:05
Speaker
Like if a kid is having a bad day and he just needs to stand and draw.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:35:08
Speaker
You can stand draw.
00:35:09
Speaker
Like, just be smart about it.
00:35:10
Speaker
Right.
00:35:10
Speaker
Like, of course, I have like duty to know what they're doing.
00:35:14
Speaker
But like my own kids are too like, yeah, sometimes like our teachers show up like five minutes late and we're just sitting in the classroom because it's the kids' classroom, the teachers change.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:23
Speaker
And, and like, they're just like, that's so weird, mom.
00:35:26
Speaker
Like, you should see what the kids do.
00:35:27
Speaker
And I'm like, oh yeah, do they do stupid stuff?
00:35:29
Speaker
And they're like, oh yeah, so much stupid stuff in those five minutes.
00:35:32
Speaker
And then the adult walks in the room and then they're like, okay, we're, we're back.
00:35:36
Speaker
So just like little things like that.
00:35:38
Speaker
Right.
00:35:39
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:39
Speaker
What you like describing is like this mutually supportive kind of system.
00:35:44
Speaker
On the flip side of that in the United States, I feel like it's basically the inverse of that in the sense that there are so many needs and directions that people are pulled in and the unifying system is like precarity.
00:35:55
Speaker
You know, it's like the precariousness of our position.
00:35:58
Speaker
You know, teachers are constantly walking a tightrope, you know, in the sense of securing the
00:36:05
Speaker
kids outcomes, meeting all these different needs, wearing these hats.
00:36:09
Speaker
Kids have so much pressure piled on earlier and earlier and earlier, right?
00:36:12
Speaker
It's like we hear it all the time like in our work in the sense that, okay, in the lower elementary grades, they have to learn these things because they're preparing them for middle school.
00:36:22
Speaker
And then the middle school experience is geared around high school preparation, which is geared around college preparation, which is
00:36:29
Speaker
And it's just like constant college and career readiness because the results of failure are so high.
00:36:36
Speaker
The costs of failure means you get put into the lowest rungs of American society, which there is no safety net.
00:36:44
Speaker
You're going to end up unhoused.
00:36:47
Speaker
You're going to not have any medical care.
00:36:49
Speaker
You're going to die an earlier death because you have
00:36:52
Speaker
You don't have access to the basic needs.
00:36:54
Speaker
And it sounds maybe like kids entering into a Danish school system might just have their Maslow's hierarchy set a little bit, you know, their needs are met in a little bit more of a secure way that they can take productive risks and fail and turn around.
00:37:09
Speaker
And teachers feel that too.
00:37:11
Speaker
Am I getting that vibe correct?
00:37:12
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:13
Speaker
And I think even like...
00:37:15
Speaker
you know in america the pressure's on from 4k right like we got to get them in 4k we got to get them into preschool we got to get them letters numbers like they need to come into kindergarten already knowing their letter sounds so that we can learn reading right so the five-year-old like to get them in seats i had a principal that was like well you know unstructured play time that's really recess like and took it away from kindergarten and we were all like what are you doing
00:37:39
Speaker
In Denmark, you don't have that same
Early Childhood Education: Pressure and Practices
00:37:41
Speaker
pressure.
00:37:41
Speaker
Like, first of all, kids typically don't start school until they're six.
00:37:46
Speaker
So, you know, again, socialist daycare and preschool, right?
00:37:53
Speaker
Like you pay very little.
00:37:54
Speaker
It's fairly affordable.
00:37:56
Speaker
I know, again, our taxes go towards it so that you can have children.
00:37:59
Speaker
We also get money from the government to have children.
00:38:02
Speaker
So we get a certain stipend every quarter for how many kids we have.
00:38:07
Speaker
Again, taxes paid for.
00:38:09
Speaker
But so of course we want them to achieve and do well, but, and this is a little bit more school dependent, not so much Danish society, but like school dependent, like we want them to learn how to read and write, but we want to also meet them developmentally where they're at because we believe that every kid will get there in due time.
00:38:28
Speaker
And we have recognized as a system that the more pressure we place on the adults and the kids to achieve, the less success we have.
00:38:36
Speaker
And so instead, how do we create environments where kids feel like they can take risks, they can learn?
00:38:44
Speaker
Like my school has a huge focus on playful learning and really looking at how do we keep the human in all of this?
00:38:51
Speaker
We don't have grades until seventh grade, maybe.
00:38:57
Speaker
I don't even know.
00:38:59
Speaker
My kids, like one of my kids gets grades.
00:39:01
Speaker
That's it.
00:39:02
Speaker
I don't do report cards.
00:39:03
Speaker
Like I have once a year parent teacher conferences, of course, like I have communication, but it's really just like, is your child progressing according to their progression journey versus, you know, I'm not really sitting and comparing them to the others unless I'm really, really worried either because they have incredible needs that need to be met one way or the other.
00:39:26
Speaker
So I think that Danish kids also feel that and sometimes in a bad way, right?
00:39:31
Speaker
Like it gets a little bit too lackadaisical, but because school is meant for education,
00:39:39
Speaker
And it's not life or death in the same way.
00:39:43
Speaker
I also don't feel the pressure as an educator like I would in the United States.
00:39:47
Speaker
Because in the United States, I'm worrying, did this kid eat?
00:39:51
Speaker
And if not, how can I get our social worker to help the family out?
00:39:55
Speaker
Is this kid unhoused?
00:39:57
Speaker
Why are they showing up in dirty clothes?
00:40:00
Speaker
Or man, what's going on at home?
00:40:01
Speaker
I can't get a hold of anyone at home.
00:40:03
Speaker
Like,
00:40:04
Speaker
Or I can't even communicate with the family because they're working crazy hours or they speak a language that we don't have an interpreter for.
00:40:12
Speaker
we don't have a lot of that same stuff placed on schools.
00:40:15
Speaker
Like I was silly enough to say in a meeting, a girl who was in an unhoused situation at my school.
00:40:20
Speaker
And I was like, you know, if we can help like wash her winter coat or, you know, just like let us know because she was coming in really dirty.
00:40:27
Speaker
And one of my leaders afterwards was like, Oh no, no, no, Pernail, we don't do that here.
00:40:32
Speaker
Like that is not our job.
00:40:34
Speaker
Like if we are concerned about cleanliness, we pass that on to the municipality.
00:40:39
Speaker
And I was just like, wow, okay.
00:40:42
Speaker
Like that's not my concern.
00:40:45
Speaker
I can be concerned and I can alert people, but it's not my job to fix it.
00:40:50
Speaker
And so really when I'm sitting in my prep time, of course I'm thinking whole child and I'm thinking about the whole experience, but I'm also allowed to focus on the, on the, on the educational experience in a way that most of us are not afforded in the U S.
00:41:04
Speaker
where we're also juggling all these other balls of what's going on in the kids' life.
00:41:09
Speaker
And so I think Danish kids really benefit from that because they're like, yeah, school's cool.
00:41:14
Speaker
You know?
00:41:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:15
Speaker
School's cool.
00:41:16
Speaker
It just sounds like maybe there's room for more
00:41:18
Speaker
joy or spontaneity and that kind of thing.
00:41:23
Speaker
Whereas, you know, making room for joy and spontaneity and jokes, perhaps over here in the American system means that you're off task or you're wasting precious instructional time.
00:41:32
Speaker
Well, and I remember like, I wanted to show a movie to my students and we had to like lay out why, right?
00:41:37
Speaker
Like what's the educational purpose?
00:41:39
Speaker
And here are like,
00:41:40
Speaker
We're like, we're building community and they're like, sounds good.
00:41:43
Speaker
Like nobody even is going to come in and ask me.
00:41:46
Speaker
Right.
00:41:46
Speaker
Like we were having, oh, it was super hot in Denmark and we were like, we're all dying.
00:41:50
Speaker
Let's go out for ice cream.
00:41:52
Speaker
And we just left because you don't have field trip permission slips in Denmark.
00:41:56
Speaker
Like, like you just, you know, I think when you sign your kid up, you're like, yep, you can take my kid.
00:42:01
Speaker
And then it's kind of like, I think I just signed a like, hey, sometimes we have parents drive the kids.
00:42:06
Speaker
Is that okay?
00:42:06
Speaker
And you're like, yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
And then that's a blanket permission for the entire year or for the entire school career.
00:42:13
Speaker
And so like, we just take the kids, we take the kids on trains, we take them on buses, we take them on walks, like,
00:42:19
Speaker
And we don't run it by the principal.
00:42:22
Speaker
Like, we're like, this is what we're doing.
00:42:24
Speaker
Of course, if he came and asked, we would have a reason for it.
00:42:26
Speaker
I remember I was, I was home in my own hometown and I drove by my kid walking down the street and I'm with his class and I'm like, what are they doing?
00:42:35
Speaker
And I was like, did you have a field trip?
00:42:36
Speaker
And he's like, oh yeah, we went blah, blah, blah.
00:42:38
Speaker
And I was like, like, we didn't even, we weren't even told as parents.
00:42:42
Speaker
Like, it was just like, of course, like you're going to trust the teachers.
00:42:45
Speaker
And I think that's the other thing too.
00:42:47
Speaker
We're trusted in much bigger ways in Denmark to do our job.
00:42:50
Speaker
Now, not by everybody.
00:42:53
Speaker
And there are still teachers that get hung out on social media.
00:42:57
Speaker
But there's also a lot of people that will come in and be like, uh-uh, we don't do that here.
00:43:02
Speaker
We're not going to do public shaming.
00:43:03
Speaker
We're not going to do these things.
00:43:05
Speaker
Like, if you have a beef with a teacher, you take it up to the teacher.
00:43:08
Speaker
And so I feel like as a society, we can be overly policing, which we do sometimes.
00:43:13
Speaker
But I think also there's good parts of it of, like, this is not public decorum.
00:43:17
Speaker
This is not how we treat educators.
00:43:20
Speaker
We want our public school system to work and to function and to be a viable thing.
00:43:25
Speaker
We're proud of our public school system.
00:43:28
Speaker
And so how can we make it work?
00:43:29
Speaker
But you're going to find the same problems that you see in America, but just at a micro level instead of at like a systemic level.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:39
Speaker
It's one thing, you know, to say, okay, a lesson that American educators should learn is that we need to unlock the doors of the school and put kids in teachers' cards and take them on road trips, right?
00:43:51
Speaker
Like that would never, you know, that's just not a cultural, we're not there, you know.
00:43:58
Speaker
But I wonder, you know, is there, from your perspective, like lessons that
00:44:03
Speaker
The American system could not necessarily practices that teachers should do, but like what I guess is the takeaway?
00:44:09
Speaker
Like what's the lesson?
00:44:10
Speaker
Like how do you Danish translation?
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:13
Speaker
How do you get the hygge over in America?
00:44:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:16
Speaker
Well, I think it's twofold because one, I wish in Denmark, what we would get from America and we're getting there is a much larger focus on equity work and inequity.
Equity and Inclusivity in Danish Education
00:44:28
Speaker
I think Denmark is really far behind in the work.
00:44:31
Speaker
There's pockets of it happening, but like a focus on creating safe and inclusive environments for kids.
00:44:37
Speaker
We have a major xenophobia, racism, undercurrent in Denmark.
00:44:43
Speaker
Like it is absolutely massively present.
00:44:46
Speaker
And, and it's not even a thing.
00:44:48
Speaker
Like we don't even talk about it at school.
00:44:49
Speaker
Like there's no, like, let's talk about these things.
00:44:52
Speaker
So like, there's so much good that can happen from America that I'm hoping will kind of trickle this way.
00:44:58
Speaker
I think so.
00:44:59
Speaker
You mentioned in your intro of me something I had just shared on Blue Sky about, you know, the wild, radical idea that when I'm sick, I don't have to write sub plans because I'm sick, because our schools have the same subs all year on staff.
00:45:17
Speaker
They pay them well.
00:45:18
Speaker
And those subs are expected to know everything.
00:45:22
Speaker
what to do like they're expected to come with their own activities for the kids if we are sick because you're sick why should you have to write sub plans and i shared that like i just took a picture of that from blue sky and i shared it on instagram and it like it went viral which was weird because like my my stuff doesn't go viral like nobody knows who i am but it got like 10 000 likes and like all these comments right and i was like whoa this struck a chord yeah of course people were like this is the dream
00:45:50
Speaker
But where I ended up with it, because of course, there's like systemic changes that need to happen.
00:45:54
Speaker
Like a lot of us had COVID subs, right?
00:45:56
Speaker
Like we had like building subs that came in after COVID.
00:45:59
Speaker
And then of course, they saved those away, even though we were all like, this is amazing.
00:46:02
Speaker
Like we have, I'm not covering everybody's classrooms.
00:46:07
Speaker
But also this idea of I was raised to believe in the American system that me being sick meant that my entire curriculum house of cards would crumble.
00:46:22
Speaker
That if the ship didn't keep going, if the train didn't keep moving that day when I was sick, because my goodness, I could only allow myself one sick day, then it would completely derail the learning experiences for all children.
Rest and Well-being in Education
00:46:37
Speaker
And I now know that that's not the truth.
00:46:40
Speaker
That's a system that is set up to exploit us and who has taught us that it is not okay for us to deserve rest, that rest is radical.
00:46:50
Speaker
And so when I think about what American educators could get out of like me moving to Denmark and sharing about it is that
00:46:57
Speaker
Kids need a respite day too.
00:46:59
Speaker
And so if you can just give yourself the grace of saying, whenever I'm sick, here are the games they're going to play.
00:47:07
Speaker
Or here are the literacy stations that they're going to do.
00:47:10
Speaker
Or here's the movie they're going to watch.
00:47:12
Speaker
And that's my sub plan.
00:47:14
Speaker
I think that even that little act of change could provide so much relief.
00:47:21
Speaker
Because I think about my sick experience in America and how it was a part of my chronic stress.
00:47:29
Speaker
I went into preterm labor with my youngest.
00:47:34
Speaker
And while I was in the hospital getting kicked full of all this medication, trying to stop because she was still 11 weeks to go, my principal told me I had to write sub plans because he hadn't gotten around to get a maternity leave sub for me yet because he just hadn't had time to do so.
00:47:55
Speaker
So I was writing sub plans from my hospital bed.
00:48:00
Speaker
She ended up being born 10 weeks early.
00:48:04
Speaker
I went back to work two weeks later because he didn't have a sub for me.
00:48:08
Speaker
And I did half days in my classroom and then half days at the NICU watching my baby fight for her life.
00:48:17
Speaker
And I didn't realize at the time how inhumane that was because that was the system I was placed in.
00:48:25
Speaker
And I had this incredible pressure of like, well, you got to keep the ship going, even though your ship has completely derailed.
00:48:31
Speaker
And that felt normal.
00:48:33
Speaker
And so if I can be the voice of reason for anything, I've been saying it for a long time, right?
00:48:38
Speaker
It's like giving ourselves grace as educators.
00:48:40
Speaker
But I think it's also that like resting is not radical, that we are allowed to say, here's my sub plan and the kids are going to be okay.
00:48:49
Speaker
The ship is not going to fall.
00:48:51
Speaker
The pressure that we are under in America to constantly exploit every single minute of our education is not sustainable for us or for the children.
00:49:02
Speaker
It is not good for anyone.
00:49:04
Speaker
And admin cannot force you into thinking that.
00:49:08
Speaker
And so we do small rebellious acts.
00:49:10
Speaker
Like I wrote a post earlier in the year.
00:49:14
Speaker
That was about actual do nothing breaks because we've even been told and believe that students need brain breaks, but those brain breaks mean doing more.
00:49:24
Speaker
It means watching a video and mimicking movements, right?
00:49:27
Speaker
It means we're going to solve a mystery.
00:49:29
Speaker
We're going to do a dance.
00:49:30
Speaker
It has to be a productive brain break.
00:49:33
Speaker
Productive.
00:49:35
Speaker
And so I wrote this post where I was like, you know, do nothing can be seriously just sitting there.
00:49:41
Speaker
Or maybe you put out some paper and kids can choose to doodle, or maybe it's just that they're sitting and talking.
00:49:46
Speaker
And so I think like what we can steal from the Danish system is just the chance to slow down, the chance to see the humanity in each other and do these little rebellious acts of like, no, our brain break is actually just sitting and hanging out for five minutes because that's going to do more for us in the long run than me turning on a go noodle video.
00:50:10
Speaker
And so, yeah, there's, you know, I never wanted someone was like, are you going to write like a how to teach like a
Inspiration for American Education
00:50:19
Speaker
Danish teacher?
00:50:19
Speaker
And I was like, no, I'm not ever because this is such a system that is set up to totally differently.
00:50:27
Speaker
But I can certainly give you ideas for how you can steal some of the things that I just get to do.
00:50:34
Speaker
And that has allowed me to restore my own humanity and really allowed me to restore humanity.
00:50:39
Speaker
my own person again.
00:50:42
Speaker
I get to be Pernille first, teacher second.
00:50:46
Speaker
And I didn't get to do that in America because that's not the system.
00:50:50
Speaker
You know, that's not to the benefit of the system.
00:50:52
Speaker
I mean, how many of us are told that what we do is the most important job that we can do?
00:50:59
Speaker
And that, you know, everything relies on us.
00:51:01
Speaker
You know, that's how they keep us underpaid because it's for the children.
00:51:04
Speaker
That's how they get us to work extra hours because it's for the children.
00:51:08
Speaker
And we know that if we stick to contract hours, it's not going to be as good.
00:51:13
Speaker
You know, that if we don't start shelling out
00:51:16
Speaker
you know, thousands of dollars of our own money, then our kids may not have the supplies they need.
00:51:20
Speaker
And that's not going to fly in Denmark, right?
00:51:22
Speaker
Like that's not it because that's not your job.
00:51:24
Speaker
Your job is not to save these children.
00:51:26
Speaker
Your job is to be a part of the, of the experience that they have in order for them to get a future, but you're not saving them.
00:51:35
Speaker
It's such an awesome systemic reframing right there.
00:51:38
Speaker
I mean, teachers as superheroes to save them, save kids from what?
00:51:42
Speaker
The system that sucks and has failed them in the first place, right?
00:51:45
Speaker
So you, as the K through whatever teacher, are there to rescue them from a system that has impoverished, you know, has failed them, has, you know,
00:51:56
Speaker
done all these things too.
00:51:58
Speaker
And in the Danish context, your job is to teach kids because they're wrapped up in a system of supports that can ensure their success.
Conclusion: Gratitude and Reflections
00:52:06
Speaker
Even if, you know, they spend five minutes one day staring out the window, thinking, daydreaming, being kids, drawing, playing in the Creek, honoring childhood.
00:52:17
Speaker
Right.
00:52:19
Speaker
That's, I think that's such an exceptional thing to end on, Pernille.
00:52:23
Speaker
I'm so grateful for your time today.
00:52:25
Speaker
Thank you so much for chatting with me.
00:52:26
Speaker
Thank you.
00:52:29
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
00:52:33
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change.
00:52:36
Speaker
If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
00:52:41
Speaker
Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free on our website, humanrestorationproject.org.
00:52:47
Speaker
Thank you.