Transcript
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.
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.
Speaker: And I was losing hope and I could feel it every day.
Speaker: that it took more and more energy to simply exist in the space of America.
Speaker: And that I was becoming this incredibly cynical, heartbroken version of myself that didn't have the energy to fight back anymore.
Speaker: But we needed to recognize what was normal again, because our normal had gotten so skewed.
Speaker: And what we lived with stress-wise is not the way to live.
Speaker: I am thrilled to be joined today by Perniel Ribb, a passionate educator, author, and literacy advocate.
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.
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.
Speaker: And she's
Speaker: For all of our benefit, Pernille is also a prolific sharer.
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.
Speaker: And she frequently posts about her experience in the Danish education system.
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.
Speaker: And by most measures, Danes are among the happiest in the world, despite having among the highest tax rates.
Speaker: Healthcare and pre-K college education is free.
Speaker: Hygge conjures cozy seasonal vibes.
Speaker: Did I get it?
Speaker: Did I get that right?
Speaker: Oh, I tried.
Speaker: I even looked up a pronunciation guide for it.
Speaker: Okay.
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.
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.
Speaker: However, as a PDF, the list of school shootings in the United States since 2000 is 169 pages long with footnotes.
Speaker: Regular listeners of this show will know just how immediately all this grabbed my attention.
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.
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.
Speaker: So thank you so much for joining me today, Pernille.
Speaker: What an introduction.
Speaker: I mean, you brought things forth that I hadn't even considered.
Speaker: So thank you so much.
Speaker: I'm so excited for this conversation.
Speaker: Let's just talk about your background, the nature of your student-focused work, your passions and expertise as a teacher.
Speaker: Where do you hang your hat and how do you see yourself as an educator, Pernille?
Speaker: I see myself as someone who shares loudly as I fail continuously.
Speaker: And I think it's such a wonderful thing to be able to share our failures and our successes and our small ideas.
Speaker: And it's an approach I've taken since 2010, the year I was going to quit being a teacher.
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.
Speaker: Instead of quitting, my husband, who was very pragmatic, told me that I could change the way I teach.
Speaker: You know, you can't teach, you can't change the children, but you can change the way you teach.
Speaker: And for me, that was really what parted the skies.
Speaker: But I also was never meant to be an educator.
Speaker: I grew up in a family of educators.
Speaker: You know, my mom, my stepdad, my grandma, my aunt, like everybody was a teacher.
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.
Speaker: And my mom couldn't tell me, wait to tell me when I then graduated as a teacher.
Speaker: But this calling of working with kids was always there.
Speaker: I thought maybe first I was going to be a daycare worker and then it was a social worker.
Speaker: And then it was always something around children.
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?
Speaker: And I was like, I don't know, maybe go back to school.
Speaker: And he was like, that sounds good.
Speaker: Like, yeah, go back to school.
Speaker: And and when that kind of popped back into my head after I had dropped out from college prior, I
Speaker: It was like, well, now what?
Speaker: And that dream of coming back and working with kids was something that really spoke to me.
Speaker: And so as so many of us, you know, we end up in places that we didn't quite expect.
Speaker: I certainly didn't expect to leave Denmark when I was 18 to move to Wisconsin.
Speaker: My mom was a cultural ambassador for Denmark, um,
Speaker: at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was kind of like, well, we're moving.
Speaker: And I was like, okay, I guess I'm moving with because you graduate in Denmark at 18.
Speaker: And she was like, well, come for a year.
Speaker: And if you don't like it, I'll pay your ticket back.
Speaker: But as the story often goes, I met a guy.
Speaker: But that guy, thank God, introduced me to a much better guy.
Speaker: And he ended up being my husband and
Speaker: And so I ended up in America, not realizing that that's where I was going to be for 24 years.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was kind of like this, like, oh, I'm going to go to America.
Speaker: I don't know what to do with myself.
Speaker: And then life just happened as it does.
Speaker: And all of a sudden you're looking around, you're going,
Speaker: well, is this where I'm going to be?
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.
Speaker: And so I got to teach in Wisconsin among incredible colleagues who I miss very,
Speaker: in schools that were public schools, but also had leadership that wasn't afraid to try new things.
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.
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.
Speaker: And I was good at saying, can I pilot?
Speaker: You know, that's always how I do stuff.
Speaker: Like, can I pilot?
Speaker: Not doing grades.
Speaker: And they're like, well, you do have to do report cards, but, you know, maybe change the conversation.
Speaker: And I loved it.
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.
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.
Speaker: And he looked at me one night, bless his heart, and he was like, have you thought about writing?
Speaker: You really like writing.
Speaker: And I was like, no.
Speaker: And he was like, you know, there's this blog, like people are blogging, I'm reading blogs.
Speaker: And I was like, that sounds fun.
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.
Speaker: And I was like, well, I'm a fourth grade teacher.
Speaker: So it was like blogging through the fourth dimension.
Speaker: Like, woo, you know, like, yeah.
Speaker: And I wrote a post and it was the typical, like, I'm going to write about stuff that I do.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like it was, it was, they were like, I can't wait to read.
Speaker: what you're going to write.
Speaker: And I was like, what is this now?
Speaker: And so 2010 for me was this like awakening of, okay, I totally have to throw out the way I teach.
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.
Speaker: And I have a place to like share my thoughts and publicly fail in order to grow.
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,
Speaker: you know, generationally given teacher books and they were fabulous, but I couldn't be those teachers.
Speaker: Like I felt like I was constantly failing and that my students weren't good enough.
Speaker: They weren't good enough at sitting still.
Speaker: They weren't good enough at paying attention.
Speaker: They weren't good enough at doing grades.
Speaker: And I realized that I had this really twisted view of what good teaching was.
Speaker: And it was also because that's what people were sharing.
Speaker: And so it was like all this perfection that
Speaker: Oh, today I had the best lesson.
Speaker: And then I would like go and do that lesson and it sucked.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or it was just mediocre.
Speaker: Like it wasn't perfect.
Speaker: It wasn't great.
Speaker: It doesn't feel good.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: And the like, these are the things I struggle with.
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.
Speaker: Like, it's so hard because you just want to be like, go move your clip.
Speaker: But here's how you can do it.
Speaker: And here's how you can make it more humane.
Speaker: And so I just shared and that 2010 is when the global relapse started.
Speaker: Cause that was just like crazy idea I had as well and didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, and, and I think, so for me, like being a teacher, um,
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.
Speaker: And then I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to learn from it.
Speaker: And so I got, I got to be a fourth, fourth grade teacher and a fifth grade teacher.
Speaker: And then I took the jump to seventh grade.
Speaker: And these incredible middle schoolers who terrified me beyond belief and who like pushed me harder than any age group ever.
Speaker: And yet who also loved so hard, right?
Speaker: Like when they love you, you are like the best.
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.
Speaker: I just got one from a kid who was like, hey, I'm going to be a special education teacher.
Speaker: And I just wanted you to know, I know you would be proud of me.
Speaker: And I cried on my couch because I was like, yes.
Speaker: And I loved it.
Speaker: And I cried.
Speaker: And it was so hard.
Speaker: And after, I think it was, I don't even know, seven or eight or nine years.
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.
Speaker: That I needed to move my family home.
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.
Speaker: And that I was becoming this incredibly like cynical, heartbroken,
Speaker: version of myself that didn't have the energy to fight back anymore.
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.
Speaker: My kids were sideswept by the news, right?
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.
Speaker: Like, what is this?
Speaker: My family's still in the U S for the most part, but we need it.
Speaker: we needed to recognize what was normal again, because our normal had gotten so skewed.
Speaker: And what we lived with stress-wise was
Speaker: was not like is not the way to live.
Speaker: And so we moved.
Speaker: And so now I'm a second grade teacher in Denmark.
Speaker: Once again, teaching a grade level, I never thought I would teach and loving it.
Speaker: Like it's kids are the best.
Speaker: And once again, I'm under this leadership that looks at me and goes, yeah, you can try that.
Speaker: That sounds good.
Speaker: Like, let us know how it works.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's just like, I feel so fortunate that I get to continue this rambly path of experimentational teaching and sharing.
Speaker: And now in a totally different place with a totally bunch of different kids and I'm learning right alongside them.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: There's my rambling biography.
Speaker: We got the whole story from age 18 through the present day.
Speaker: So that's it.
Speaker: I'll hit stop on the recording.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: No, there's so much to unpack there.
Speaker: I just, I think your approach both to the sharing and also the approach to like classroom learning is one of honesty.
Speaker: And frankly, like that,
Speaker: That is so much more of an honest way to portray.
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?
Speaker: Like we're like we're programming a computer or something.
Speaker: And I think.
Speaker: good teachers understand that that's not how being in a room full of children operates, you know?
Speaker: And so it creates guilt because then teachers internalize like, oh, I'm just not doing something right.
Speaker: Or it creates resentment against children because we expect them to be something that they're not, you know, in that moment.
Speaker: And maybe that they just can't be because the context of teaching and
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like like the way that childhood is and how kids work.
Speaker: is not something that I can fix, but I can change my own perspective.
Speaker: What I'm so curious to backtrack to that part of the conversation.
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.
Speaker: It was fundamentally life altering.
Speaker: And I don't say that lightly because it was so hard.
Speaker: I was so used to being in control of everything.
Speaker: I mean, I was the person that had the list on the desks of which supplies should be in their little supply cup.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like, because I felt like if I gave them that structure and that routine, everything else would be so much easier.
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.
Speaker: And yet knowing that it still killed me to let go and sit back.
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.
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.
Speaker: Well, I'm the adult and things are this way.
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.
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.
Speaker: And so I almost like forgot who I was and I've had to like bring that back into the classroom.
Speaker: It wasn't easy and I still screw up and I still have to kind of push myself.
Speaker: But the one thing that I kept coming back to was asking the kids what they needed.
Speaker: and what they wanted and dreaming with the kids.
Speaker: And I think that that's always been the step into this work is simply just bringing kids' voices into the conversation.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be anything big.
Speaker: It can literally be, how do you want to work with this material?
Speaker: And my second graders can do that.
Speaker: And they could in first grade too.
Speaker: Can I sit over here?
Speaker: Can I work with this person?
Speaker: Can we use markers?
Speaker: You know, I mean,
Speaker: they are given a playground of choices in order to make better choices.
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.
Speaker: And yet as teachers, out of the best intentions ever,
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?
Speaker: For the adult, not for the children.
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.
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
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.
Speaker: So it continues to be hard.
Speaker: And it's why I wrote Passionate Learners.
Speaker: And I just did a new edition.
Speaker: And I never really talk about my books much.
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.
Speaker: And I needed to also put that into the work, right, of like,
Speaker: So when you have these kind of like student freedom centered views, what does that look like?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: And where do you screw up?
Speaker: And then how do you give yourself grace and create a sustainable system?
Speaker: Because that's the thing, too.
Speaker: This isn't a self-sacrifice in order for the students to achieve.
Speaker: It's to create and co-create a space that's sustainable for everybody.
Speaker: And that feels exciting and dynamic.
Speaker: So it's a beast.
Speaker: It's absolutely a beast.
Speaker: And it continues to be, but it's not a beast in that it's a lot of work.
Speaker: It's more that you have to keep your own feet to the fire and go, this is worth it.
Speaker: But to do that, you have to have energy.
Speaker: And one of the biggest resources that's being depleted out of American education is the energy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We're exhausted beyond belief.
Speaker: I didn't realize that I was living with chronic stress until I stood on a train platform in Denmark.
Speaker: My first day of work going, I can breathe.
Speaker: Literally, it was such a wild recognition of just how stressed we had been.
Speaker: So that like I had to leave the country, right?
Speaker: And sell all my belongings and stand on a train platform and go, oh my gosh, why do I feel lighter?
Speaker: Because the chronic stress is gone.
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.
Speaker: Like I know how much energy that takes.
Speaker: And it is just remarkable how people keep showing up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, for the future.
Speaker: Oh, that's such a great point.
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.
Speaker: If anything, I think it strengthens it because it promotes a more, I don't know, relational, right?
Speaker: Kids begin to understand what the role of adults is in this space from a more, I don't know, holistic level.
Speaker: But kids in...
Speaker: you know, K through 12 are going to be in the lowest stakes, highest support environment they're ever going to be in.
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.
Speaker: And, you know, again, the systemic,
Speaker: I think the systemic incentives and the systemic pressure prevents kids from doing that.
Speaker: And I think the systemic pressure prevents the adults from doing that too.
Speaker: So, you know, to the point about teacher stress, it's like that trickles downhill, doesn't it?
Speaker: The system is stressed with precarity and inequality and administrators are stressed because they need to see these outcomes and results.
Speaker: And that trickles down to teachers who don't want to get in trouble.
Speaker: And that trickles down to kids who are
Speaker: you know, constantly like this.
Speaker: And then we look at stress levels and anxiety for young people.
Speaker: And then we look at burnout rates and stress and anxiety for adults.
Speaker: And you realize like, oh my God, the same stressors are systemically are burning out kids and adults alike.
Speaker: And I think
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.
Speaker: I just need to be able to, you had said, be humane, be humanizing in an otherwise dehumanizing environment.
Speaker: We're all swimming in the same water, right?
Speaker: How can I be?
Speaker: the perennial in this situation and recognize, God, this isn't working for me and it's not working for kids.
Speaker: And I'm super curious then to maybe unpack this with you.
Speaker: Like, what were those things when you stepped off that train platform in Denmark that you felt like, I feel lighter because
Speaker: because like, what, what did you feel was lifted in that moment?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: I mean, so, so many things.
Speaker: I mean, of course there's the big life things that aren't even education related, right?
Speaker: Like we're not one health crisis away from going bankrupt.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like my husband pointed that out one day when I was really missing America and going, did we make a mistake?
Speaker: I missed my, he was like, for Neil, like we had steady jobs, we have savings.
Speaker: Those would be wiped out.
Speaker: Or looking at my kids, right?
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.
Speaker: So really my taxes are going to my kids' college.
Speaker: They're going to my college.
Speaker: I can go back and get like a degree.
Speaker: I can go get a master's degree.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: I'm allowed.
Speaker: I'm allowed to have disasters happen in my life without everything falling.
Speaker: That was huge.
Speaker: But I also think just the incredible emphasis that Denmark has on the work-life balance.
Speaker: I mean, I worked for an incredible boss.
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.
Speaker: It's just how it is.
Speaker: It's awful.
Speaker: I try to tell people that and they're like, really?
Speaker: I'm like, oh, yes.
Speaker: Yes, very much so.
Speaker: But...
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.
Speaker: And I was like, okay.
Speaker: And he goes, for example, if you're on Slack at 7 a.m.
Speaker: in the morning, I don't want to see you on Slack at 4 p.m.
Speaker: because you've already worked your hours.
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.
Speaker: Or when I got sick and they were like, well, of course you're going to stay home.
Speaker: It was all of these little things that allowed me, again, to just be a human being.
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.
Speaker: They have four class periods, and they don't want longer days than that, especially for the young kids, because they're exhausted.
Speaker: That means that as a teacher, I have two and a half hours of prep every single day.
Speaker: Sure, we have meetings once in a while, but I can create really engaging educational experiences for my students within my work hours.
Speaker: I also think about how, I mean, there's just so many things.
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.
Speaker: From 8 to 215.
Speaker: And it means that they have a life outside of school.
Speaker: They go to activities.
Speaker: And that's the other thing, too.
Speaker: Activities for children are really, really cheap here.
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.
Speaker: And it's free.
Speaker: It's free for kids between 12 and 18.
Speaker: And so kids just...
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
Speaker: freer and lighter and also fundamentally no one here is going to take my rights away from me.
Speaker: I'm the mother of a genderqueer child and it's within the LGBTQ community.
Speaker: I am not afraid for their life here.
Speaker: And that to me is irreplaceable.
Speaker: I don't have any politicians who are trying to take away my rights as a female.
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.
Speaker: He's like, so who are the parties like on the right?
Speaker: And who are the ones on the left?
Speaker: And I was like, no, that's not how it works in numbers.
Speaker: And he was like, okay, so who are they like anti-abortion?
Speaker: And I was like, no one.
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.
Speaker: And he was like, oh, okay.
Speaker: He's like, well, what are they campaigning on?
Speaker: And I was like, well, immigration, because that's everywhere, right?
Speaker: And I was like, but other than that, it's like, it's little nuances.
Speaker: Like how green do they want to go?
Speaker: What about sexism?
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.
Speaker: It's fabulous.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: As an Iowan, right?
Speaker: Like, I feel this in my bones.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And he was like, they're all drinking.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, yeah, because there's so many political parties, they have to work together.
Speaker: No party can be a majority.
Speaker: And he was just like, this is the wildest thing ever.
Speaker: So I think just like recognizing that my kids are safe.
Speaker: My kids are secure.
Speaker: And I'm also in a society that for the most part allows me to be a parent first and a worker second.
Speaker: It's huge.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think about the extracurriculars.
Speaker: That's a huge... My kids are just slightly younger than yours.
Speaker: I got a nine and a six-year-old.
Speaker: And thinking individually, just in terms of, again, cost, you nailed it, right?
Speaker: Cost, logistics, scheduling, all these things.
Speaker: I live in a small town where we're driving all over the place to do these things.
Speaker: And they do come at a cost.
Speaker: And I think...
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.
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.
Speaker: And how...
Speaker: A lot of people just don't have access to those because there are so many barriers in place.
Speaker: Not to mention the other huge systemic structural things like healthcare that you had mentioned as well.
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.
Speaker: I guess a question that I have then is how do you see...
Speaker: that those systemic structural supports, right?
Speaker: Like kids in Denmark are coming in with a level of support and, um,
Speaker: social security, socioeconomic security, perhaps that most or many kids in the United States simply don't have?
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?
Speaker: I mean, in many ways, and of course, like there is food insecurity in Denmark as well, right?
Speaker: There are kids that are living in poverty, like it's not a perfect system, but it's
Speaker: There's a lot of things in place that make it a better system.
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.
Speaker: I am not, as their educator, as their teacher, I'm not expected to also be their social worker, their guidance counselor.
Speaker: I'm not expected to feed them.
Speaker: I am not expected to do all of this.
Speaker: And that has been a very huge part of the Danish educational system.
Speaker: We are there to give them the path forward.
Speaker: academically in conjunction with the parents.
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.
Speaker: Because otherwise the partnership doesn't work.
Speaker: So I live in a society where parents can demand that they are off to go to their child's school.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like that's you can't say no to that.
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.
Speaker: Your job is guaranteed.
Speaker: There's, of course, always people that work the system and whatever.
Speaker: But like there's there's some big things in place.
Speaker: And when you start taking your child to to pre or to to daycare,
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.
Speaker: So I think just that means that we have kids.
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.
Speaker: Not every family.
Speaker: I work at a school that has a lot of pressure placed on it for a variety of reasons.
Speaker: And kids come from a lot of different backgrounds, like many of us do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Many of us work at schools like that.
Speaker: So I also see kind of like the families where that's not there.
Speaker: They're not living the Danish dream.
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.
Speaker: Right.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: I was just asking my own kids about just like, what are the big differences?
Speaker: And they were like, well, we're so much more free here.
Speaker: And I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker: And they're like, well, like it's cool recess.
Speaker: They have like a, a Creek that runs through their school and there's no teacher supervision.
Speaker: Like there's teachers somewhere, you know, around the school.
Speaker: I want to go play at the Creek.
Speaker: Oh, play in the Creek.
Speaker: And I was like, Oh, okay.
Speaker: Uh, and like, it's not a dangerous one.
Speaker: It's a little tiny one, but like, what if you fall in?
Speaker: Well, then you're going to sit in your wet clothes all day, you know, or like live and learn.
Speaker: We had, we had an ambulance at my school because a kid fell down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And broke something on our incredibly like unsafe playground and equipment.
Speaker: And like, that's just how it is.
Speaker: So I also think that the way, um,
Speaker: Like I can feel it from an educator standpoint.
Speaker: It's also that I'm not afraid of getting sued all the time.
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.
Speaker: Like I walk into their school and I expect someone to be like, hello.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can I help you?
Speaker: And then they're like, hello.
Speaker: And you just keep on walking or they go like for recess.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a few teachers out.
Speaker: But like, you know, we had we just had snow a couple of weeks ago, which doesn't happen often in Denmark.
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.
Speaker: And then if they're with the bigger kids, you know, they might get smacked really hard in the face with a snowball.
Speaker: And it's just like that idea of like,
Speaker: You get to be a kid in a lot more ways because society expects you to make smart decisions.
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.
Speaker: You have this freedom under responsibility, as we call it.
Speaker: And you're going to have to live up to that.
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.
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
Speaker: Like, that's fine.
Speaker: I can have some kids left back in the classroom.
Speaker: Like if a kid is having a bad day and he just needs to stand and draw.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You can stand draw.
Speaker: Like, just be smart about it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, of course, I have like duty to know what they're doing.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and like, they're just like, that's so weird, mom.
Speaker: Like, you should see what the kids do.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh yeah, do they do stupid stuff?
Speaker: And they're like, oh yeah, so much stupid stuff in those five minutes.
Speaker: And then the adult walks in the room and then they're like, okay, we're, we're back.
Speaker: So just like little things like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What you like describing is like this mutually supportive kind of system.
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.
Speaker: You know, it's like the precariousness of our position.
Speaker: You know, teachers are constantly walking a tightrope, you know, in the sense of securing the
Speaker: kids outcomes, meeting all these different needs, wearing these hats.
Speaker: Kids have so much pressure piled on earlier and earlier and earlier, right?
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.
Speaker: And then the middle school experience is geared around high school preparation, which is geared around college preparation, which is
Speaker: And it's just like constant college and career readiness because the results of failure are so high.
Speaker: The costs of failure means you get put into the lowest rungs of American society, which there is no safety net.
Speaker: You're going to end up unhoused.
Speaker: You're going to not have any medical care.
Speaker: You're going to die an earlier death because you have
Speaker: You don't have access to the basic needs.
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.
Speaker: And teachers feel that too.
Speaker: Am I getting that vibe correct?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I think even like...
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
Speaker: In Denmark, you don't have that same pressure.
Speaker: Like, first of all, kids typically don't start school until they're six.
Speaker: So, you know, again, socialist daycare and preschool, right?
Speaker: Like you pay very little.
Speaker: It's fairly affordable.
Speaker: I know, again, our taxes go towards it so that you can have children.
Speaker: We also get money from the government to have children.
Speaker: So we get a certain stipend every quarter for how many kids we have.
Speaker: Again, taxes paid for.
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.
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.
Speaker: And so instead, how do we create environments where kids feel like they can take risks, they can learn?
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?
Speaker: We don't have grades until seventh grade, maybe.
Speaker: I don't even know.
Speaker: My kids, like one of my kids gets grades.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I don't do report cards.
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.
Speaker: So I think that Danish kids also feel that and sometimes in a bad way, right?
Speaker: Like it gets a little bit too lackadaisical, but because school is meant for education,
Speaker: And it's not life or death in the same way.
Speaker: I also don't feel the pressure as an educator like I would in the United States.
Speaker: Because in the United States, I'm worrying, did this kid eat?
Speaker: And if not, how can I get our social worker to help the family out?
Speaker: Is this kid unhoused?
Speaker: Why are they showing up in dirty clothes?
Speaker: Or man, what's going on at home?
Speaker: I can't get a hold of anyone at home.
Speaker: Like,
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.
Speaker: we don't have a lot of that same stuff placed on schools.
Speaker: Like I was silly enough to say in a meeting, a girl who was in an unhoused situation at my school.
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.
Speaker: And one of my leaders afterwards was like, Oh no, no, no, Pernail, we don't do that here.
Speaker: Like that is not our job.
Speaker: Like if we are concerned about cleanliness, we pass that on to the municipality.
Speaker: And I was just like, wow, okay.
Speaker: Like that's not my concern.
Speaker: I can be concerned and I can alert people, but it's not my job to fix it.
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.
Speaker: where we're also juggling all these other balls of what's going on in the kids' life.
Speaker: And so I think Danish kids really benefit from that because they're like, yeah, school's cool.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: School's cool.
Speaker: It just sounds like maybe there's room for more
Speaker: joy or spontaneity and that kind of thing.
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.
Speaker: Well, and I remember like, I wanted to show a movie to my students and we had to like lay out why, right?
Speaker: Like what's the educational purpose?
Speaker: And here are like,
Speaker: We're like, we're building community and they're like, sounds good.
Speaker: Like nobody even is going to come in and ask me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like we were having, oh, it was super hot in Denmark and we were like, we're all dying.
Speaker: Let's go out for ice cream.
Speaker: And we just left because you don't have field trip permission slips in Denmark.
Speaker: Like, like you just, you know, I think when you sign your kid up, you're like, yep, you can take my kid.
Speaker: And then it's kind of like, I think I just signed a like, hey, sometimes we have parents drive the kids.
Speaker: Is that okay?
Speaker: And you're like, yeah.
Speaker: And then that's a blanket permission for the entire year or for the entire school career.
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,
Speaker: And we don't run it by the principal.
Speaker: Like, we're like, this is what we're doing.
Speaker: Of course, if he came and asked, we would have a reason for it.
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?
Speaker: And I was like, did you have a field trip?
Speaker: And he's like, oh yeah, we went blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I was like, like, we didn't even, we weren't even told as parents.
Speaker: Like, it was just like, of course, like you're going to trust the teachers.
Speaker: And I think that's the other thing too.
Speaker: We're trusted in much bigger ways in Denmark to do our job.
Speaker: Now, not by everybody.
Speaker: And there are still teachers that get hung out on social media.
Speaker: But there's also a lot of people that will come in and be like, uh-uh, we don't do that here.
Speaker: We're not going to do public shaming.
Speaker: We're not going to do these things.
Speaker: Like, if you have a beef with a teacher, you take it up to the teacher.
Speaker: And so I feel like as a society, we can be overly policing, which we do sometimes.
Speaker: But I think also there's good parts of it of, like, this is not public decorum.
Speaker: This is not how we treat educators.
Speaker: We want our public school system to work and to function and to be a viable thing.
Speaker: We're proud of our public school system.
Speaker: And so how can we make it work?
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
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?
Speaker: Like that would never, you know, that's just not a cultural, we're not there, you know.
Speaker: But I wonder, you know, is there, from your perspective, like lessons that
Speaker: The American system could not necessarily practices that teachers should do, but like what I guess is the takeaway?
Speaker: Like what's the lesson?
Speaker: Like how do you Danish translation?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How do you get the hygge over in America?
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: I think Denmark is really far behind in the work.
Speaker: There's pockets of it happening, but like a focus on creating safe and inclusive environments for kids.
Speaker: We have a major xenophobia, racism, undercurrent in Denmark.
Speaker: Like it is absolutely massively present.
Speaker: And, and it's not even a thing.
Speaker: Like we don't even talk about it at school.
Speaker: Like there's no, like, let's talk about these things.
Speaker: So like, there's so much good that can happen from America that I'm hoping will kind of trickle this way.
Speaker: I think so.
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.
Speaker: They pay them well.
Speaker: And those subs are expected to know everything.
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
Speaker: But where I ended up with it, because of course, there's like systemic changes that need to happen.
Speaker: Like a lot of us had COVID subs, right?
Speaker: Like we had like building subs that came in after COVID.
Speaker: And then of course, they saved those away, even though we were all like, this is amazing.
Speaker: Like we have, I'm not covering everybody's classrooms.
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.
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.
Speaker: And I now know that that's not the truth.
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.
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
Speaker: Kids need a respite day too.
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.
Speaker: Or here are the literacy stations that they're going to do.
Speaker: Or here's the movie they're going to watch.
Speaker: And that's my sub plan.
Speaker: I think that even that little act of change could provide so much relief.
Speaker: Because I think about my sick experience in America and how it was a part of my chronic stress.
Speaker: I went into preterm labor with my youngest.
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.
Speaker: So I was writing sub plans from my hospital bed.
Speaker: She ended up being born 10 weeks early.
Speaker: I went back to work two weeks later because he didn't have a sub for me.
Speaker: And I did half days in my classroom and then half days at the NICU watching my baby fight for her life.
Speaker: And I didn't realize at the time how inhumane that was because that was the system I was placed in.
Speaker: And I had this incredible pressure of like, well, you got to keep the ship going, even though your ship has completely derailed.
Speaker: And that felt normal.
Speaker: And so if I can be the voice of reason for anything, I've been saying it for a long time, right?
Speaker: It's like giving ourselves grace as educators.
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.
Speaker: The ship is not going to fall.
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.
Speaker: It is not good for anyone.
Speaker: And admin cannot force you into thinking that.
Speaker: And so we do small rebellious acts.
Speaker: Like I wrote a post earlier in the year.
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.
Speaker: It means watching a video and mimicking movements, right?
Speaker: It means we're going to solve a mystery.
Speaker: We're going to do a dance.
Speaker: It has to be a productive brain break.
Speaker: Productive.
Speaker: And so I wrote this post where I was like, you know, do nothing can be seriously just sitting there.
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.
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.
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 Danish teacher?
Speaker: And I was like, no, I'm not ever because this is such a system that is set up to totally differently.
Speaker: But I can certainly give you ideas for how you can steal some of the things that I just get to do.
Speaker: And that has allowed me to restore my own humanity and really allowed me to restore humanity.
Speaker: my own person again.
Speaker: I get to be Pernille first, teacher second.
Speaker: And I didn't get to do that in America because that's not the system.
Speaker: You know, that's not to the benefit of the system.
Speaker: I mean, how many of us are told that what we do is the most important job that we can do?
Speaker: And that, you know, everything relies on us.
Speaker: You know, that's how they keep us underpaid because it's for the children.
Speaker: That's how they get us to work extra hours because it's for the children.
Speaker: And we know that if we stick to contract hours, it's not going to be as good.
Speaker: You know, that if we don't start shelling out
Speaker: you know, thousands of dollars of our own money, then our kids may not have the supplies they need.
Speaker: And that's not going to fly in Denmark, right?
Speaker: Like that's not it because that's not your job.
Speaker: Your job is not to save these children.
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.
Speaker: It's such an awesome systemic reframing right there.
Speaker: I mean, teachers as superheroes to save them, save kids from what?
Speaker: The system that sucks and has failed them in the first place, right?
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,
Speaker: done all these things too.
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.
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.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's, I think that's such an exceptional thing to end on, Pernille.
Speaker: I'm so grateful for your time today.
Speaker: Thank you so much for chatting with me.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thank you again for listening to our podcast at Human Restoration Project.
Speaker: I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to start making change.
Speaker: If you enjoyed listening, please consider leaving us a review on your favorite podcast player.
Speaker: Plus, find a whole host of free resources, writings, and other podcasts all for free on our website, humanrestorationproject.org.
Speaker: Thank you.
