Rachel-Marie Sinco

Surprise! I finally made it to Copenhagen, Denmark! I arrived last Saturday and have been quarantining for the past four days at the hotel right next to the airport. But, I got tested today and once my results come back, I can break my quarantine! Unfortunately, I arrived during the last week of the semester so I’ve now finished all of my classes online. But, I have also chosen to stay for the first summer session that DIS has offered to us for no additional cost to make up for the lost time during the spring semester. That means I will be here for another month or so and will finally be able to explore everything that I have learned in my online classes. To wrap up my spring semester with a study abroad program online, I thought I would share some reflections on my experience.

As we all may know, having all your classes online can super draining and it’s easy to feel disengaged and unmotivated. For me, this was especially true due to the 9-hour time difference from my home in the west coast to Copenhagen time. The DIS faculty did their best to accommodate the different time zones that students were in, but for me that still meant having class at 05:30 or 07:00 everyday. At the same time, I had to be mindful of due dates and other meetings outside of class. It was so exhausting to be unable to live and work according to my own timezone. Despite these struggles, I felt I was able to somehow pull through with the support of the friends I had made in some of my classes. It was new experience for me to get to know my professors and make friends through Zoom classes, but it was one of the only ways to feel connected despite being virtual. I am so grateful to those I was able to connect with and I am so excited to meet up with them for the first time in the next couple of days!

In regards to my classes themselves, I felt that I learned a lot from my child development and education class and children with special needs class. Both of these classes are directly related to what I hope to pursue as a future career in psychology and education and taking them gave me some reassurance in choosing this career path. At the same time, as course in a study abroad program, I gained rich insights into educational practices and different perspectives regarding child development and children in general found in Denmark. As evident in my past blog posts, there are several cultural differences regarding social services provided to families, pedagogical practices, and each society and culture’s value systems. Recognizing these differences and engaging in critical analyses of each has allowed me to see the advantages and disadvantages of certain aspects within both U.S and Danish contexts. There are definitely many elements of Danish pedagogical practice that I think the U.S would benefit from implementing in ways that will fit our context and needs, including providing children with more opportunities to learn through play and first-hand experiences. I hope I will be able to take what I have learned in my classes, and soon from my own experiences in Denmark, and apply them to my work at Colby and in future career!

As I reflect back on this semester, with only a few weeks left until the end (unbelievable, I know!), I have noticed an underlying theme within all of the topics we have read about and discussed in my core course for child development and education. Throughout Danish pedagogical practice, it is clear that there is a strong emphasis on values of independence, autonomy, and self-efficacy as children are encouraged to develop these qualities as a part of their own character at the earliest age possible. This also goes hand-in-hand with a prominent belief that children should learn about democracy and learn how to become democratic citizens by experiencing it for themselves. Daycares and schools try to create democratic environments for children to promote their development into democratic beings with the appropriate values and skills.

For example, as discussed in my last post, Danish children are provided with opportunities for free play everyday where they get to decide how they spend their time and with whom they want to play with, which often occurs without adult supervision or interference. In fact, providing children with the opportunity for free play is a majority of daycares’ goal and priority as a way to create the best environments and experiences for them. As a result, children can explore their own interests and learn a variety of skills and competences that are most relevant to their own lives, including skills of communication and problem solving among peers as conflicts may arise during play.

Another area where values of independence, self-efficacy, and democracy in Danish pedagogical practice are clear is an emphasis on ensuring that the voices and perspectives of each individual child is heard and understood. In fact, Danish child care tradition believes it is children’s right to be heard and given influence over their everyday lives. It is even included in Danish law where daycare institutions are required to do an annual intake of children’s opinions and perspectives regarding their experiences at daycare to inform developments of daily practices and environments. I think this is another major difference between daycare practices in Denmark versus those in the U.S where we don’t really ask children for their input and feedback on how daycares or schools are performing and how we might improve experiences for them.

Examples of free play and a focus on children’s rights and voices illustrates Danish child care institutions’ child-centered approaches. Each child’s well-being and holistic development is prioritized and used to structure the services provided to them. I admire this approach where the child care system and institutions are centered around the needs and wants of its primary stakeholders (the children and their families) who are also included in the process. It ensures that the institutions are, in fact, serving the children, which should be its main function. Overall, I feel that the U.S can learn from this aspect of Danish pedagogical practice where children are valued as individual beings with their own valuable voices and experiences that can offer a new perspective.

We’re now just about halfway through the semester and the amount of time we had hoped to spend in Denmark continues to dwindle. My Danish professor still seems as hopeful as ever and I’m grateful for her efforts to keep us hopeful as well. She provides us with updates each week about what the Danish government is saying and doing with the latest news that they will announce a plan for the country’s reopening before the 23rd of March. Of course an ideal situation would be being able to travel to Denmark as soon as possible and spending whatever time I can to explore and learn more about the country and its culture, but at the same time, I have also come to terms with the fact that I might not be able to go at all.

Though at first it was difficult to even imagine not being able to have the full experience of a semester abroad, reflecting back on this first half of the semester has made me appreciative of the experiences, knowledge, and connections I still have been able to gain. All of my courses are related to my plans of a career in education and working with young children, and the topics and concepts we have explored and discussed so far will definitely stick with me moving forward. I have also met some amazing people who are just as passionate about working with children as I am which has led to rich discussions of important dilemmas and concepts within child care and education. Because the number of students enrolled in DIS Copenhagen this semester is rather low, my class sizes are especially small and I have several classes with some of the same people which has allowed us to build more personal connections and communities. For instance, I am taking a course called Children with Special Needs in which there are only three students, including my self, and our professor. We meet as a class on Tuesdays, but us students also meet on Mondays without our professor to work together on assignments and to socialize. I feel that we have become closer as the weeks go by and we even talk of planning our own trip to Denmark together in the next year if we are unable to go this semester. These friendships and connections have been a source of comfort throughout it all, which is what I have learned Danes value most – comfort, coziness, and a feeling of contentment or well-being encapsulate in the term hygge.

We have talked a lot about the concept of hygge in my Danish class as it describes a certain quality of sociality that Danes strive for within every aspect of social life. Danish homes, cafés, restaurants, daycares, and schools aim to create cozy and welcoming environments for individuals to experience comfort and joy. When I’m in class I can see some characteristics of hygge in the background of my professors’ screens where there are books lined up on bookshelves that are built into the walls, dim lamps or lit candles that radiate a soft and warm light, and a simple layout of furniture. As we continue to spend more time at home I have also tried to make my home a place of comfort and coziness. In the kitchen, we have fairy lights that surround the stovetop and we usually turn on the lamps with soft lighting instead of the bright, white lights overhead. My room is decorated with calm, neutral colors and we maintain a warm temperature inside. Though a year has already passed since the pandemic forced us inside, I find it fascinating that I am still finding new ways to cope with this new situation of living, with the Danish concept of hygge as the latest find.