Naive fair-weather school!

The children have now been attending the half-Danish school for three weeks.

And they seem to fit in as if they had never been anywhere else. This situation both reassures and makes parents suspicious. One wonders: Is this really school or a very well-organised educational simulation?

Because the reports from the classroom are... let's say: irritating.

The scandal with break time

Child 2 reports indignantly:

‘The teachers don't even forbid us from going outside when it's snowing or raining.’

Pause. Dramatic effect.

‘In Germany, the schoolyard would be closed immediately.’

Instead – let that sink in for a moment – sledges were handed out here.

Sledges.

And then comes the really disturbing part:
‘They just trust us not to mess around.’

Brief self-correction:
‘Well... sometimes we do mess around. But not too badly. And only the boys.’

So the educational risk-taking is considerable.

Personal responsibility – that dangerous concept

Child 1 adds in a calm tone:

‘We do a lot on our own responsibility. There isn't that much supervision.’

You wait inwardly for the second sentence. Something like: That's why everything goes wrong, of course.

Instead, what comes is:
‘But actually, it works quite well.’

Actually.

A word that rarely appears in the German educational context. There, the phrase is usually:
‘It actually works quite well if everything is precisely regulated in advance.’

Here, it seems that the aim is to test whether children can function without constant guidance.

A bold thesis.

Education without pressure – is that possible?

We know it can be different.
No pressure, no performance. No clear instructions, no results. After all, the same applies in the office. Why should it be any different for ten to thirteen-year-olds?

All this fair-weather pedagogy. Trust, dialogue, personal responsibility.

That can't work.

Or can it?

The incident

Recently, a class was apparently not particularly nice to a teacher.

So what happened?

Was there a big telling-off in front of the whole class?
Were there punishments, reprimands, mark deductions, educational thunder?

No.

Another teacher joined in.
And then they talked.

Apparently, they discussed it until the matter was resolved.

This all sounds suspiciously like conflict resolution rather than a demonstration of power. An educational approach that is still considered experimental in some parts of the world.

The car park of the future

In the morning before school, there is a scene that takes some getting used to.

The schoolyard is a car park.

But not for cars.

It is full of cargo bikes. Lots of cargo bikes. Lots and lots of cargo bikes.
It feels like 60 per cent of the children arrive this way. Another 20 per cent come on their own bikes. Ten per cent walk. Perhaps ten percent come by car.

That's roughly how it is, anyway.

There is a certain logic to this: younger children are apparently less likely to ride alone through the morning city traffic. Which is quite lively, especially at school time, when half of Copenhagen is out and about on their bikes.

So you bring the children by bike. In a bigger bike.

It seems surprisingly normal.

School with surprises

Even in class, not everything seems to be set in stone.

Time and again, topics come up that don't seem to fit into a strictly timed curriculum. Projects. Special topics. Things that happen spontaneously.

Perhaps there is a very structured plan in the background. Maybe it just doesn't look like a spreadsheet.

We'll keep an eye on that.

First side effects

In any case, after three weeks, the effects are already apparent.

The children enjoy going to school.
They move around the city more independently.
They cook occasionally.
They seem... more confident.

Of course, the German part of the parent's brain immediately says: That can't possibly be seriously measurable after three weeks.

But the impression is there.

Tonight, the children are cooking for us.

A practical field test, then. We will see whether the cooking lessons – possibly with vegetable portions that seem slightly left-wing from a German perspective – prove themselves in practice.

If the meal is a success, we may have to consider an uncomfortable hypothesis:

That trust, responsibility and a few sledges in the snow may not be such a bad educational approach after all.