Danish Schools | Foreigners React to Education in Denmark vs USA and UK

🎧 Listen to Adrian on our podcast What Are You Doing in Denmark here: linktr.ee/robetrotting And catch Annie on the podcast soon ❤

I'm a big fan of Folkeskolen's Law of Purpose § 1, especially part 3: Folkeskolen must prepare students for participation, co-responsibility, rights and duties in a society with freedom and democracy. The school's work must therefore be characterized by freedom of spirit, equality and democracy.

As a Dane that moved to the US I was blown away at how early US kids start reading and doing homework. That being said, while Danish kids are allowed to be kids for longer and start school much later they seem to catch up fast and by junior high there is no difference in academic achievement.

A teacher who has Danish as his or her native language may have a very good level of English and may consider themselves to be fluent. However English would still be a second language. They may have a large vocabulary but they may not have the level of English nor vocabulary to discuss educational issues, particularly to a professional standard. In these circumstances it' seems rather churlish to expect the teacher to discuss your child's education in English rather than their native Danish in Denmark where the child's education is conducted in Danish. If a parent's level of Danish means that they cannot converse adequately in Danish, it would be preferable to use a professional translator until such time as the parent has improved their language skills.

You are so lucky that so many people are willing to speak your mothertounge with you. It seems a tiny bit entitlet. I know that parent-school meetings are difficult . But your child visits a danish school, it your duty to learn the language, which is spoken there. You are supposed to help with homework. No, it is not easy, but there is only one way to learn - try! Sorry, my english is not that good. I am danish and live in german and french speaking region.

You are in denmark. So you should really learn Danish ;-) We spend several hours a week, for many years, learning English

My mother was born and raised in the US. All her kids though were born and raised in the Nordic countries. My dad was Danish. Our home language was English. We lived in Sweden until I was ten then we moved to a Danish speaking area. In Sweden I spoke Swedish with my dad then that gradually changed to Danish. Today, I’m a native speaker of all three languages. At one point my mother seriously considered moving to the US with all of us. I’m am sooo grateful today that she decided not to do it and that her kids now live, and live well in one of the Nordic countries.

🇬🇧🇩🇰 Thank you all for the interesting aspects of Denmark and Danish info you're posting. I am a half Dane with a Danish mother & English father. My mother didn't actively teach us Danish & my siblings didn't pick up, nor were they interested, in any Danish. But I was completely different, listening avidly to all the Danish I could get - to my mother on the long phone conversations, when we had Danes for meals or coffee and Danish radio. I also went to Denmark on my own at 7yrs old (!! this was over 64 yrs ago) to have my tonsils out. For 3 weeks I stayed with a rich aunt and her maids, gardeners & farm workers who talked only Danish to me which set me up with good pronounciation and lots of words. But I have been hindered ever since by not knowing enough of grammar & sentence construction to talk or read easily. Until I decided 3 years ago to learn seriously with Duolingo online. Since then, I have enjoyed the leaps & bounds, connecting all the bits together. I can now watch films like "Badehotellet" almost without subtitles. It feels wonderful after living outside the Danish language door for so long🤗

Dual language children often have more difficulties with reading/speaking in the early years, but they will catch up and have the advantages of speaking several æanguages later on.

The level of English language skills needed for a teacher to do meeting with the parents in English and conveying sensitive topics in a constructive and firm way is quite high. Counting in the fact that many of the teachers teaching right now might only have had 6-9 years of English education 20-30 years ago. It is quite a big ask. Even though most Danes are relatively good at conversational English with related vocabulary is a different thing. The hole education of folkeskole teachers is thought in Danish so their English vocabulary in child psychology and teaching methods is understandably limited.

As a dane living in Sweden since 47 years, I have kids with a woman from Åland (they speak swedish). I spoke danish with the kids from day one. The mother peak swedish to them and together we spoke swedish. Our oldest kid spoke danish with me and swedish with his mother from early age. The youngest spoke only swedish, but understood danish. When he was about 13 years old he just decided to start speak danish with me. He learned it very fast. Now they are both grown ups. Speak danish with me, swedish with each other when I am not around, and swedish with their mother. Swedish is sure their first language, but they are confident in danish. Not just as fluently bilingual as I am, but close. An extra language is a light burden to carry.

should have had a Danish teacher there to talk more about the system aswell. so you could have talked more indebt with the differences. and why they do it this way in Denmark.

Thanks so much for having us on! What a treat!

I just it feels and looks a bit more than entitled when, in middle of the vid, the two foreigners voluntarily moving to and living in Denmark sorta complaining how hard and inconvenient it is when Danish teachers in Danish school in Denmark are a bit lets say pushy or less than enthusiastic about parent of one of the kids theyre responsible for and with whom they have to communicate with on almost daily basis isnt speaking Danish and that those teachers should automatically switch to different language for your convenience to accommodate you. Like English is modern lingua franca and Denmark is one of most English friendly cultures and countries but like you made decision to live in foreign country and you made decision to have kids in foreign country so what did you expect, like if we have 2023 as was mentioned would they expect teachers to speak Danish with you if you moved to capital city of Western country like London or Washington?  I dont think its those foreigners who are meeting the surprising resistance or the teachers who should put their egos aside and do whats best for kids to paraphrase one of the guests.

I really like these video formats you have been doing, they are really great 😃 have watched some of your videos during the last year or so, and the way you are developing your channel is really cool! 🙌 thanks for these awesome videos 😃

Starting school at age 7 is actually rather late by Danish standards, as most children in the børnehaveklasse (grade 0) are 5 or 6.

Its fun how kids feels about a language. I used to live in London and was working as a pedagogue for a danish child. Both his parents was danish and we all spoke Danish around him. I took him to playgroups and of cause he had English friends and when he turned 2,5 years old he started preschool. He wouldn’t speak English to the kids or the teachers and I actually had to stay with him for several month before he was ready to speak English. There was another danish child in this preschool and she was so happy that I understood her because she did not speak english as her parents had just made the move from DK to the UK and the teachers had such a hard time understand her. So I helped for a few month with both the children. But the bottom line was this boy I was working with, even though he grew up with Danish language around him I spoke danish, his parents spoke Danish he got such a thick accent when speaking danish. His English is absolutely brilliant even though it’s a quite flat British you cant really hear where his from ( up north the have a certain accent and if your from London you can easily hear that) but not with this kid. His danish is a real struggle for him and it’s always been difficult to understand his danish even as a 2-3 year old boy that refused to speak english.

Hear hear Adrian: You are definitely not the only one puzzled by the immense parent involvement. Being a native Dane attending school in the eighties, and now father of 3 kids, I have witnessed this undesirable development. It wasn’t like that back then, and it is too much now.

Dane here. The mother of my kids is from southern Germany and when we started dating, she did not speak Danish. (I spoke and speak German), I asked her to learn the language - also because we would be together with the Danish family and friends often. So, we ended up speaking our mother tongue. She would speak German to me - and I would answer her in Danish. When the kids came, they would speak German to their mother and Danish to me. (We lived in Germany). If the spoke German to me, I would not react - they would have to say it in Danish. They both became fluent in both languages and are adult now. And they are happy, that we did it this way.

i live in the us and have cousins that live in denmark, ranging from the ages of 8 years to 10 months. they moved to denmark 2 years ago from the us, and they speak english. the 8 year old goes to a charter school for american kids that speak english and he learns danish there. i think the 6 year old is going to a regular danish school, the 4 year old just started school, and the 10 month olds are in daycare. everyone except the twins ride their bikes to school, its crazy that they aren’t supervised by their parents there, and this isn’t copenhagen or a big city, it’s in the outskirts of billund. i went to denmark to visit them in june-july this year, and it was amazing to be there.