May 6 in Copenhagen

For pictures, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/dpmorstad/02InCopenhagen#

All our hotels include breakfast, and Scandanavian breakfasts are great. Mostly European crusty breads with fine cheeses, cold cuts, cereals, yogurt, juices & fruit.

We spent the morning at Radmandsgade Skolen, a public school serving a very economically depressed region of Copenhagen. About 25% of the sudents are ethnic Danes, with the rest being immigrant refugees from thirty-five countries speaking 45 languages. Arabic, Palestinian, Turkish and Somali are the most common.

Olav Nielsen, a principal from a similar school in Odense, Denmark has joined us. He and Lise Egholm, the Radmandsgade principal spent over an hour describing challenges they face integrating the students and their families into Danish (western) culture. Everything from recognizing the need to raise your voice back to parents from some cultures to garner their respect to using parent meetings with skits of children's misbehaviors to make parents aware of their own needs if they want to become more effective parents. This is way toned down - ask one of our Cobber students about this when we return. In fact it is ironic I felt the need to tone this down because Lise talked about how Scandinavians are so compelled to always be "nice" that we expect others to understand what we mean when we are to nice to say what we are thinking. Many cultures are more direct, and such "niceness" driven subtlety can be a huge barrier to communication and understanding

Lise's straightforward appraisal of her students and the cultural/religious differences that impact their integration into Danish society was much appresciated by our students. They were very impressed that she new almost all her students' names, interacted so freely with her students on the playground, and had so many creative ways of facing problems head on. She is recognized by the Danish Parliment as an authority on immigration and schooling, and is well known for being an advocate for educating immigrant children. Very high energy, very gifted principal

Olav used the example of riots and car burnings in Paris a few years ago to explain that if people do not feel their life has some value (through jobs or social status), they will find that value somewhere. Many disaffected youth find it in the machissmo of "Gansta Rap" and assimilate those values to define themselves and find identity. He tied this in to Frued's theories, the western culture ideal of individual choice, and Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning

Our students had an incredible crash course in geoglobal politics, philosophy, educational psychology, and pedagogical theory of multi-cultural education. They also had a great time joining the kids out on the playground during recess. A very informative and enjoyable school visit

In the afternoon we took a boat tour of Copenhagen Harbor, toured the re-modelled portion of the Royal Palace, walked around Nyhaven, and did some othe siteseeing.

Tomorrow we'll spend most of the day at Elsingor Castle on the northeast tip of this part of Denmark.