discovering the (creative) child in you...

On Monday afternoon we visited the Hoptrup efterskole, a private boarding school in a village near Haderslev. The school accommodates round about 80 pupils aged 15 and 16. They usually stay there for one year in the 9th or 10th grade. The main focus is on theatre, dance and music. These are also the topics the pupils can chose from for their afternoon classes.
We had a nice guided tour by two of the pupils and I think all of us liked the atmosphere and the possibilities the pupils have to arrange their free time.

After the tour we joined the English class. The lesson started with a role play in which the pupils should act out various situations in pairs(arguments, shopping tours etc.) they had made up before. Tim and me joined the "acting crew" and it was a lot of fun, especially because most pupils were not shy at all to perform in front of the class (well, it' s a school with an aesthetic profile, so...). Then the class was split up into three groups and we discussed with them. They had many questions, for example why we wanted to become teachers, what our impressions of Denmark were and so on. It was a nice discussion because they were not afraid to speak and seemed to be very interested. The last part of the lesson was a summary of the previous teaching unit. The topic had been South Africa and the pupils were asked to design a mindmap and present their results to the whole class. It was again quite impressive to see the pupils use the English language naturally.

Well, the next part of our observation day contained the dance lessons. I was a bit afraid that we would also have to participate in these lessons (well, not exactly "have to", but you know, when you are asked politely...) but we didn't have to, phew! The first hour we joined the class more oriented towards techniques and the accurate performance of movements. The second hour we spent with the more creative class. The pupils had to listen to music and make up their own performances according to more or less strict orders. We left the school at five in the afternoon and went back to Haderslev. It was a very nice and impressive afternoon and I could easily imagine to do my practice at that school, but it's still too soon to make a decision about this because some more school visits are to come soon.