Danish school system

Today, after my classes were done and I'd been home for a little while, I hopped on the bus and met up with Sabina to eat at a pizza place near her school and then attend a presentation in which her choir was performing.

The presentation was for students who are in their final year of what Sabina calls "ground school" and are trying to figure out which Gymnasium to attend. Sabina goes to a really cool gymnasium. It was built quite recently and is quite probably one of the coolest buildings I've ever been inside of. The website is here.

It was fun to have a tour of her school building and learn about what the Danish school system is like. They basically have to choose, at the age of 16 or so, what they want to study in the gymnasium. I guess it makes some sense, and there are tracks available that cover a lot of different material (one at Sabina's school, for example, included Social Studies, math, and English), but it seems like a lot of pressure for a teenager! Maybe I just can't imagine doing it myself when I was that age, and besides, I'm used to the liberal-arts college model. Even though I have a major declared, I could have a semester which included Economics, Environmental Studies, Dance, and an HMCS class if I wanted to, and no one would think it terribly strange. Maybe that's what startles me. They do have some electives, but it seems so different to have to choose the path you want to go down at that age. Sabina said they are allowed to change tracks in their first half year (she actually switched from a music-focused track to an English/Social Studies track), but then they have to follow their track. I mean, what if you did the Math-Physics-Chemistry track and then in your second year took Drama as an elective and found out you loved it and wanted to do that with your life? I'm sure there are ways of getting around these things, but it's still such a foreign concept to me. It was really fun to learn about it though. One really cool thing was that a number of their tracks include media studies or philosophy or other topics we usually don't get to explore academically until we're in college!

Also, we ran into one of her teachers (I think?) and I introduced myself in Danish and the teacher complimented me! It was very nice. I also saw a sign that said "at spise og drikke" which some may recognize as part of the Norwegian table prayer. I didn't actually know what it meant, but I asked Sabina and she said it means to eat and drink, which makes sense and I think I knew that at one point. But it was fun to see how closely the languages are related, especially since just today in Danish, my teacher was talking about how when the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish royalty all get together, they are all able to speak in their own language and understand each other. She did mention that people from Jutland would probably have a hard time understanding Swedes since Jutlanders are used to German accents, and that she herself has a hard time understanding Ny Norsk, but the way the royals speak, the languages are mutually intelligible. It's pretty awesome!