A group of IB students recently returned from a visit to Nørre Gymnasium, a high school in Copenhagen, Denmark, following a trip by the school’s students to visit Marshall.
Nørre Gymnasium, which is also an IB program school, sent 30 students in March; 13 Marshall students, 12 of which were hosts, went to the school from September 27 to October 6.
On the return trip, students experienced a different learning environment, spending a day at Nørre Gymnasium attending classes.
“The entire school system is just a lot freer and relaxed. The whole college application process that we stress about over here doesn’t exist in Denmark,” senior Thomas Beddow said.
“The entire way the school is structured… [is] similar to us as to how a college would work,” IB coordinator Carlota Shewchuk, who planned the trip, said. “[Teachers] are supposed to teach a certain number of modules a week, what we would call a block, but if there is a conflict of some kind… the teacher has the responsibility to change or postpone the class.”
Groups of students from both schools made films together in which Statesmen answered questions about American culture.
“The Danish students would just ask us questions related to cultural differences and they would film us answering these questions,” Beddow said. “Each group went to several attractions in Copenhagen to film. It was really fun just exploring the city.”
After presenting the films at a potluck dinner on Thursday the 3rd, groups went to the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen, and nearby cities Roskilde, Denmark, and Malmö, Sweden.
“There is a Viking ship museum [in Roskilde], and… in the fjord by the town, five Viking ships were found that were more than a thousand years old,” Shewchuk said. “That town also houses a cathedral that is a UNESCO world heritage site”
Until last year, Statesmen never had an opportunity to be a part of a school exchange program.
“This is the first time Marshall has had an exchange like this,” Shewchuk said.
In March, Nørre Gymasium’s s spent the week working on a documentary about American life and visiting museums in Washington, D.C.
“I think we [spent] almost every day with our [hosts]. But the few times we weren’t we were [at] museums or working on our film projects…We had to make a documentary about American life and how it is to live in… the states,” Nørre Gymnasium student Patricia Van Overeem said.
According to Shewchuk, the idea for an exchange came about when Marshall principal Jay Pearson met Nørre Gymnasium principal Jens Boe Nielsen, at an IB heads of school conference.
The program’s biggest goal is “to offer Marshall students a chance to really get to know a culture in depth and … to return the favor, to be a guest where they were once a host,” Shewchuk said.
Regarding his exchange student’s experience in America, Beddow said, “[my exchange student] was saying that there were a lot more people than he was used to at his school in Denmark, and also he was kind of shocked at how big everything was… the school, he thought, was big, but also, when we went [to] downtown [Washington, D.C.], he was shocked at how big everything was, even houses around here.”
“We hope to continue the relationship with the school,” Shewchuk said, regarding future exchanges. “I’m open to working with other schools too.”