First Danish school trip

As school is winding down towards the summer break, school trips are the thing this week.

On her first day Anna was told there are two (free) school trips this week - one today to learn kayaking in the sea half an hour away and another to an animal thing on Friday - a farming auction or similar - I'm not fully sure yet but will no doubt work it out once she's been.

First odd thing from a compare-with-home perspective - Anna had missed the consent and info handed out in previous weeks, so she came home with a hand-written note from the teacher with her personal mobile number on it asking us to call her. When Thomas rang, she told us that a bunch of parents had volunteered to drive all the kids to the coast and drop them there with the teacher and instructors to save hiring a bus. Anna was told to go with the mother of the girl she'd befriended on day one.

On arrival at the coast she had a 2 hour kayaking session in the shallow sea and when it came lunch time the teacher invited her class back to her place for afternoon cake and 'hygge' in her garden! The class's Maths teacher who is currently on maternity leave with a 2 month old son also turned up for coffee and to show off her baby to the class and they all hung about in the teacher's paddling pool eating before the parents went back to collect them and drop them back at school around 4pm!

There are so many things on this list that would never happen back home. Going anywhere without a consent form, let alone kayaking on the sea, having parents drive anyone anywhere for an in-school activity, a free(!!!!) school trip, having a teacher give you her personal mobile number, going home to a teacher's house, eating without a consent form, paddling pools without a consent form... this is just mind-blowing. I feel simultaneously that I have stepped back to a time before even my own childhood and I have advanced forward to a point in time where the hysteria of modern parenting has subsided to a point where we can all breathe more deeply, once again.

This is all so very alien to us still but quite welcoming so far.

(Adapted from a post published on Phylsblog.com on 12/6/19)