Posted in Journey entries on Jan 12th, 2009 No Comments »
What is a LARP?
A LARP is Live Action Role-Play. Larps can be based on history, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic theory, real-life, or fantasy. They might have a lot of magic or none at all. A larp is not just a recreation of an historical event, (although re-enactments have their place in larping), but instead it relies heavily [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Jan 2nd, 2009 No Comments »
Christmas Day photo of Hélène and me (far right) with my daughter (far left), and Hélène’s son and daughter.
We spent the holidays in Provence (SE France) visiting my penpal Hélène and her family. She and I have been corresponding since we were 13 years old! While we were there, we went through her boxes of [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Dec 21st, 2008 No Comments »
Interestingly enough, there was a high school student protest going on, but unfortunately I only caught the tail end of the TV news report, so will have to research the issues. France is known for its protests and strikes.
When we first arrived in France from the UK, we had to rearrange our route to Paris [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Dec 13th, 2008 No Comments »
I tried to contact eight different schools around the UK, but unfortunately, December is not a good time to visit these schools. They were having end-of-term exams, preparing for the holidays, or in the case of one school, having an inspection.
Instead, I have the opportunity to talk with a few people in the hostels, and [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Dec 12th, 2008 No Comments »
Unlike other schools that were recommended to me by the ministries of education—often the highest achieving schools—the school I visited in Oss, Netherlands, tests at the average level in statewide testing. They were very welcoming and accommodating to us, and we appreciated the invitation to visit their school.
The Netherlands has three different systems that [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Dec 1st, 2008 No Comments »
Buckingham Palace
My daughter and I are now in London. We had very nice visits to schools in Northern Germany and The Netherlands; I’m just finishing up my blogs for them (http://dqjourney.edublog.org). The people were very hospitable and welcoming. We are still trying to make connections with the schools in the UK. It’s a busy time [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Nov 29th, 2008 No Comments »
Outside a preschool in Rostock; the former Eastern Germany has a very strong government-funded preschool system.
I was fortunate to be able to visit with the sister and nephew of a friend in Port Townsend. She’s been in Germany since 1992 and her son was born there, in Rostock. She is a university senior lecturer [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Nov 26th, 2008 No Comments »
Estonia is wired. Every park, café, restaurant, hotel has free wifi connections. The state government sees the value of technology in the schools and there are SmartBoards and document projectors connected to the teacher computers in many of the classrooms.
The school I visited is not a typical Estonian school, but the state determines the curriculum [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Nov 26th, 2008 No Comments »
Finnish Education: a contrast to expectations
There were several things I was expecting to see in Finland, and found quite the opposite in some cases. To begin with, I had expected a largely monocultural country, but found a great deal of diversity, especially in the city and in the suburb we visited to the east of [...]
Posted in Journey entries on Nov 15th, 2008 No Comments »
Braedstrup Folkeskole, grades 0-9
Braedstrup is a government-run school and follows the national curriculum. Even so, they have opportunities for students to pursue interests and are able to be flexible when visitors come, opportunities appear, or crises happen. There are three buildings for Braedstrup: the “little” building where the children in grades 0-2 have [...]
