Short Study Tour

As I had mentioned in my first post, I will be doing some traveling with my teacher and classmates from my core course - Memory and Identity. We left early Thursday morning for a three day trip to Western Denmark.  Our first stop was a folkehøgskole in Ry.  

Main lawn at the folk high school.  

After settling in to our rooms, we met with the headmaster of the school and he explained to us a brief background about Folkehøgskoles.  Folkehøgskoles or in english, folk high schools, are unique to Denmark.  The goal of folk high schools is to give people education through personal development and "enlightenment".  There are no tests, grades, or curriculums, so students gain a sense of achievement through their own accomplishments and by meeting goals they set for themselves.  Each school tends to have its own focus, whether that be art, music, writing, or sports.  There is not really liberal arts education in Denmark, so students tend to take time off to figure out what they want to do before attending college, and that is where folk high schools come in to play.  The students we met were staying at that particular folk high school for 5 months.  Some were taking time off before college, some had gone to college but realized it was not for the career they wanted, and some had already graduated, but were trying to figure out what they wanted to do.  The headmaster said "This is a time when you can be useless and feel great about it." When we all met in the dining room, they handed out song books and we sang the Beatles song "With a Little Help From My Friends".  I thought it was histerical that we were sitting around like hippies singing songs together, but the headmaster explained that singing is an important part of folk high schools in order to bond together in fun activities. He told us that everything that students do there is something they want to be doing, and they should never participate in anything that they don't want to be doing. 

View from the hill.

We were given a short tour of the grounds and then had lunch there, which was actually delicious!  Way better than what you would ever expect school food to taste like.  After lunch there were 4 activities being offered that day.  The choices were African drumming, walk and talk, a sound workshop, and creative writing.  I chose to do the walk and talk, and they paired each American student up with one of the folk high school students to talk with.  Throughout the hike we switched partners, so I had the opportunity to speak with 4 different students and understand why they had chosen to come to the folk high school and what their plans were for when they were done there (as well as not so serious topics like what our favorite movies are, where we have traveled, and what the best beer in Denmark is).  The hike took us to the top of a hill which overlooked the largest lake in Denmark (which was not that large, but beautiful nonetheless.)  When we returned to the school there were rolls with butter and preserves as well as tea and coffee out for us, and we had an hour or so before dinner to do whatever we wanted.  A few kids from my class stayed in the dining room to talk.  We then had dinner which was even better than lunch and had so many different options to choose from.  After dinner they set up a slip and slide on the hill going down to the lake, and people wore garbage bags to go down it.  It was raining out and pretty cold, so I give a lot of credit to the kids who participated!  The rest of the night was free so we then went to their "cafe" which is where they hang out and can drink, play pool/cards, dance or whatever. 
The next morning we had breakfast at the school, which was once again really good.  We went to their morning meeting after breakfast and then got on the bus to go to our next stop which was an open prison. We were brought into the main front building which was extremely modern, clean and new.  They had out cookies, tea and coffee for us while the Deputy Warden spoke with us about what happens in an open prison.  Basically the only right that is taken away is their freedom.  Each prisoner has their own room with a computer and a TV, they go to work or school each day, cook their own meals in the communal kitchen (with knives!) and can hangout, play pool, or watch TV in the evenings.  At 10PM their doors lock, so if they need to use the bathroom they must ring a buzzer to have a guard let them out, but other than that they live fairly normally.  The prison system in Denmark has more of a focus on  normalizing the prisoner's lives and helping them go back into the real world, as opposed to punishing them for what they have done.  We learned that in all of Denmark there were 50 murders the entire year (whereas that probably happens within one week in New York City), and that 95% of the murders were between husband and wife.  The deputy warden joked "If you come to Denmark you have a good chance of not getting shot randomly in the street, just don't get married!" 
The people who are in open prisons are those who have been sentenced for under 5 years, some staying for as little as one week.  We then had the opportunity to meet with one of the prisoners who had been convicted of VAT fraud.  He said that if he were in the US he would be serving 30-40 years in a high security prison and that he would be a completely different person after leaving.  He was "scared shitless" upon arriving to the prision because he didn't know what to expect and had never been around criminals before, but he still tends to keep to himself and is just focusing on educating himself and preparing to return to the workforce.  He said that he was very thankful that Denmark wants to help the prisoners become normal members of society again instead of focusing on being punished for what he has done.  We were also given the chance to ask a few questions, and I asked if they thought that people may take advantage of the system because the quality of life is fairly decent and there are many resources available to the prisoners after leaving.  I don't think they fully understood my question, however, because the answer they gave wasn't really what I was looking for.  We were given a tour of one of the living areas, and then left for lunch at a cute bed and breakfast type place.  

Everyone else was touching
the Jelling stones, so I took a
picture imitating them.

Afterwards we headed to Jelling (pronounced "yelling") to see the Jelling Stones, which are large stones with carved inscriptions on them dating back to the 10th century.  It is also the first place that Denmark was regarded as a nation.  After seeing the stones and touring the museum we headed to our hostel in Kolding (pronounced "cooling").  I went into the town of Kolding with a few other kids from my class, and we walked around and went to dinner.  Afterwards we just hung out in the room and went to bed early.  Breakfast Sunday morning was at the hostel and delicious as usual.  We headed to Vejen (pronounced "vine") afterwards to see an art museum and various sculptures.  We then went to lunch at a restaurant in Kolding where they set up a huge buffet style lunch that was amazing.  We all practically attacked it!  

Inner courtyard of the castle.

After lunch we walked over to the castle in Kolding and were given a brief introduction to it.  We were then given an hour to tour around so I climbed the tower, went into the dungeon, and also walked through the Beatles exhibit that was taking place in the modern wing of the castle.  I found out that one of the other castles in Denmark is supposedly what the Walt Disney castle is based off of, so I definitely want to plan a trip to see that!  
Overall, it was another great weekend and I look forward to visiting France with my class in a few weeks!