Golf

One of the key responsibilities of the GSE Team Leader is to look after the welfare of his/her team.  This is particularly true towards the end of the trip. Of course to be effective at this one needs to look after oneself as well and it is the interests of this that I permitted myself to participate in my third round of golf in Denmark. 
Before the game, I pondered the possibility of changing my vocational activities from school principal(retired) to "Golf Professional" given my obvious prowess at the game.  On the way to the course I decided to visit my GSE "Son" Neil.  I was so pleased that I could awaken him at 12:30 in the afternoon (he must have been up late the previous night studying).  The previous afternoon, of course, we had presented at the District Conference and there was a little "letting down of the hair" to follow.  I understand that the girls were also a little slow in the morning.
Anyhow, I have decided after today's game that I should delay any sudden career change until my return to Australia. 

A bit of Einstein wisdom...

I had the pleasure of being seated next to Jens-Martin at last nights Rotary meeting in Aars, and he shared this great quote with me. Perhaps there is something about me that indicates my constant struggle to keep a clean desk (it's true).

I know there are a few others in my team who have the same problem, so I thought I would share :)

Back to school

Today, I went back to school - to Erhvervsskolerne Aars, which is a combination of gymnasium, basic vocational education and training, and adult vocational education and training.

Let's just say, when I left the grounds of All Hallows' ten years ago, I never thought I would be returning to high school, let alone partly teaching a class (yes, that happened today).

I began my day with a brief introduction to the school by the vice principal Kasper. We spoke about the size of the school (1,200 students in total), the background of the teaching staff (all have at least a masters degree plus practical experience) and a bit about their COOL - or cooperative learning - approach to classes (basically involving group work for short periods of time).

Then, it was off to my first class of the day - International Economics. Unbeknownst to me, I was actually a guest speaker, and ended up giving an introduction to the Australian Economy according to Lauren. Thankfully the information I gave the class was in line with what their teacher, Sven, was going to tell them so I didn't lead the students completely astray.

The rest of the class was done in Danish, but what impressed me was how engaged the class was. While I didn't actually understand what was being said, judging by the tone of voice, body language and lively discussion between the students and their teacher, it seemed as though they were genuinely interested in being there.

This same attitude was evident even moreso in my second class of the day, English. The topic of the lesson was Australian Business Behaviour, and I was able to give a little bit of insight into some of the verbal and nonverbal traits of communicating with Aussies. It was really fun to chat with the students, and I think they were excited to ask questions about home - especially about the wildlife and the beaches.

So, another really interesting vocational day, and while I won't be going home to teach classes per se, it's always very useful to practice speaking and presentation skills, and always great to meet new people!

Thanks heaps to Kasper, Helle and Sven (not pictured) for taking me around today.

Hjallerup Folkskole

On Tuesday I visited Hjallerup Folkskole with Lone, had dinner with the team and all of the wonderful hosts at President Henrik and Kirsten's place and then next morning had to farewell Heinrich, Asger, Peter and Lone to make our way to Års.    One of the fabulous  features of the school was the before and after school facility which was like a warm and comfortable home, complete with indoor and outdoor games, on-site baking, quite areas, a loft, dress-ups, craft, etc. etc. and lots of room.  The majority of children actually attend this site.  I enjoyed also talking to the children in one of Lone's classes and they tried (and easily succeeded) to test me with a famous Danish tongue twister - Rødgrød med fløde.  I paid them back with "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers". Lone's commitment to her pupils and her family was outstanding and this made me a  little sad to leave.  I hope that we can keep in touch.  A few photos including some of the wall and floor charts follow.

Positive psychology in action

I am loving the variety of my vocational days. Yesterday Jenne took me to three workplaces in the medical industry that had a focus on preventative health care. We visited a centre for young people with mental health conditions, an aged care facility and a 'health city' where they developed and implemented health programs for people with diabetes, heart and lung disease.

It was a very inspiring day, I must say. The two lessons for the day were around the focus on wellbeing (not on illness or disability) and the way they engage with their clients.

I was so touched by the way each person I met talked about the people in their care and I was inspired by the interventions they have developed that focus on the total wellbeing of the person. There was a very strong undercurrent of respect for the individual. There wasn't pity or sympathy just empowerment and a desire to facilitate quality of life.

In psychology and health care there is sometimes be a tendency to look at fixing the symptoms or problem or curing a disease. It is single minded as opposed to wholistic and it can be depressing for the patient rather than empowering.

Jenne shared that the underlying philosophy and framework for care was by two theorists Socrates and Antonovsky. In essence it is about meeting people where they are or helping them to help themselves. This puts the responsibility in individuals hands. But the beautiful thing about it, is that it gives them ownership over their own life. It gives them meaning, purpose and a sense of achievement and personal control.

I realised, unbeknownst to the health care workers, they are actually using positive psychology principles intuitively. Every workplace I visited, facilitated wellbeing using positive psychology principles. It was quite exciting to see it in action, and in an a industry typically focused on cure rather than prevention.

This has given me lots of food for thought around how these principles can be applied practically and further evidence that positive psychology in practice can create positive change.

Let's go ride a bike...

Today, Leish and I finally got to tick off a goal for Denmark - to ride a bike. The opportunity arose at our vocational day (Leish and I were doing ours together after a slight change of plans). After a morning session with one of the planners at Aalborg Kommune, we grabbed a couple of bikes and headed for the city. The first picture below is a perfect representation of how we saw ourselves cruising around on our wheels.

There was, however, a small problem. The bikes were too big for us. My grandma has always said to me that good things come in small packages, but today being vertically challenged didn't prove to be so good. We simply could not reach the ground. Getting onto the bike was feat in itself. It involved straddling the bike, setting the pedals at an optimum angle for take-off, jumping on and hoping to hell that our balance would prevail and we would head off in a relatively straight line. (Just to clarify, and before anyone points out the obvious, the seats wouldn't go down any further than they were because of a strategically placed basket on the back that couldn't be removed).

Needless to say, carnage ensued. There were multiple close calls, who knows how many frustrated Danes trying to get around us on the bikeway and one stack that will be etched into my brain for a long time. I wasn't even close to bring coordinated enough to get photographic evidence of our first time on bikes in Denmark, but the below sketch gives a pretty good representation of what happened.

So, currently it is Denmark bikes 1, Leish and Lauren 0. Not to worry though, we still have a few more days left to even up the score!

Dronninglund adventures

Yesterday morning we were farvelled (that's the Danish word - not poor spelling) the Saeby & Fredrickshavn Rotary Klubs, and velkommen our hosts from Dronninglund.

Our first adventure with our new hosts involved seeing the Voergard Castle. Once again I was given further inspiration for my own designs (for those of you who don't yet know, Denmark has inspired me to live in a castle one day!) and we saw plenty of culture and history from across Europe within the walls.

After a fantastic velkommen party hosted by Finn & Caron we were sent home early to bed. We were quite grateful for the early night (although we hear that doug stayed up and had a scotch - or 4 - whilst discussing the 'differences in the education systems') Yeah right!!

Today we have been busy visiting the Vikings graves, and learning about the very oldest of Danish people. After a Viking meal including smoked wild boar, pickled herring, pork belly, and cured salmon with beetroot!!! Delicious...

Fortunately we were full of energy, as we spent the next 3 hours trekking around the forest with Birgitte as our guide. There was alot of mud, wildlife and nature in general. The highlight by far was to see Doug falling flat on his face in some slippery mud! (Picture a beached whale in the middle of a Forrest!!) We were treated to some hot drinks and chocolate before making it back to the car.

We're off to do a presentation at the Rotary club tonight - hopefully we can stay awake!!