Submitted by Margaret McCaughey on the 2015 spring semester DIS (Denmark’s International Study Program) program in Copenhagen, Denmark…
On Wednesday, I had two class field trips. First, my Stolen Childhoods: Migrant & Refugee Children class went to a school called Gadevang Asyl. It is a child care center, preschool, kindergarden, Skolefritisdsordning and a club near the forest in Hillerod, about an hour from the city center. All the “teachers” are called Aunties and the children have lots of freedom! Their motto is “A lazy Auntie is a good Auntie.” One of the most surprising things was that any parent can take home any child without planning it in advance. A mother could come to pick up her four year old daughter just to find out that she had been signed out by another child’s Mom. They also had this awesome swing:
Next, was a trip to the Copenhagen Medical Museum with my Epidemiology: Danish Case Studies class. We had a guided tour which was really interesting. There were siamese twin fetuses that had been preserved in a glass box and a dress made out of pills, to show the amount of medications a woman with multiple diseases takes in her lifetime:
