Marin Voice: Parents, teachers can learn from how it's done in Denmark

Original source (on modern site) | Article images: [1]

There are no utopias. I reminded myself of this while readjusting to being back home after visiting Copenhagen. I know that Denmark has its own problems with immigration, wrestles with racial and ethnic prejudice and, like here, deals with teenagers addicted to their electronic devices.

We are also a different culture and democratic socialism is not on the agenda for the U.S. However, we could learn a lot from a culture in which the quality of life is generally very high, there is excellent free health care, bicycles outnumber cars in most Danish cities, architects focus on social planning and creating healthy habitats, children are a very high priority, school buildings are designed to be teacher and student friendly, and preschool through higher education is essentially free.

In the 10 days I visited Copenhagen, I witnessed several groups of preschool and early elementary school children on field trips. I'm always especially tuned to parent-child interactions. In Copenhagen the number of warm parent-child and teacher-child interactions that drew my attention was far more than I experience here.

I frequently speak with teachers, including firsthand reports from my daughter and son-in-law, so I know the stress they're under, especially in the pandemic era. I also know the financial demands on our children as they pay for preschool for our three grandchildren. So, right now, life in Denmark looks extremely inviting.

In 2022, Gaby Galvin wrote this in an article published by U.S. News and World Report: "Locals say Denmark's family-friendly reputation is earned due to a high degree of institutional support, including government-sponsored health care, child care and education, as well as cultural values tied to social trust, community and hygge." The latter is a word that is very frequently used to describe the quality of life in Denmark. "The Little Book of Hygge," a U.S. best-seller, spelled it out well.

The word describes a philosophy of life that aims at people's well-being, making the home a temple and schools child-friendly. It permeates the ethos of the country, in homes and classrooms. Hygge's recipe is simple. Make the home and school environments warm and supportive, focusing on close, nourishing child and parent interactions. Duplicate this in school environments and in child-teacher interactions.

We can learn a lot from Danish education. From the time they enter school until the time they complete schooling, five days a week, children in both Denmark and here spend most of their waking hours in school. So the Danes believe that both the social and physical environment of schools must be nourishing, and they pay great attention to this. Hygge exists in school as well as in the home. Education features school buildings with good lighting and flexible learning spaces. Teachers promote supportive socio-emotional environments.

We should create our own version of hygge in schools and homes. We don't give enough attention to our school buildings, and, apart from early elementary classrooms, sporadic attention to the relational aspects of education. Although I think we care about our children as much as the Danes, we don't often reflect this in our schools.

When it comes to parenting, we have minimal training. While in Denmark effective parenting is an integral aspect of the culture, it should be obvious that this is a significant problem and challenge to us here.

Reading the books "The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the  World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids" and "The Danish Way of Raising Teens" are good shortcuts  to learning from the Danes. Many of us instinctively  reflect hygge principles in our interactions with children and the environments we create, but these books can serve as both reminders and amplifiers.

We can create our own versions of hygge with better child-friendly social and physical environments. In schools we can make affordable changes that foster this. There are teachers who've done this in classrooms with rugs and comfortable furniture. There are teachers here who can serve as guides to more nourishing student-teacher interactions.  And there are parents who could help others to be more attentive to child-supportive parenting.

We may have a somewhat different culture, but children are more or less the same universally, and improving the quality of their lives should be a shared goal.

Mark Phillips of Woodacre is a professor emeritus of education at San Francisco State University.