The Year of Living Danishly (20 page)

‘It's a really good system and it helps teach children that volunteering is part of doing your bit for society,' says Karen. It may also contribute to parents' happiness levels. Researchers at Stony Brook and Arizona State University found that volunteering regulates stress and releases feel-good hormones like oxytocin and progesterone. And since more than 53 per cent of all Danes undertake some form of voluntary work, there are lots of happy hormones floating about.

After
folkeskole
, children can either leave or carry on for three more years at a
gymnasium
. This is the name of the follow-on school and not, as I originally hoped, a hothouse for late-flowering gymnasts (thus dashing my Beth Tweddle dreams). At
gymnasium
, Danish pupils study for an exam to get into higher education. They celebrate graduating from
gymnasium
with a hedonistic ritual of riding around in open trucks – or, round our way, tractor trailers – wearing sailor hats and having a drink at each classmate's house until they pass out, twenty beers in, often on the beach by our house. Any Jutland parents wondering where your children are, try Sticksville.

All of these mind-expanding educational experiences are free for Danish and EU citizens – and Danes over the age of eighteen are
paid
to study, between 906–5,839 DKK (£96–619 or $163–1,051) a month, depending on your age, the kind of education you're opting for, whether or not you're living at home and how high your parents' income is. ‘We believe that education is every human's right and that you shouldn't take money for it,' says Karen.

From the ages of fourteen to eighteen, Danish teens can also opt to go to an
efterskole
(or ‘after school'). This is a fee-paying boarding school that will often focus on sport, drama or the arts. Around 15 per cent of Danish children go to private schools, although in Denmark, a private school isn't terribly private. The government pays two-thirds of the fees and schools are expected to adhere to some key principles of the national curriculum. As you'd expect from a social welfare state, many Danes feel uneasy about the idea of paying to give their children an advantage. As one parent of a private school pupil I know puts it rather sheepishly: ‘It's all a bit anti-Jante's Law.'

Jutland's tiny toy town of Billund has had its very own fee-paying institution since 2013, when Lego, the biggest employer in the area, funded its first school. The brainchild of Lego's billionaire owner Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the school was set up to cater for the toymaker's growing international workforce for whom Danish schooling proved a Scandi-step too far. With an emphasis on learning through play (Danish-style) combined with the International Baccalaureate, the plan was to give the children of internationals and globally focused Danes an education that was more ‘transferrable' overseas. ‘We just thought that The Danish Way, with all its focus on freedom and creativity, might be making things tough for kids once they get out into the real world,' admits Private School Dad. ‘The Danes can be a little …
soft
on kids.'

This is an interesting flip side to the overwhelmingly positive response I've had so far to Denmark's education system. For all the rigor and rules and
strictness
of my own school days, we were encouraged to work hard. Could the free-and-easy Danish approach really get the same results? Or are Danish kids leaving school happy (which is great) but ill-prepared for the big wide world?

A documentary screened in Denmark in 2013 pitted a class of Chinese children against Danes of a similar age and concluded that the Nordic nation was an academic flop. Danes were furious. Many claimed that the Chinese students had been selected from one of the best schools in the country and had been coached ahead of filming. These children, critics argued, couldn't possibly be compared to an average class in Denmark where the goal is to create well-rounded free thinkers. But could there still be a worry that young, carefree Danes aren't ready for the cut-throat international labour market? Despite the new emphasis on ‘understanding citizenship', do they really have the skills and discipline to survive out there? I read about students at a school in Copenhagen who are so relaxed and laid-back that social workers have started making house calls to wake them up in the morning and coax them to their
folkeskole
. This, I decide, is insane.

As someone who's been raising children and observing the sea changes in parenting and education for the past twenty years, I go back to Charlotte, mum of seven (
seven
!), for her take on the current state of affairs.

‘In Denmark,' she says, ‘we have an education system where teachers are just as concerned about pupils'
social development
and happiness as the school's advancement up a league table – and I think that's something we can be proud of.' But, she agrees, some aspects of the school system may have gone astray.

‘In the past, parents had the responsibility for a child's upbringing and school was responsible for their learning,' says Charlotte, ‘but now the state seems to like to be in charge of both.' She cites a recent memo from her school that advised parents of pupils taking exams to ‘
keep them regularly refreshed with trays of tea and biscuits
'. ‘I mean, I'm a parent, I have seven children [
seven!
]. I'm not running around waiting on them!' I agree wholeheartedly – if anything, they should be bringing
her
biscuits, I tell her. But because both parents work all day and then shower their offspring with love and affection during their down-time, Danish children can sometimes end up a little spoilt, Charlotte says.

‘We have a lot of “curling parents” in Denmark, who do everything for their kids and won't say no to them. The expression is named after the sport – only it's the parents with the brooms who keep brushing in front of their kids, removing any obstacles to make their lives easier.'

Interestingly, research published in
Social Psychological and Personality Science
found that parents who prioritised their children's well-being over their own were happier and derived more meaning in life from their childrearing responsibilities. So perhaps curling parents are doing it to make themselves feel better? Maybe, agrees Charlotte, ‘but it doesn't do our kids any favours in the long run, because life's not like that.'

‘So do Danish kids, their parents, and their teachers, need to toughen up a bit?' I ask.

‘I don't know if I'd say they need to toughen up,' she says. ‘Kids should be allowed to be kids for as long as possible, and I think it's good that they're asked their opinion about things and encouraged to consider their views and beliefs, like: “What do I like? What do I want to do? How do I feel about this? How can I solve this problem?”' Despite everything, Charlotte says that she still has a lot of trust in The Danish Way.

Karen, from the University of Aarhus, agrees and says: ‘We're never going to be China, but that's OK. The labour market is changing a lot – we don't have much industry left and we don't have oil, we're not Norway. But what we do have is great creativity among our young people, so this is our top priority.' This plan of action seems to be paying off. Denmark has just been ranked second in a global talent index, second only to the USA (according to a study by the leadership advisory firm Heidrick & Struggles International).

‘So Danish talent is still very much in demand?' I ask Karen.

‘Absolutely. Our young people may each learn at different levels, but they'll meet the standards in the end. And be happy at the same time.'

Karen talks me through the higher education options in Denmark. ‘After gymnasium, Danes often work or travel for a bit to learn about the world and its problems before starting university. You're a better student this way as you're more mature, you know how to think for yourself, how to discuss, be interested, and be critical – you're not just regurgitating the opinions of your teachers or parents.' I think of my own first year at university at the age of eighteen and how difficult I found the transition from slavish retellings of my teachers' views towards original thought and can't help feeling she may be right. Going to university at all is a luxury today in most countries, following the abolition of grants and the introduction of tuition fees. But Danes get all of this for free
and
get paid for the privilege. And because students in Denmark don't have pressing financial worries, they're free to choose a course that they're really interested in, rather than something that will guarantee them a good income in future.

‘This means that they're more likely to stick at their course, work hard, and enjoy the job they get in a related field as a result,' says Karen. It's just as Lego Man told me back in February – people here don't complain about their work much because for the most part, they're doing something they enjoy in an area that they're interested in.

‘After graduating from your bachelors, you might do a masters or another degree after this,' Karen goes on. ‘You probably won't finish studies before the end of your twenties or early thirties – but you'll have a wealth of life experience when you enter the workplace.'

This sounds idyllic, although ludicrously generous. I wonder whether you get a free car as well on graduation. And perhaps a pot of gold… But, Karen tells me, there's trouble in tertiary educational paradise: ‘There are some who want to change the way it works at the moment and the length of time people can be paid to study for. Some politicians are saying they want to make kids finish studying at
24
!' She sounds outraged by such a suggestion.

As a still-in-debt thirty-something who had to waitress to pay her university tuition fees, then work two jobs to do a postgrad and
still
only finished paying off her student loan last year, I find myself green with envy at the idea of Danish students getting all of this and more
for free, forever
, or so it seems.

‘But is being paid to study for so long really sustainable?' I ask.

Denmark spends more proportionally on education than any other country in the OECD club of 34 advanced nations. Venstre, the largest opposition party, suggested introducing fees in 2013 but was accused by the ruling Social Democrats of ‘gambling with the welfare and equality … we have built up over generations' – and the proposal was spiked.

‘We see education as an investment in our future,' Karen explains. ‘It's important to us and I think it makes our kids happier.' She's backed up by OECD studies showing that education levels can influence subjective well-being, and that Danes with tertiary education have been found to be happier than those without. Danes pay one of the highest tax rates in the world – at around 56 per cent for the top earners – but the money is put to good use, in Karen's mind at least, educating the Danes of tomorrow.

I ask Karen what she thinks of the whole happy Danes phenomenon and she tells me she's very happy: ‘I have my family, my kids are doing well, I'm satisfied with my career and I have really good work. I'd say I'm an eight or nine out of ten.'

‘So why not a ten?' I ask, pushing it.

‘Well, you know, Jante's Law – it wouldn't seem very modest, or very
Danish
, to say a ten…'

Growing up in Denmark, I decide, is a very cushy deal indeed. From the age of six months onwards, there's a rhythm to your day, your week and the seasons – celebrating every Danish tradition. As children get older, schools offer the same safe, secure framework within which to play and explore. It must be comforting, being in the same class with the same people for a decade. No matter how unstable life may be at home, with Denmark's sky-high divorce rate, education can offer a sanctuary.

This is something I know a little about. My schooldays were by no means perfect but the regularity and structure and
sameness
of them was reassuring somehow. It was a constant, when home life wasn't always as stable as the picture-perfect families of two parents and 2.4 children depicted in TV sitcoms. My mother and I did our best to muddle through together, often with unconventional results. Who else gets a lifetime ban from Eton Wine Bar at the age of eight for setting fire to the table? Or ends up at Notting Hill Carnival when her classmates are all at gymkhanas or tap class? I wouldn't swap these experiences for anything, now. But as a kid I longed to be ‘normal'. I craved ‘boring'. And school was a refuge. No matter how weird life was, I always knew that there'd be sanity come Monday morning. There'd be double history with lovely Mrs Monro, break time, bells, PE (aka hiding in the changing room during cross-country in winter or pleading ‘periods' to get off swimming in summer), followed by lunchtime chatathons over sloppy tuna pasta bakes and fluorescent e-number-laden orange squash.

And that was in the UK
, I think.
Imagine how much fun school must be in Denmark, with all their emphasis on creativity and play and arsing about
–
I mean, ‘expressing yourself'…
I start daydreaming speculatively.

‘Were we to continue living Danishly,' I tell Lego Man when he comes home, ‘our future offspring could look forward to a rounded education, for free, up until the age of eighteen, when he or she could actually be paid to study at one of the best universities in the world.'

I show him a newspaper article I've just read showing that Denmark is the fifth best country in the world at providing higher education, according to Universitas 21, the global network of research universities.

‘Only fifth?' is his reply, before heading off for a run with the dog on the beach. I realise we may have already become spoilt by Denmark.

Things I've learned this month:

1. Danish kids are very lucky indeed
   
2. Being a toddler here is off-the-scale fun
   
3. It's possible to look seriously fabulous after seven (
   seven!
   ) children
   
4. There's still a lot I have to learn about parenting