Letter from Denmark Waiting out the dark time . Art Bervm ('62). dn English Instructor iJl Unn·Benton Community College In SdJem. Oregon. IS on iI Fulbright Exchange on the island of Sjaelland in Denm,Jrk. where he is currently te.l(:hiIlR at the He/singor Autsgymnasium. He has sh<lf(x/ miJny of his observations of life in Denmark wilh Perspect;,,~, some of u hieh we piJSS on here. fo~r~~~~~~~I~~fef~O':nf~~~IY of mid-Willamcllc V~lIev in Oregon 10 a small coastal community JO miles nonh ~f Copenhagen? At fir;t glance. the dll(erences do not leap oul. .. Our Selling is \'cry Oregon-like: ..mall (arms devoted 10 r<1i5ing grain Jnd grass, ..mall dairy herds. and (orests with familiar trees like maplC'S. oak. cedar, and pine. We even SJW field burning when we arrived in l.lle August. lu<;;tlike home except for Ih£o mountains. There Jrc 00flC' In Denmark.. A fnend once SolId. "I really like Dan£>S, I've never met a Dane who wasn't happy." Perhapo; shc's right. If she is, they are happy in private or on another Island. for the moment. my generalizations mu,1 be limited to our small c~*,nIIV. composed of two-income, upper·mlddle class families. and 10 the \Chools where I teach. But from where we Sit. \\e find Danes have two dommant values: work and family. When they aren't working, Ihey are wilh their families. FriendshIps outSIde the (amdy are not qUIte as important as In the States. Even the Danes themselves .wmit they are not very outgoing. A friend once said, "I've never met a Dane who wasn't happy." The long winter nlghfs, whlC"h dme people Inside, and economl{ slrCS5tel (taxes at 60% level and high unemployment) inslill thiS apJrtness. During the past ten years, marnages have suffered, and divorce rates exceed those in the USA Some ha\("! ask.ed why we came now rather than in the summer. "Now we go inSide, they say, "m the summer you would see more of us." So now we hibernate and walt for Apnl, May and June . . I faced an entirely new situatIon when I met my students .11 the two teacher training inslltutions. Throughout last summer, I had, in vain, requesled a course oUllme or reading list. one ,appeared, and With good reason. For when I arrived, I negotiated the reading assignments and discussion topiclO with my students. Further, they expected 10 share responsibility for conducting lhe class. 2 But their curriculum is (fgid. Danish high school stuclenb holl\'(' no electives. Any of the extras - e.g orchts.ra, drama, school p.arties - are organized by the students. As a result, students tend to take the initiolltive and responsibility for themselves in and out of da~s. I c.m't imagine American high IOchool students organizing their own foorb,;,11 team. finding a coach, securing eqUipment, and preparing the field for a game. Here that would happen. Danish studenllO are also very politicJlly conscious. If they lOre public issues they wish to "ddre~s - like withdrawal from the Common Market - they may cancel ,1 class or close the entire school. (There has beenl a unanimous inler('<;1 in diSCUSSing our presidential election. Americans are, they say, elect109 a president for ..111 of Europe as well, so they have to be rnterested . . life Without a car is sometimes pleasant, but it has Its drawbacks. With a monthly pass lapprox. S501, I can go anywhere on S,aelland by bus or train or both. It's relaXing lust to board a trarn and read ior Ihe 45·50 minutes I'm on II. And II's mce not 10 pay for car insuranl'e or for fuel (gas runs about $2.50 per gallon) or to hunt for parking places. 8uI one must be very schedule conscious.. Grocery shopping must be carefully planned. A basketful of groceries doesn't seem like much untt! It has to be carried a half-mile through the woods. Frozen goods purchased 100 c:arly may become soggy mush by the lime one returns home... Grocery shopping is quite an ad...enture. How do you know whether you want Iykmaelk, lelmdelk, skummetmaelk, or kaernenl.1elk? Ii you wanl to bake bread, where do you nnd yeas!? Once you've Iricd your local bakery, you may give up any notion o( baking. The quality i\ high, the variety considerable. and the cost low. There's lillie "plastic bag" bread here... As a veteran of four olher languages, I did not anlicip.1te some of the difficulties in learning Danish...Allhough a firmly ht!ld tongue depressor .1110\..·5 one to sound like a Dane, it is a liability al drnner parti~. _ . 'e\ertheless. \\e dre progressing. \"·c can read more siRn, .and even parts of newspapers now Best of illI, we bring home from Ihe store what we thought we were gelling. As the calendar year wind~ dowll , days of darknes.;, are upon us lit candles appear In alllhc Window... 10 overcome the darkness and to make our inner world more "cozy." ("Cozy" is a favonte word of English-speaking Danes.) In the lake outside our front window, three swans - the parents and Ihis year's of( pring - B"de past. nature's own beautiful way of 'redeemmg lfii~ dark time. Your correspondent in Denmarl<, Art Servin mrr :I\!rspective PSU ~iYe 15 published quI~ dunns the year by News ~nd Infomwtion Sl-NiC~ lor .Ilumnr. f!K\llty.lrd sufi" -t fr~ of Pcw1I.lrd SWeUnl~ry fditor Cynthlol O. .s.o-II ~ a-nte Hetn '65 a .......... ~EdiIorP • .5con aa...oIM1drftt:5erldbolhIYWMldoid JddrNoH 10 PSU P'enpect~, po &.1751, Portl...d SuIt U",~oty, Pool.lnd. OIqon, 97207. 'M'MII: If IhI5 '_IS ~., vc- jM at ~wfIonob,..-tn.IIoIWm.lpel"fNllenl -'chs6 .. joOUf hotIw. pie.- tIOIofy k P5U ~OIiul5OJ,-~~cllhe~n'I.Iilins ...... PSU supportS ~I tduaootul oppoI'Iunoly w.chout ~ to ~ riKe, handlC~, qt', A.llioNt origin. n'I.IrtQJ 5tai1A. or ~lipon. Your Turn Remember all the times your professors, facl'tl with caplive audiences, gleefully used their lecterns 10 unload not only the facts but also their Innermost convictions? Gr.anled, we were given plenty of opportunity to challenge a professor's position or to counter with our own viewpoin l~. But think of all the times the professor never saw your raiSled hand, or the bell rang just as your mouth opened, or your paper was \\'fIUen so lilte on the 1.1<;1 pJSsible nighl Ihat the \\ell-documentcd. air-light philO5Ophical argument you'd been constructing all term jumped off the t)pewritten Jld&C with as much vervc and t:ohesiveness as applesauce ow, after all the.e years, you have a chance for revenge. Make the most of it, oc"'C.)use It'S \"Our tum Jt the lectern. "Your Tum" IS a new feature of PSU Pc-rspecl/\ e, offered as a wa)' lor alumni to get involved in ideas and plans being dl'icussed al Portland State. In each I~sue, we'll pose a qU~lIon - about changes in polin, academic trends, or a theory advanced by .l PSU proil"osor - and we'd like you 10 respond with a leiter or a phone call. In the following issue, we'll print a selcction of the responses, enough to show the range of thought and opinions of PSU graduates. Our first Question is thiS: Do you feel that Portland State should convert to a 1S-week semester system or continue with the present lO-week quarters? Just a litlle hackground: The Chancellor of Higher Education in Oregon. William DaVIS, has as~ed the colleges and unl\'ersllles in the Slale system to mealOure facult) senliment toward adopting a <;ertleSter system. It is estimated that about 75% of the higher education institutions in the United Slates operate on a seme.ster basis. Davis (eels, a does P$U pfe'lldent Joseph Blume!. that an academic '>ubJccl can be explored more thoroughly in a semester. Many textbooks are wrillen for scm~ter·based coursework.. The Chancellor'S office has also suggested that conversion to a semesler ~ystem would creatt' fiscal 5a\'ings. \\ ilh one less registration and gradt.> malhng each academic year. Informal polling of PSU faculty shows them to be fairly evenly diVided on the subject with a slight malority favoring retention of the quarter system. What do you think? Gi\'e us a c.ll1 at (503) 229·3711 or write us a note .11 PSU Perspective, C\VS and Information Services, Portland State University, P.O. Box 75 1, Portl..md, OR 97207. We want to hear from you, whether ii's a simple 'yes' or 'no' or a carefully constructed argument. We reserve the right, however, to edll for length so we can print as many answers as possible.
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