Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 14, 1993 TAG: 9301140363
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES NORTH CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
STUDENT LEARNS HOW DANES TEACH CITIZENSHIP
"It is somewhat ironic that I came to one of the smallest countries on the map in order to learn about the world," Brady Lee wrote in evaluating her recent five-month stay at an international folk school in Helsingor, Denmark.The soft-spoken 20-year-old, a junior majoring in peace and global studies at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., said her brief stay at The International People's College gave her a personal perspective on world political situations.
"Learning about Europe through the eyes of the people whose countries are going through radical changes - like Russia and Czechoslovakia and Africa - it makes the world less overwhelming because I can relate to the people I met and sort of see the world in those terms now," she said.
Lee began her stay in Denmark with a 10-day intensive language course, where she learned enough Danish to survive, although she found that most of the Scandinavians she met also spoke English. She then lived with a Danish family for two weeks and got a taste of partying Danish-style when she attended their daughter's wedding.
"It was a really short ceremony, but then there was a six-hour dinner afterward with dancing and drinking and singing that went on until 3 in the morning," she said.
Some differences between Denmark and home were immediately apparent to Lee.
"Helsingor has a lot of nice walking streets, filled with shops and closed off to traffic. [Shakespeare's] Hamlet's Castle - the Kronenborg Castle - is right in the town. Also, it's right on the ocean, Sweden is right across the water and there's a ferry that goes back and forth. Copenhagen is about an hour away by train."
Other differences, such as the country's social-welfare government system and its economic philosophies, took a little longer to notice. But after examining Denmark's schools, prisons and various social institutions for one of her classes, Lee said, it struck her that "of their taxes, approximately 50 percent goes into health care, social and unemployment programs."
She found at least one unfortunate similarity to America.
"Unemployment is at 11 percent and rising," she said.
Lee said her global interests started at North Cross high school in Roanoke County, where she was involved in the international human-rights organization Amnesty International. She said she chose the folk school because of its curriculum's open atmosphere.
"The idea was for the students to take initiative, to say to the teachers, `why don't we try to study this? or that,' or for the students to teach other students and the teachers. The assumption is that students do have something to teach others."
She shared classes and lodging with students from Denmark and Scandinavia, Japan, America, Europe, Africa, Brazil and Russia. She said there were rarely more than 10 students per class and only 80 students total were in attendance at the school.
During the school's international evenings, the students took turns giving presentations about their respective countries, often showing traditional dances or costumes, demonstrating a favored game or showing a video. When Lee's turn came, she and her fellow countrymen rendered their version of an all-American presentation.
"We did the traditional American things," Lee recalled with a giggle. "We held a baseball game and made a dinner of hot dogs, potato salad, baked beans and chocolate-chip cookies, which most of the people hadn't had before. They really liked it.
"The presentation was also sort of a beauty pageant, and each contestant came up and talked about their states. And we gave a slide show to explain different geographic areas."
At her usual college, Earlham, a Quaker-founded school with a philosophy of peace and nonviolence, Lee's interdisciplinary studies include political science, economics and philosophy with a slant toward understanding political structures, conflict and change within an international scope. Improving that understanding was, for Lee, one of the folk school's major drawing cards.
She explained, "The whole idea behind the folk school was to get people more stimulated and involved in their governments. To get them to be more effective citizens, more aware of what their government is doing and better able to respond to that."
She said that America's recent presidential elections convinced her that people need something to get them turned on again. While she was not a Ross Perot backer, she thinks his grass-roots and participatory government approach explained his wide appeal.
"People have been so turned off by the whole election process that they're really reluctant to get involved in politics and see it as very corrupt. We need more small citizen-action groups and to get people taking democracy into their own hands," Lee said.
She said she hopes one day to use her education and experience helping people do just that, working within a local organization doing conflict resolution or community organizing. But first, she'll spend some time looking into summer internships and maybe returning to Europe to visit some of the friends she made at the school.
She said she would encourage anyone who is able to attend the folk school.
"Anyone can apply," she said. "It's adult education and does not have to be through a college."
Under the Scandinavian Seminar program, she took eight classes, which met once or twice a week for about an hour and a half per session. Some days, she had four or five sessions but was free on other days.
She estimates the package, including travel, cost $4,000 to $5,000, but added that under the Danish government's welfare-assistance system, the students received about $300 in refunds.
For information on the program, write to The International People's College, Montebello Alle 1, 3000 Helsingor, Denmark.