Wednesday, Jul 09, 2008

An example from the forefront of education in Denmark: Camp True North (Part 1)

Download this episode (28 min)   
In this podcast recorded Monday July 7, Nick Drummond reports from a youth camp at Rungsted Gymnasium (north of Copenhagen) and speaks with two of the leaders behind the camp that are pioneering a unique educational concept being introduced into Denmark's schools.

On this particular 5 day camp for 13-17 year olds, their largest so far, they have 160 teenagers, 26 volunteer team leaders, 13 mentors as well as support staff. The camp begins on a Monday and finishes on a Saturday morning, with each day starting at 9 am and finishing at 10 pm. Each day is full packed and the program is extremely well planned. Through experientially learning the kids learn about leadership, values, behaviors, authenticity, their Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic learning styles, their strengths and weakness in terms of Multiple Intelligences, group dynamics, goal setting, key factors to maintain group and individual motivation, energy and attention, public speaking, as well as how to have lots of fun. During the five days the kids go through an amazing developmental transition that affects them both socially and academically.

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At a recent seminar I gave in Copenhagen I met with Nicolai Moltke-Leth who told me about a unique educational concept that he is introducing into Denmark to fill a gap being created by conventional education, called Camp True North www.camptruenorth.com/denmark108/

In this podcast I talk with Nicolai and his partner American Greg Evens from Seeds Training about the pedagogical methods and perspective behind what they are doing, what they see as being the need in education today, what education will be about in the future, as well as the goal and vision behind their recent collaboration.

Greg Evens says,"The same challenges that are faced in education in the USA are faced almost everywhere else. There is a real opportunity in education now for organizations like ours to come to the table with solutions. We know that we don’t have the total solution, we can’t fix education as a whole, but we know we have part of it. We are really looking to partner with other organizations like True North and people like Nicolai and start to create programs and sets of solutions that will make a difference."

They talk about an integration of methodologies that give teachers their passion back for being teachers and motivate students to learn in accelerated ways. Both see it is a model that is desperately needed in many countries, as Nicolai says "only helping the Danes to think better will not help this planet, but if we can prove a model here then we can apply in many other places."

In the interview Nicolai Moltke-Leth mentions a recent film clip by Dr. Daniel Goleman where he talks about and endorses the importance of Social as well as Emotional Learning in schools www.edutopia.org/daniel-goleman-sel-video Prosocial behavior goes up by 9-10%, negative behavior goes down by the same amount, and academic achievement goes up by 11%.

Nicolai Moltke-Leth is the director of True North www.truenorth.dk His CV includes a degree in sociology, soldier in the Danish Special Forces, NLP master practitioner, peak performance coach (Anthony Robbins) as well as having competed in a range of endurance events like the Paris-Dakar rally. He is a well known public speaker in Denmark and regularly holds leadership training courses.

Greg Evens is director of Seeds Training www.seedstraining.com a rapidly expanding youth-based training company and consultancy offering youth programs, teacher development and educational services in the USA, Asia, Middle East and Europe.

To find out more please contact nick.drummond@nordicintegral.com www.nordicintegral.com

Posted by Nick Drummond at 11:43 AM |   

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