Students planning to host Danish exchange students participated in a video conference with their future guests March 15.  The conference allowed each host student to introduce themselves to their respective exchange students, who will be staying here from March 20 to 24.  The conference highlighted several cultural differences.

One Danish student asked if he would be allowed to smoke cigarettes in his host house.  Another, when asked what he did for fun, said he enjoyed drinking beer.  Denmark has no drinking age, but people must be 16 to purchase alcohol.

The students cheered when they learned the weather would be nice enough to wear shorts and groaned when they learned school here starts at 7:25 a.m., 35 minutes earlier than at Nørre Gymnasium, the Danish school.

During the trip, the Danish students will learn about American culture and the everyday lives of American adolescents, social studies teacher Andrew Sonnabend explained.  In addition to attending a day of classes March 22, the students will tour the White House, the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of the American Indian.  They will also attend a luncheon at the Danish embassy.

Whitman and Nørre Gymnasium want to establish a long-term partnership between the two schools, similar to that of Whitman and its sister school, Seoul High School, in South Korea.  The term “gymnasium” in Denmark refers to a three-year secondary school.

“I am hoping that students can visit each other’s schools and discuss a range of interdisciplinary subjects from politics to global warming to sharing art and music,” principal Alan Goodwin said.

Whitman students may have an opportunity to travel to Denmark at a later date as part of the exchange, Sonnabend said.

Nørre principal Jens Boe Nielsen and Marianne Zandersen, a teacher at the school, visited Whitman in November after Aya Riis, a former Nørre student currently attending Whitman, recommended the school, Zandersen said.

“We immediately found that Whitman was the school for us,” Zandersen said. “The students are interested, kind and open like ours. Creative subjects like music and drama are given a high priority.”

Nørre’s core curriculum includes drama, alongside social studies and English.

Senior Itai Farhi said he decided to host a Danish student because it’s a new experience for both the student and him.

“I think it would be fun to have a person around with a different perspective.  It’s always good to have someone different around.”