Hej! I’m Keri. I’m a New Zealander living with a Dane and our four-year-old daughter in Copenhagen. Since the lockdown was announced in Denmark on the 13th of March 2020, I’ve been sharing daily updates about our journey. But over the last few days the one topic everyone wanted to know more about was why we agreed to send our four-year-old daughter back to Kindergarten and how the schools were managing it.  If you were one of those people, then this post is for you.

Photo credit: Deniz Aydemir

“Did she just say what I think she said?” I asked The Dane, my partner and the father of our 4-year-old child.

We were in our Copenhagen apartment listening to the Danish Prime Minister’s latest press conference and I was struggling to understand the Danish. My ears and brain straining to understand what was being announced.

It had been four weeks since the first bombshell had been announced that Denmark was closing down, and that our lives were about to change in a way we’d never known before. During that Press Conference we were told that the borders were shutting, schools and workplaces were to close and that we had to stay home. It took our breath away, we were shocked and responded like most others by running to buy toilet paper, flour and yeast (and some wine).

“Is she telling us the little kids are going back to school?” I yelled again at The Dane while furiously copying and pasting the subtitles from the live stream into Google Translate.

“Yes.  0-11 year olds are to return to school” he confirmed.

And so, it was confirmed, Denmark was to be the first country in Europe to reopen schools after the four week Corona lockdown phase.

It wasn’t long after that announcement that my social media feeds began to light up with a deluge of shocked, angry and scared parents and teachers all sharing their mutual shock.

None of us had expected this to be the first step of how Denmark would slowly reopen. 

The announcement was made just before the long Easter holiday weekend.  Schools and Kindergartens had a very short week to prepare and adhere to a lengthy set of new requirements set by the government. These included:

• A recommended floor area of 6m2 per child for Vuggestue (this is Nursery for 0-3 year olds) and 4m2 per child for Børnehave (this is Kindergarten for 3-6 year olds), meaning some institutions may not be able to accept all children back at first.

• Children to play with the same small groups of 3-5, mainly outside

• Children to sit two metres apart at tables

• Food not to be shared

• Staff to supervise children washing hands at least every two hours, including after coughing or sneezing, before & after food

• Regular cleaning, including cleaning toys twice a day

• Disinfecting surfaces such as taps, toilet flushes, tables, door handles, handrails, light switches twice a day

• Staff meetings to be held outside or via telephone/video call

• Those that travel on buses provided by day care, to sit two metres apart

• Drop off and collection to be done at staggered times and if possible outside school grounds

Teachers and parents alike thought it impossible, ridiculous and crazy. There was fear and confusion and a Facebook group was set up with over 40,000 parents vowing their children will not be ‘guinea pigs’.

 Initially I think I was a bit numb, I wasn’t sure if I wanted my daughter to return to Kindergarten. It was a mix of emotions and there was shock of course, but also a small gasp of relief as I dared to imagine that we could possibly have a few hours of being able to work from home without having to balance it with childcare, and not from a monetary point of view.  But from a ‘we’ve got to keep this ship (the world) afloat’ point of view because right now, we can’t keep it afloat sitting at home trying to achieve the impossible of working a 40-hour week while looking after our daughter. 

But wouldn’t she be safer sitting at home with me?  I thought to myself.  I guess I kind of hoped her Kindergarten would just say there was no room for her due to the new floor area requirement and that would be that. 

But that didn’t happen.  We were offered a place for the first 2 days back and she started back last week.

But before we got to this point, a few extraordinary things happened.  Firstly, behind the scenes the Danish education sector rose to the logistical challenge put in front of them.  Like men sent to war, they put on a calm front and got the shit sorted.  And my god, how crucial is that?  Leaders who are cool, calm and collected in times of crisis projecting a co-ordinated and positive approach, especially for our young people. What we project, our kids project.

So, while the teachers and government officials in the education sector were working out what they needed to do, I came to a few realisations of my own:

·         Corona is not going anywhere fast. Right now, we can run but we can’t hide from it. Not in Denmark, not in New Zealand and not anywhere.

·         We can squash the curve, but Corona will remain, lurking like an uninvited guest in the background until a vaccine is invented.

·         Until then we can’t sit in our bubbles indefinitely.  We must find a new normal, return to work, return to school while minimising the risks for all.

Slowly over the period of one short week between the announcement that schools were reopening and when they actually reopened, I felt a change in attitude from the parents around me.  We were all still nervous, but the acceptance began to grow that this was the way forward and we just hoped the schools would get it right.

I’d like to say I was calm and collected the night before our daughter returned to Kindergarten.  I thought I was, but it was one of my worst night’s sleep in a long time as I woke four times.  My daughter?  She slept happily through the whole night. 

Childcare has been such a big part of our lives in Denmark.  An almost assumed right. And it’s not that I didn’t appreciate my daughter’s teachers before. I never threw her over the school fence and said ‘Here you go, she’s your problem for the next 8 hours. See you at pick up’.  Of course, I never did that.  But I did take it for granted that they could look after her every day, I took it for granted it was a service available to me to enable me to work full time and allow me to do what I need to do for the society, the community and country as a whole to function.

But right here, right now what do I think?  I think teachers are bloody rock stars. And so too, do my fellow parent friends.

It’s an interesting journey we’ve all had to make to realise who are the essential workers in life isn’t it? Who the actual rock stars are.  Health workers, Emergency workers, Supermarket workers, Cleaners and Teachers.  Those are my top 5.  They’re bloody legends and maybe they didn’t know it themselves until now.

A teacher in Denmark shared the below with me:

So, you see even in the very early phases, the teachers didn’t realise they were the rock stars of the future. And it wasn’t just LS* and her colleagues.

And roll forward just one short week after the initial announcement was made, my daughter returned to Kindergarten in a country which has recorded over 7000 cases of infection (3000+ current cases) and 300+ dead.  We weren’t walking into an empty battlefield that’s for sure.

We had agreed I would drop my daughter off at 8.30am, drop offs are a precise thing now.  Before I wouldn’t even bother looking at the clock as I tried to wrestle my daughters 4-year-old self out our apartment door.  That’s a mugs game. But now, we must be more precise than a Swiss watch as staff are waiting for us, rostered on to meet us at our allocated time. 

Putting our daughter on the back of my bike we began the short commute to her Kindergarten.  She talked the whole way, a mixture of curiousness and excitement about the day.  I tried my best to match her happy mood.

Even before the four-week shutdown the staff had talked to the kids about the importance of only touching Mummy and Daddy.  They taught her that before we even thought to.  The day before returning to Kindergarten she had a Skype playdate with her 5-year-old friend who had reminded her ‘Eva….tomorrow at school we can’t hug each other ok?’.

My kid was ready for this, even if I wasn’t.

In the end it was bit like pulling off a plaster, it was best done quickly.  We arrived at a very quiet Kindergarten, the normal comings and goings of other parents dropping off was non-existent. I did my best to follow the Danish instructions, dropping her lunchbox in the designated bin outside first.  Next, we walked around the outside of the building to the back entrance, and up the fire exit steps.  Normally we’d simply enter through the main doors, like everyone else.  We arrived at her classroom with minimal furniture and toys and outside there were 10 green crates, one for each child to put their outdoor shoes, jackets, bags and cycle helmets in.  We cleaned our hands with hand sanitizer and then one of the teachers met us at the door and my daughter sprinted off into the barren classroom with more excitement than I’d seen in the last four weeks.  I was left standing at the doorway (I am not allowed to enter the building) wondering what the hell I’d been worried about.  It was the quickest drop off ever.  Leaving her there, I continued my one way walk around the building avoiding other parents and biked home again, to begin a days work.

Was it weird?  For sure it was but it was the best-case scenario I could have hoped for her.  Fantastic systems were in place, the communication was good but most importantly those teachers, those rock stars who were no doubt fighting their own wave of emotions, from shock, anger right through to acceptance, were now there with the biggest smiles on their faces making it an awesome first day back in this new world for my daughter and her 9 other classmates who will now share their new classroom.

The kids spend most of the day playing outside trying to keep 2 metre distance but, I know that doesn’t always happen, they’re four-year olds after all.  However, she now has a happy Kindergarten bubble, that helps us all move forward. Returning home on her second day and before saying anything to me, she walked straight to our kitchen sink to wash her hands. The kid was already on autopilot.

But there are for sure still a whole cycle of emotions to work though.  Only we know ourselves what is right for ourselves, but first we need to navigate our way though everyone else’s opinions.

I’ll share one final thought from a teacher here in Copenhagen who is adapting to her new emergency teaching role:

Thank you to all the teachers, education support staff and government officials who have worked so hard to get us to this stage. Helping us navigate forward as we continue our ongoing fight with Corona/COVID-19. You are bloody rock stars.

We’ll be posting daily updates as we continue our journey in this new world at https://www.facebook.com/bilingualbackpackbaby/ and on Instagram at @bilingualbackpackbaby

*This Rockstar teacher asked to be referred to as simply LS (you can call them Rockstar LS if you like)