Denmark, along with Sweden and Finland, has one of the lowest rates of bullying in Europe. We speak to teachers, pupils and parents to find out how this Scandinavian country is managing to stamp out harassment in schools.
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02:29 We are trying always to get the kids to work together in different type of groups across genders.
02:36 Not always with their best friends, but also working with other kids that they're not usually working with.
02:42 And they're also practicing their social skills for like how to communicate and also how to compromise different ideas.
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04:49 We have all age groups calling about bullying, but it seems to be a particular problem for let's say 10 to 15 years.
04:56 And that's also when it's extremely important for a child to belong to a group.
05:02 And the act of bullying is expulsion from the group.
05:06 The digital dimension has made it worse because the bullying doesn't stop when you leave the school.
05:12 [French]
05:32 It's harder to be a teenager.
05:36 We had the lockdown, we have the COVID, you're more alone.
05:40 In general, we have challenged well-being.
05:43 Young people or kids who is involved in bullying, they need something.
05:50 They need, "I understand the meaning of being here and I am a part of it."
05:56 We have just a new kind of teenagers and we have to follow them.
06:01 And if we don't understand them, they are meeting meaninglessness and meaninglessness is a part of why they start bullying each other.
06:11 [Music]
06:13 [French]
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06:39 We try to get close to the students in many ways and to discuss the teaching, the pedagogical principles,
06:47 what they do in their spare time and of course how they interact on the social medias.
06:53 We have lessons about that as well.
06:55 It's very important that we dare to go close to them and dare to facilitate their life.
07:00 Not only the life in the classroom but also the life in their spare time.
07:05 We work on the trust because the trust is to get close related to them but it's also to act upon the problems.
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07:29 I'm an authority in my field, in math, in history, but I'm not an authority on what you should do or think or...
07:37 Does it make sense?
07:39 So that's responsibility.
07:43 I think a lot of bullying comes from hierarchies that don't work and then people try to take power by bullying someone else.
07:53 And if you don't need to take power because you have power of your own life from the beginning, then that's another situation.
08:04 We learn from a young age, treat others like you want to be treated and that's very inbuilt in the way that we're teached.
08:13 It's also something you think of before you say something to someone.
08:18 The students actually have a quite big voice in the decisions that the school has.
08:24 That way we can also, if we hear any of our co-students, if they have any problems, we can take it right to the board and our opinions will definitely be heard.
08:38 In Denmark, I believe that both teachers but also parents at home are seen more as confident and guidance givers, more than authorities you have to respect and answer to.
08:49 So if you do experience cyberbullying in Denmark, I think everyone would have someone older to reach out to and help fix this problem.
08:56 They miss the math class but they learn something else very important.
09:06 That's also part of being grown up to make your own decisions about what's important.
09:12 To be a person in your own right is part of feeling well about yourself and that prevents bullying.
09:20 I think Denmark as a country is good at giving us like this feeling that we are a person and we are an individual and we are heard and seen and we are important.
09:35 It's also your own person but as a part of a community. We're separate but together.
09:41 Yeah, that's a good description.
09:43 Yeah.
09:44 That's fine.
09:46 [Music]