How One Teacher Fought Back Against Burnout with Pernille Ripp

In this episode featuring Pernille Ripp, discover how the Danish education system values community well-being over individual success, fostering a supportive environment for educators. You will gain practical ideas to improve your teacher well-being, and implement strategies to foster supported learning. This conversation highlights the importance of teacher wellness and the positive impact of sustainability in the teaching profession.

In this powerful conversation, you'll learn: 
➡️How Denmark's "community first" approach transforms education 
➡️Why Danish teachers get hours of prep time weekly 
➡️The shocking differences in teacher working conditions 
➡️How to protect yourself from burnout in any system 
➡️Practical micro-experiments to create a better work-life balance

Whether you're considering leaving education or looking for ways to sustain your teaching career, this episode offers hope and practical strategies for educators worldwide.

Episode Mentions:  

• Denmark’s Well-Being Commission
• The Global Read Aloud

🎯 Perfect for: Teachers, educators, administrators, parents interested in education reform

Chapter Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction: Why Danish Education is Different 
2:30 - Culture Shock: Rediscovering Teaching Identity 
7:00 - Community First vs Individual Achievement 
12:00 - A Day in the Life: Danish Teacher Schedule 
18:00 - Work-Life Balance 
23:00 - Healthcare and Support Systems 
27:00 - Relearning "Good Enough" and Self-Care 
32:00 - Advice for Educators Considering Change 
38:00 - Protecting Yourself in Unsustainable Systems 
42:00 - Finding Joy and Community in Teaching

#TeacherBurnout #EducationReform #DanishEducation #TeacherWellbeing #WorkLifeBalance #TeachingAbroad #EducationSystem #TeacherLife #SustainableTeaching #CommunityEducation #TeacherSupport #educationpolicy 

✨Tune in every Monday and Friday this summer, when I'll offer a new task to help you get set up for success in the fall. If you have ideas, reach out. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. I can't wait to hear from you. 

🌞Spend lots of days in the sunshine - rest, rejuvenate, and I hope you tune in this summer. Take care.

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When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

Olivia: [00:00:00] Hi there. I'm so glad you're here. Here's what you'll gain by listening to the very last second of this conversation with Pernille Ripp. Through my conversation with Pernille, you'll learn about how the Danish education system prioritizes community well-being over individual achievement;  how this creates a sustainable environment where teachers feel trusted and supported, allowing them to be more present for their students.

Olivia: You'll leave the conversation with ideas to improve your quality of life as an educator, no matter where you are in the world. Pernille shares about how as a teacher in Denmark, there is a community-focused approach that Danish education places community health at the center there are sustainable teaching conditions.

Olivia: Danish teachers benefit from reasonable working hours, and about how work-life balance is a cultural value. And one final detail to add before we jump into the conversation. [00:01:00] We wanted to make it clear that Pernille is only speaking from her experiences and her experiences don't necessarily represent all of the Danish education system.

Olivia: Stay with us. I'm so happy to have you join our conversation today. This is Schoolutions Coaching and Teaching Strategies, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that offers educators and caregivers strategies to try right away and ensure every student receives the inspiration and support they need to thrive.

Olivia: I am Olivia Wahl and I am so happy to have the one and only Pernille Ripp back as a guest on the podcast. Let me tell you a little bit about Pernille. I'll catch you up. Pernille Ripp is a gift to the world of education and literacy. Since moving home to Denmark, Pernille has continued to teach. She's currently teaching second grade and will loop up to third with her class.

Olivia: Pernille also [00:02:00] serves as a learning coach. She's writing on her blog more, which she's going back to sharing freely without a paywall. And personally, perils raising her four children, some neurodivergent with her husband. And like many of us, she's trying to figure out how to be a great caregiver while also keeping her sanity.

Olivia: Pernille, the struggle is real and I reached out because, uh, you have moved home to Denmark. You are teaching, and I think your perspective, your insights will be incredibly valuable to listeners, especially those who are considering a move out of the states to, uh, establish their life elsewhere. So thank you for coming back and being a guest today.

Pernille: Thanks for having me. I'm, I'm just so excited to be connecting once again and talking about some of the things happening in the world, right? 

Olivia: Yes, indeed. Uh, so let's start off, you are home, you're [00:03:00] living in Denmark. Um, and what a gift to be teaching second grade, so, you know, what are some moments that have challenged your expectations of children?

Pernille: Well, I think about this question because I had this idea that of course it was going to be different. Like duh. Right? Like we know that every new, every year we get new kids and, and not, but I didn't realize how incredibly unfamiliar just being a teacher was going to be. It was like I told my husband, like, I know this but it still feels completely warped and like the pieces that I have don't quite fit. So it's like your whole common sense knowledge foundation is still there, but you're trying to make it fit into an unfamiliar image. And so I think for me, that I knew that this coming home to Denmark would, would be both a homecoming.

Pernille: But also to genuinely feel foreign, both in the country and as a [00:04:00] teacher, made me revisit. And it was a little bit scary where it made me revisit because I was pretty certain that, of course, my best work was gonna come with me. But it turns out that in my moments of kind of insecurity, I reverted back to some things that I had dropped a long time ago.

Olivia: Oh, that's interesting. 

Pernille: And I think it's like, I think it's, 'cause it's so drilled into us as teachers, like what do you do as a teacher? You know, you do these very traditional things. So even though I've been sharing freely about all the changes and have been living this changed educational, uh, life, um, all of a sudden I was reverting back and almost forgetting who I was as a teacher.

Pernille: But who brought me back to it were the kids, because it was the kids that, once again, you know, even if I wasn't asking as many questions about how I should be as their teacher or what kind of classroom they wanted to be in, their voices were still loud enough that I could hear it. And so it's been really fun.

Pernille: This is my second year with this group of [00:05:00] kids, and there's phenomenal and, uh, and, and just like rediscovering myself as they're discovering themselves. And, and, and, and recreating these conditions. And even if the landscape is a lot freer in a lot of ways than it was in the U.S., you know, kids are still kids and they're striving for the same things, and they wanna be recognized in a lot of the same ways.

Pernille: And the struggles are also really similar. And so, you know what it really brought me back to was this just - I rediscovered myself as a teacher. It has refueled me as a teacher and, and obviously switching student groups will do that anyway. Um, but also this like rediscovering this very deeply-rooted belief in childhood and in intrinsic motivation in the, and in that students have to be co-creating these spaces with us.

Pernille: And so, once again, my train of thought, which happens to go really quickly - the switch forced me to slow down and [00:06:00] to listen and to not just come in and be like, I know how to be a teacher. I have so many years and so many kids, and you know, all these things. And it was really like, whoa, let's restart everything. And then I had to listen not just to the kids, but also to this culture that I actually thought I knew, but then I didn't know because I moved away, you know, 24 years prior. So, yeah. So it's been exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

Olivia: What I think is fascinating is that if we calibrate around children, that's, that comes back to the heart of why we continue to show up every day. But I also think something I've been studying is the difference between expertise and experience and what truly makes an educator have an impact on student learning, student engagement. And it's not necessarily years of experience, which I think many people would err on the side of. It's actually passion [00:07:00] and curiosity and listening.

Olivia: And you can develop your content expertise 1,000,009 ways, but if you do, do not show up fueled. That was a word you just used. If you do not show up, curious and ready to co-create this world with your children. It's gonna fall short, it's going to fall flatly. And a lot of our tool bag tricks or toolbox tricks will not show up in the way we need. It's just fascinating. Um, now that you're teaching again in Denmark though, what do you wish you would've done back in the States? 

Pernille: I don't know if it's so much what I wish I would've done. I, I think it's more what I wish I would've had permission to do in a structural way. Because whether I knew it or not, I definitely brought a Danish philosophy into my American educational spaces. This idea of [00:08:00] freedom under responsibility, (frihed under ansvar) as we call it in Danish, where it's kind of like we give kids a huge sense of independence with the added, uh, idea of that they're gonna rise to the occasion. We definitely co-created that within our spaces. But, I think about what I've been given permission to do in Denmark is this idea of broad experimentation, of playful learning of the community coming first versus the individual child.

Pernille: And I don't think we get permission to do that enough in the U.S. and even when we grab the permission and do it anyway, we end up in these isolated islands because it's not a cultural shift. And often the teachers and the educators that do that end up kind of ostracized and out, you know, outsourced outside.

Olivia: Yes, yes. 

Pernille: And so for me, I think like, um, I always had this idea of just like, [00:09:00] I don't, I, I know, you know, fun and, and playful, but I also got away from that. Because I think the more I was in the educational system in America, of course we're impacted by all of the pressure that surrounds us. You know?

Pernille: Even the strongest rock is gonna get worn down over time. And so I think going in, um, what really influenced me though was this deep-seated respect for children and for childhood. But it almost felt like my colleagues and I were constantly trying to barricade around for the outside world, for us to keep this core of childhood.

Olivia: Protect it. Yeah.

Pernille: Yeah. And it's, and it's interesting now, you know, looking across the ocean from Denmark of going, like how we infantilize children up until a certain point in the U.S. and then all of a sudden they're adults right away. And then of course we start putting in all of like the marginalizations and racial layers into it and who gets to be a child and who doesn't.

Pernille: Whereas in Denmark, it's much more just protected, like you are a child. [00:10:00] And then at around 12 we start seeing you kind of as this young adult. And so we start loosening the reins and giving you more and more freedom. And you see that in the school system too, and it just provides this really beautiful developmentally stair developmental staircase up until 18 when they are like fully crafted adults.

Pernille: And we tried to do that in America too, but it was hard. And so, yeah, so I think like when I think about Danish educational innovation, I think we would see a lot of it in the U.S. too. Because if I know innovative educators, they are in the U.S.

Olivia: They are, 

Pernille: There are so many incredible people doing so much work, but you don't see it in big pockets. You might see a school here or a district here, but you don't see it state-wide. You don't see it city-wide because there's so many structures in place. And I think that that's just such a shame. And I think in Denmark it's really like we're very community-based.

Pernille: Um, you know, and there's just so much [00:11:00] experimentation happening and it's really being bred in us, like, how are we changing? And not in a - what's, what's the new initiative? Of course we're gonna rule something out. It's like, whoa, how did you grab that opportunity and what are you gonna do with it? And what are you noticing from your children? And I just, I wish so many more American educators or global educators, uh, got the permission to do that. 

Olivia: So I want you to speak more to something you just said, that idea of community-first before the individual child, because I think that's fascinating. And then I would love for you to also take us through a day-in-the-life, um, so we could feel like… 

Pernille: Sure.

Olivia: What does that playful vibe, um, get to feel like for you? 

Pernille: Yeah, so I, so we just had a huge study published in Denmark. We had this, uh, thriving commission, they called it. How, how do we get kids to thrive? And they've been working for years with the government and they came out with all of their recommendations.

Pernille: And one of the largest recommendations that they came with was, in order for kids to thrive, they [00:12:00] need to feel part of the community first. Instead, and it was just like, to me, reading that was like, well, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, right? But that's not always what we're taught. We're taught this individualism and pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of thing.

Pernille: And here it was really like if, if a kid is gonna function, we need the whole community function and how that plays out in our every days that the conversations I'm having with my students is what kind of space do we wanna work in? What kind of school do we wanna be a part of? And are you living up to these values?

Pernille: Which we do that in the U.S. too. Which, we do this in the U.S. too. 

Olivia: We do.

Pernille: This is not something innovative to Denmark. But here, it really is like when you are making poor choices, you are disappointing the community. And disappointment is quite, quite heavily used as a disciplinary tool in Denmark. It’s very, like I was told, my own American children seemed immune to the disappointment like face.

Pernille: And I was like, yep, pretty much. Yep. Um. But this idea of when we're looking at child well-being, we're not just looking at is the [00:13:00] child individually struggling, but also are they also struggling to find themselves as part of the community? And what that offers us is that we're constantly looking at the health of our whole community.

Olivia: Yes!

Pernille: I'm not just looking at individual children going, these kids are, you know, have struggles for whatever reason. It's really looking through and going, okay, so this kid is not doing well. Where are all the components that they're not doing well, and how is the community surrounding them also, not just impacted by it, but how are they impacting the child?

Olivia: Yes!

Pernille: And how do we need to change the community? What it also means in a broader sense is that as an educator, I have the incredible gift of only being a part of a child's educational journey. I am not the bearer of everything. I am not expected to be a psychologist. I'm not expected to be a therapist or a guidance counselor or, you know, or, or a care, a caregiver in that sense, or the one that provides them food or the one that is does the social work.

Pernille: I am [00:14:00] there to teach them. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And we have to create a community where parents have the opportunity to show up at school. Where parents have enough free time to be present for their children, and, and have a safety net knowing that their children will be cared for. I think one of the most basic things that stood out to me in my first couple months of teaching was one of our students got hurt on the playground.

Pernille: If you ever look at Danish playgrounds, they're notoriously, you know, in American eyes, very unsafe. I think it's fabulous because it's for exploratory play. And if you're gonna fall down and break something, well then you learned a lesson and sure enough, a kid fell and broke something and we called an ambulance.

Pernille: And no one at any point said, how are they gonna pay for that ambulance? It didn't even enter the conversation because here was a kid that was hurt. So of course we called an ambulance and off they went and got a cast on their arm. And I think about that little tiny thing, [00:15:00] how huge of a difference it would make to American families or to to families across the world if they simply knew that they didn't have to consider whether or not, whether or not they can afford to pay for an ambulance.

Olivia:  Yeah.

Pernille: And so when I think community first, as a community in Denmark, and we're a small country, right? So we can do this too. We're constantly looking at are all the pieces functioning so that teachers can be just teachers, kids can be just kids, and parents can show up and be parents. And that means that the collaboration surrounding a child in school is totally different because I'm not having to worry about all of the other components and it gives me a freedom. 

Olivia: It's profound. 

Pernille: I can breathe. I don't feel this incredible pressure at all times to be everything for a child. I am not told that I am here saving children. 

Olivia: No. 

Pernille: And I cannot tell you how just amazing it is to not be told that. Because I always felt like I was, I was never doing enough to save every child. Here. I'm set, you know? Here I'm told. Are you helping [00:16:00] them progress? Are they becoming the best version academically while also thriving in the community that you have co-created? I mean, what, what a gift that is. 

Pernille: And so when you look at like, my, every day, it's so funny, I talk to my, my friends in America all this time, you know, so like my day, I, I have to be at school obviously by ten to eight, which is when the students show up and we start teaching at eight. Now I'm with the younger, so our day is an hour shorter. I teach from eight o'clock until 12 minutes past one. I have four classes. 

Olivia: Okay. 

Pernille: That's it. Then I have prep until, I think my contract hour is until four, but we work 40 hours a week and five hours of those at my school can be worked from home. 

Olivia: Wow. 

Pernille: So I have two afternoons, Monday and Wednesday where I have to stay at school until three. All the other days I can work from home when I'm [00:17:00] done at 1:12, as long as I am accessible, available, and obviously doing my work.Even that small notion means that I get to come home…

Olivia: Trust. 

Pernille: …and take my kids to a medical appointment. Yeah, or my kid is having a bad day. I can jump on a train and I can be home 30 minutes later and I'm accessible to my own kid. I get to, as a teacher, also be a parent, and that doesn't happen. 

Olivia: Yeah. And feel human. 

Pernille: Yeah. And that doesn't happen very often. And so we have a 40-hour work week, but in my school, and this is a little bit lower than most schools. I am, I only teach 20 hours out of those 40. 

Olivia: Okay. 

And that's our whole school. And so every teacher is, is responsible for 20 hours. So that's an automatic 20 hours of prep that you're given at every single week. 

Olivia: Wow. 

Pernille: Most schools in Denmark, it's 24, so then 16 hours. But even that, like just the [00:18:00] freedom there. And then obviously we don't have this long summer vacation, so we have vacations spread out through the year. We just had a 10 day Easter vacation, for example. And it also means that we never get into a longer stretch. I wanna say it's 10 weeks is the longest stretch we have between vacations. 

Pernille: And even like that little thing makes a huge difference for the kids. 'cause when we're all getting kind of batty and we need to go and and do something else. Right. We have a vacation coming up. It also means we don't have the three months learning loss. 

Olivia: Gap. Yeah. 

Pernille: Yeah. I mean, we have six weeks and we can certainly tell a difference, but it's just like all of these things lead to that. I have a lot less responsibility on my shoulders. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: Right. And so also I'm never, I'm not alone with my class. I have a co-teacher. I have two other teachers who also teach my students. So while I'm the main responsible adult, I'm not alone. At any point, I can go and bring in another teacher and say, what do you think of this kiddo? What's going on? Can you sit in on this meeting? Can you help me brainstorm? 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: So I [00:19:00] think that there's just like a lot of structures over here that are so like common sense. That if we could get them implemented in other ways, we might not be able to, to mimic the entire Danish educational system, because there's also a lot of, you know, governmental parts in place that will never fly in other places. We, but we could take some of the components and make it work in the U.S. as well and in other places.

Pernille: I think about my day, our, our, we don't have schedules like Monday, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, all those days are different. And so my students love it because we don't have literacy every day. You know, we don't have English every day. We don't have math every day. We have a certain amount of hours.

Pernille: And so like today, my students had two Danish periods and they had Christianity, um, or no English. And then they have math. Tomorrow they're gonna have one Danish period. They're gonna have art, they're gonna have this community hour that we have. And then we have, uh, a project hour where we do project-based learning and intervention and what not.

Pernille: So I think that [00:20:00] also kind of takes the pressure off a little bit. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And kids get to go play, right? They have two recesses and they're done. They're done at 1:12. And, and it was funny 'cause like we had talked about at one point they were talking about changing the hours for which subjects you should have in Denmark and the government came out and said, yeah, we need to lower them because kids are go, are sitting in schools for too long.

Olivia: Are you kidding? 

Pernille: No. So our zero graders next year are gonna go back to 11:30 at our school. Again, I can only speak for my school, but 'cause the new hours for kindergarten are fewer hours in school, more time to play. 

Olivia: So how does that impact caregivers though? Because if caregivers are working, what we work right of that like eight to five o'clock-ish timeframe do are what the, do the kids go home or… 

Pernille: No, no, no. So every school has built in after school and it's really cheap. It's like, um, now I'm gonna misquote it, [00:21:00] but it's probably like $150 a month. You know, I mean, it's like a couple hundred dollars. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: So every school, like for like a school that has zero through third grade, they have to have morning. That opens at six. Opens at six and then, uh, afternoon and it closes at five, however many Dans. I don't wanna say most because you know, then it gets kind of a little bit like propaganda. But most Dans work 37 hours a week, and then they have a half an hour lunch break. Most hours are normally nine to four.

Pernille: There's very few that work, eight to five that would be considered an incredibly long day and over the 40 hour. Um, and so you also, and again, most, not all, there's a lot of flexibility put into your work that if your kid is sick, you, so by law in Denmark, your kid's first sick days, you have to, you have to be off with pay.

Pernille: Like that. 

Olivia: Wait. [00:22:00] 

Pernille: Yeah. You just, you call in and you say, my kid is sick. And then you get their first sick day off. Now of course it's not a perfect system. 'cause what about day five and day seven and day eight? Right, Like there you're kind of in a, but like my husband and his job, his union just negotiated that they get the first three sick days off for their kid with pay. And it's a little bit less pay, but it's pay and they can't say no. You know, like that's part of it. I also, when I moved here, right, like I asked my best friend, I was like. Sick days, how does that work? And she was like, what, what are you talking about? And I said, you know, like the amount of sick days. Like her husband's a teacher.

Pernille: I was like, well, how many sick days do you get? She's like, you get whatever you need. And I was like, what? What? What is this? And she's like, well, obviously if you're out like for like a long time, they're gonna call you and be like, are you okay? Do we need to get a medical plan? So even that, when we think about community.

Olivia: Yeah, it's caring. 

Pernille: They don't want's us coming in sick because they want us to be at our best. [00:23:00] 

Olivia: Yeah. So I, my mind is spinning as I'm sure listeners minds will be spinning and something that there, there are a couple of words. If I was doing a Mentimeter that and asked everyone right now type in words that are coming to mind, I think the words in the center that would be growing bigger and bigger and bigger are teachers there feel trust.

Pernille: Sometimes. 

Olivia: feel safe, some, 

Pernille: yeah. 

Olivia: Some feel safety because that idea of, and it, it feels like you're tended to in the same way that you would want to be tending to children. Of, you don't want a child to schlep in if they're not feeling well. Um, and I just, I, I feel like where we are right now in education in some parts of the globe that teachers are not tended to, and they're not trusted to do their prep work at home. It, 

Olivia: I, I, you know, I have [00:24:00] colleagues that have wanted to do summer planning work, um, and the school buildings don't have air conditioning over the summer. So they had asked to do the work at a different location and it was rejected, without pay. Um, and so, you know, where is it that we trust educators? To do the right thing. Right. Because that's what we want them doing with their children. Yeah. And it's just fascinating to me. 

Pernille: Yeah. And obviously, like I'm speaking from my own experiences, of course there are of Yeah. Educators in Denmark that would tell you, I, I don't have the trust. I'm not being cared for. Right. I think that's also been fascinating, that there's still a high level of teacher burnout here and, and that's even with those protections in place. So I think it also speaks again to just the inherent stressfulness of the job of being a teacher. And, and we can't say kids these days, right?

Pernille: Because it's always been kids these days. But the whole playing field has changed 'cause of Corona or COVID because of social [00:25:00] media, technology. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And because of the energy depletion that we have in society as a whole. When we think about, are the kids okay? Well really what we're looking at is, are the parents okay? Because I can tell you as as a mom of four kids, and some of them are neuro neurodivergent and some of them are just kids with, you know, emotions. 

Olivia: Yes. 

Pernille: It takes a lot of energy to be fully present for my child. And to really parent well. Right? And to take, pick up the struggles and pick the fights even though you're tired and you had a long workday.

Pernille: And so when we look at kids who are not functioning well in schools, we also need to have parents that have enough energy to function themselves. And when I think about what's happening in the world around us, and the incredible chronic stress that we're all facing, you know, when we, you look at headlines and the whole world is just coming apart around you and, and there's food instability, and you're not sure you're gonna have a job, you're not sure about your income.

Pernille: You know, you don't know what's happening to your retirement. You don't know if you can send your kids to college if that's what they wanna do. You know, you don't know if your kids are safe. [00:26:00] Like, how, how can we even start to protect our children when we can barely protect ourselves as adults? And so I think about that, that it's interesting that even in Denmark where we have all these protections in place and I don't have, uh, a daily fear of being shot in my school, you know?

Pernille: Or like my kids can go to college for free because our taxes pay for it. Right? Like, I don't have those big chronic worries. I can still get burned out because I think like the job of being a teacher is just this incredible sense of responsibility. You're constantly putting yourself under this microscope of going, am I good enough?

Pernille: Do I deserve to be here? Do I deserve to be in charge of children? Do I deserve to be in charge of making decisions that will impact young lives for a long time, even if I didn't intend it to? And I think we put ourselves up. Against this incredibly high barometer of how we're supposed to function as adult.

Pernille: And so I think the least we can do is provide educators with a space where they feel trusted and cared for. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And I think that, and there's so many system, for example, in the [00:27:00] U.S. that make it so hard because we have 10 sick days or, and two personal days, right? Or the air conditioning is broken, or we don't trust you to actually work your hours. I think being under a leader that has said, yeah, we see, we see you guys. We see you striving and thriving. We see you collaborating. There's no need for us to walk around and check, are you here in your rooms until four o'clock or 3:30, you know? 'cause we, we can see it in the results of the kids and of the parents and of the test results and all the things.

Olivia: Right. All the things. Yeah, I, I was in conversation with John Hattie this week and something he said, many things he said have, have continued to, um, bounce around in my mind. But something he said is that, we spend a lot of time celebrating children and their accomplishments, and he became very passionate.

Olivia: And he said, but those accomplishments wouldn't happen necessarily without the amazing teachers that are inspiring them and their caregivers that are [00:28:00] driving them to all of these rehearsals and the practices. So I absolutely believe in celebrating children for all of their self-driven goodness. And, but there's, there's also, there are people behind that and that's why I so appreciate that the sense of community.

Olivia: That it's not really anyone doing it by themselves, it's this network. And, um, I'm so interested to also learn what Danish traditions or culture, uh, shifts have become really important in your life again, since moving back from the states, because you're really straddling two cultures still…. 

Pernille: Yeah! 

Olivia: …and having family everywhere.

Pernille: I think just like I had to relearn simplicity and I had to learn what, when something was good enough, and I thought I had embraced that already, but I really hadn't. My colleagues both in my first job coming back to Denmark, and then [00:29:00] also at my school were like, do you ever stop working? And in America, that would kind of be seen as a badge of honor, right?

Pernille: Like, oh, she's so innovative. Look at her. She's getting so much done. She's the teacher to emulate over here. They're like, that's not healthy. Like, stop. So this idea of really cultivating my outside life in order to be a a successful teacher was really foreign to me. I mean, we hear it, right? Like self-care, like we have a self-care PD day 

Olivia: Yes.

Pernille: Where we can like, choose a thing, like go for a walk or do yoga. Um, but here it's so embedded that you are expected to have a rich life, whatever that means, even if it means that you're just laying on your couch every day. And so for me it was this idea of rediscovering what it means to be a whole person.

Pernille: And in, in Denmark we have this saying, right? We don't, we don't live to work. We, we work to live. [00:30:00] And I think that for me, that was really something that hit me smack in the face. I thought I was doing okay. And it turns out I wasn't. And I honestly sat in my house not knowing what to do with myself because I all of a sudden had free time.

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And I felt so guilty. I had free time and I finally, my husband and I had a good conversation about it 'cause I realized that in order to feel accomplished, like I was deserving of sleep, I had to produce an entire day and it wasn't enough to just go to work and then come home and work some more and do laundry and parent and cook dinner and then, then I had to fit in more work.

Pernille: Maybe create blog, blog posts or some sort of PD or reach out to people or social media or whatever. I had to continually produce until I almost fell into bed at 10 o'clock. And then maybe I would allow myself to [00:31:00] sleep and what a poor existence that is. And sure there are people in Denmark that that is their life and that is their goal.

Pernille: But for a lot of the population here, that is not how we live. And so having to re-meet myself at 44. Well now 45, and go, what are you besides being a teacher and a mom? 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: Was kind of scary. 

Olivia: It is.

Pernille: Because I didn't know, and it was kind of, and I knew, I mean, I'd filled out a, not a lot of like, you know, or like podcasts where people are like, what do you do outside of teaching? And it was like, nothing. Like, what do you mean? I teach, I create, I love it. It, it's my life. And now it's like, now it's like, oh, I, I, I do CrossFit, I do yoga, I garden, I hang with my kids. I, you know, I do stupid stuff all the time. I bake. I, um, and so for me, I didn't realize how far away I've gotten from that.[00:32:00] 

Olivia: I am, I'm sitting here now thinking this episode's gonna come out on June 9th and I am taking so much from this conversation of what we can do no matter where we are in the world, to strike a better balance. Because this idea of judgment, especially for educators of you are never enough if you are not planning all night after you leave your classroom.

Olivia: And I believe so deeply in my heart that if we do not find joy outside of the gift of being an educator, that we will stop being educators. Just that balance, Pernille, that for me feels like a call to action – 

Pernille: It is!

Olivia: …not just for it is listeners, for myself of continuing to say it's okay. Good enough. Based on everything you've, you, you're still teaching and you, you found [00:33:00] yourself in a new way. What advice would you give to educators wrapping this school year? 

Pernille: Yeah. 

Olivia: And some of my closest favorite educators in the states right now are considering a move out of the country. So just your words of wisdom after living this for a few years. 

Pernille: Yeah. I think for me, the big piece of advice is, there's a couple things, but like don't try to replicate your old teaching self. Like, obviously your old teaching self is gonna bring you in in the door somewhere new. But then really treat it as a brand new start to your teaching career and also to who you are as a person and what person is it that you wanna be in this chapter. I also think it can feel really scary and I think that that's okay.

Pernille: I think we've been taught for so long that when we're fearful we should be afraid versus when we're [00:34:00] fearful, it's something exciting that's coming up. You're gonna, if you, if you cling too much and you, and you look for too similar of a situation. If you're, if you don't, you want it to be foreign, but not too foreign, then you're gonna lose this gift of transformation that really lies in going into the unknown.

Pernille: And then be ready for a new community and be ready to be humbled. I stood here as someone who has published books and created a Global Literacy Project and who, you know, could go to the conferences and people would like, some people would know who I was or invited to speak or teach other teachers. And I came into a school and no one had any idea who I was.

Pernille: Of course not. It took me 70 applications to even get an interview in Denmark because they did not care what I had created in another country. They cared about what I could bring to their school. And it wasn't until I got my resume to fit that, instead of kind of this long list of [00:35:00] accolades that we're so used to having to lampoon in America that I finally got an interview.

Pernille: Um, but I think also like this idea, and we know this, this is kind of tried and true of, of be a learner first. I think we have been so indoctrinated that as teachers we should always innovate. But to me, innovation is really singular and really individualistic. I can only be innovative if innovative, if my idea is better than someone else's.

Pernille: And it's, it's almost always at the cost of something. So for me, I've moved away from trying to be innovative, which is also in a way really exhausting 'cause it means I constantly, it's have to reinvent and, and reproduce and make something better and bigger and do, and I've just moved into evolution.

Pernille: How have I changed and who am I changing with? Who's the community? So when, if you're considering a move, how do you wanna evolve? How do you want to be impressed [00:36:00] by a new community? How do you wanna grow? 'cause when I sat at my school, and honestly it was the, it was the job posting, I was so excited when I got the interview.

Pernille: ‘Cause it was one of those jobs where you were just like, I really wanna be a part of this school. And it was because of how they portrayed their community and how they portrayed their children. And I thought to myself, I'm gonna learn a lot here. Not, I'm gonna bring a lot, man they're lucky to get me.

Pernille: It was, man, I can't wait to go and be a part of that. And then give yourself permission to also be humble in that idea, right. Of, of not having it all figured out. And I think for those who are dreaming of moving, but are like, how do I even do that? Think about how can you do micro-experiments to realize that good enough is okay?

Pernille: 'Cause I think that it's a really hard cliff to dive off of, I think pushing back and setting hard boundaries for yourself when, for example, in America, we know that our job cannot be done [00:37:00] within contractual hours. Uh…

Olivia: Exactly. 

Pernille: You know, like, it, it is, it is a system set up for you to fail. And there are very few teachers that do it, and they're almost seen as like outside pariahs, right? Like they're not sacrificing enough, I think set up micro-experiments for yourself and, and, and, and go. Okay. This week, I'm only going to do this. I'm only gonna prep this much. Or instead of this beautiful slideshow, this is one of the things I stopped doing in Denmark. Like I make really boring slideshows.

Pernille: I literally choose like the Google slide template. That's my template. 

Olivia: That's it.

Pernille: Like once in a while I might choose one of the other ones and that's it. But like even that little thing has saved me so much time 'cause my students don't care. They literally don't. 

Olivia: No, they don't. 

Pernille: And so I think in allowing yourself, setting up these mi micro-experiments of like, could I, could I do less here? How did that make me feel? And how much time did that give me back? And then how did my students react? I think we're gonna start to see that we can actually do a lot [00:38:00] less and preserve ourselves and consider that, you know, for, for the, for the whole school to function, we need to function. And not in a, in a superficial way.

Olivia: I started to get overwhelmed when you were just talking and I started to well up because something that I think feels so sad right now, um, is that idea that if we don't keep our community in place, um, that's, that's my fear of like becoming numb. And so, um, I'm sorry, it's just, it's so hard here right now. So I think, like, what I want educators to really hold onto is that we're doing such good work and I don't wanna lose everyone. So if nothing else, yeah. If nothing else, just find your people.

Pernille: Right. Because they wanna wear you down. 

Olivia: Yeah, 

Pernille: They're [00:39:00] creating systems to wear us down. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: Because we can be indoctrinated and put in fear a lot easier when we are stressed out of our minds. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: When we are tested beyond belief, when we are told you can't hang posters in your classroom, you can't use the names that you need to because you might lose your job. When they have us in a choke hold of fear, we're gonna fall in line and we're gonna stop protesting and we're gonna stop speaking out and we're not gonna have the energy to protect children and to protect ourselves

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: And so we fight back. But fighting back takes so much power.

Olivia: It does. 

Pernille: And it takes, it does so much energy and it's okay to fight back in a way that isn't loud and that isn't public, but that is saying, I'm gonna preserve my energy in order to stay in this job because I wanna still be here when all of this nonsense is gone. All of this insanity is gone. I wanna still be standing here and looking back on the right side of history and say, I [00:40:00] stayed to protect the kids, but the only way we can stay to protect the kids is if we protect ourselves first. 

Olivia: Yes. 

Pernille: And when you're in an unsustainable system, you know, that is, that wears you down. And I was even like, I was in an amazing district. It was amazing administrators and an incredible school board and superintendent and parents that supported us, and I did not realize how chronically burnt out I was. I did not like it wasn't until I stood in Denmark and breathed on my first day of a new job and realized that I could finally take a deep breath.

Olivia: Yeah. 

Pernille: Yeah, and, and, and that was two and a half years ago and two and a half years. A lot has changed in the us and so I just think about if there's any plea to any educators listening to this, it is to protect yourself and do it by shortening your days, by doing less, by going back to the basics. I, I had shared even like sub, so in Denmark, like one last mind-blowing thing about the Danish system, which could be implemented in districts and that is, 

Olivia: Yes, it could, 

Pernille: If you are sick, [00:41:00] you don't write sub plans. That's what the subs job are. That's they are paid to be subs and part of their job is to make a sub plan. Like just that, that little change. But like also that it's okay that if you're sick, that the kids play games or they watch a movie or they do something that is not in your curriculum. Because how many of us have written sub plans from hospital beds next to people who are, are dying?

Olivia: So sick.

Pernille: I mean, I, I wrote, I wrote sub plans when they were trying to start my preterm labor for my youngest child hooked up to machines because they didn't even hire a maternity sub for me at that point. You know what I mean? And I just think about like, look at all the ways that the system is trying to break you and find a way to set a boundary that's a lot further away from you. Have five sub plans ready? You know, here they're gonna watch Doc a documentary about pandas today. Nope, we're not doing anything about pandas or we have five board [00:42:00] games and that's what they're gonna play today. Community. Yeah. That's what we're working on. 

Olivia: Community. Community, 

Pernille: You know, all of those ways. And I, and if I can, these people can go into summer going, I need to protect myself. We will come out stronger. 

Olivia: We will. And you know what you also just made me think too is that something you have also really reinvigorated is joy and finding moments of pure happiness doing what you love. And so what I hope for teachers is that you allow yourself moments of joy when all of this craziness is happening, that it's okay to post a picture of happiness.

Olivia: Um, you don't always have to be fighting this fight. Um, you, you can celebrate moments that do happen throughout the day because that will fuel us to continue staying in this field. Um, Pernille, you always make me [00:43:00] better after talking to you. And, um, I'm sorry, I got just that, this idea, I think you may have some neighbors after this conversation, come please. Yeah. I, I, I think, you know, there's so much good in, in this world and, um, there are so many teachers that want to continue teaching far after, um, the next few years. So thank you for all of you, all that you do and, um, for sharing your story right now. 

Pernille: Absolutely. Thanks for having me on to share it.

Olivia: Yeah, take care. Schoolutions Coaching and teaching strategies is created, produced and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube.

Olivia: Thank you to my guest, Pernille Ripp for sharing how we can [00:44:00] begin to prioritize community well-being over individual achievement. Now, I'd love to hear from you. I am also kicking off the summer series. Every Monday and Friday, I will offer a new task you can try to get yourself set up for success in the fall.

Olivia: If you have ideas, reach out. Send me an email at schoolutionspodcast@gmail.com. I can't wait to hear from you. Spend lots of days in the sunshine - rest rejuvenate, and I hope you tune in this summer. Take care.