274: Why School in Denmark is Better, and What We Can Learn from Them
The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast
Jennifer Gonzalez
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2026
⏱️ 111 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Pernille Ripp moved from the U.S., where she had taught for over a decade, to her native country of Denmark, she was immediately struck by how different school was. In this episode, we'll explore why Danish schools are so good for teachers and students, and which practices we might be able to adopt in the U.S.
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Thanks to Alpaca and iCivics for sponsoring the episode. To read a written version of this podcast, visit cultofpedagogy.com/danish-school.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Jennifer Gonzalez and welcome to episode 274 of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | In this episode, we're going to talk about why school in Denmark is better and what practices of theirs we might be able to implement in the U.S. It's kind of ironic that the longest episode I've ever published doesn't really contain anything specific that would help teachers do their work better, which is what I usually try to do here. |
| 0:36.7 | But I think the conversation is interesting nonetheless, |
| 0:40.1 | and I believe it contains some stuff that could make our schools better overall. |
| 0:45.0 | I've known today's guest Perneal Rip for over 10 years now. Through her blog and her books, |
| 0:51.1 | she writes about learning and literacy and how we show up every day in a way that |
| 0:55.9 | makes school a humane and enriching place. She's been a guest on the podcast before on episode 84 in |
| 1:02.7 | 2017, an interview we called How to Stop Killing the Love of Reading. And we've stayed in touch |
| 1:08.9 | over the years since, which included her move from the U.S. to her native country of reading, and we've stayed in touch over the years since, which included her move from |
| 1:11.9 | the U.S. to her native country of Denmark, where she's been living for the past few years. |
| 1:17.5 | Our more recent conversations have been about Per Neal's experiences teaching in Denmark compared |
| 1:22.7 | to how it was to teach in the U.S., and it's been fascinating. So I asked her if we could do a deeper dive here. |
| 1:30.5 | Comparing education in the U.S. to schools in other countries is not a new thing. |
| 1:35.0 | And when we do it, the U.S. almost always looks worse by comparison. |
| 1:39.7 | Today's episode will follow that same pattern. |
| 1:42.9 | But I've asked Pernil to take it a step further. |
| 1:45.9 | Yes, we will be talking about a handful of things that make teaching in Denmark better, |
| 1:50.0 | but as we talk, we're going to consider how we might bring some of those same features to U.S. schools. |
| 1:56.6 | What I think you're going to find is that most, if not all of the possibilities are about doing |
| 2:02.1 | less, not adding something more. |
| 2:04.9 | They are simple subtractions from the long, long list of expectations we place on teachers and |
| 2:10.6 | students. |
... |
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