Nordlandet Ungdomsskole

I visited Nordlandet Ungdomsskole on December 2, 2008. It is located in Kristiansund which is a city on the western coast of Norway. The actual school building was old and many of the teachers told me about how in the upcoming year there would be a massive renovation at their school. But once again, though the school was old (it was built in the mid to late 1960’s) it was very well maintained and did not look like an aging school at all. The school houses approximately 225 students from grades 8-10.

This school was the first time I met teachers who truly appreciated and liked their colleagues. Several teachers told me individually that they chose to stay at the school because of the collegiality among the faculty. And I could certainly tell that they were a thoughtful and considerate faculty. This was made prevalent to me in several ways. First when I arrived they took me directly to the classroom I would be teaching in to make sure that I felt comfortable for my lecture. When I got to the room, they had the computer, projector, and my PowerPoint that I sent earlier already set up. They then had me stay in one room the whole day, so that I would not have to shuffle my stuff around. For lunch, one teacher made homemade pizza’s (with homemade crust!) that was delicious and then to thank me for coming they gave me a silver pin of a cod (which is what the area is known for in the fishing industry). It was all around a really lovely experience.

All that being said, I have to say my lessons were nothing to write home about. I did the book-in-a-day lesson and I should have known from my previous experience with the short stories that the book choice and the time frame was not going to work. However, I didn’t think that far ahead and let the teachers choose To Kill a Mockingbird. There was no way the students would get through the required amount of reading (with 11 groups it was approx. 3 chapters per group). But, I did a quick modification and had them read as far as they could get, share that and then find another group to work with and come up with conclusions about the US in the 1930’s based on what they read. Though it wasn’t ideal and I think the students were looking forward to a more fun lesson and less studious lesson they did come up with the big themes. Some of the conclusions they drew were:

• Respect for their parents
• Racism and segregation
• A strict court, either guilty or not, live or die
• Didn’t have much money

As my anticipatory set for the story I had the students do the Agree/Disagree Four Corners activity with themes from the story. This worked okay, but I liked it better with the political issues. There seems to be more debate with the political issues than this one. However, I did get some rather interesting responses to some of the quotes. For example, I put up the quote sticks and stones may break my bones but words would never hurt me. To this the students did the typical debate between harassment that goes to far vs. not caring about what other people say about you. One boy, who was probably one of the best in English, says, “I don’t give a fuck about what people think.” Another student said about the quote All men are created equal that “we all are born the same, but then we fuck it up with the government and religion.”

I had three classes of 10th grade students and the first class was painfully quiet. Not only did they not talk, but they wouldn’t even talk when I begged. It makes for a VERY long lesson when the students are so shy they won’t discuss with me. After the quiet classes, the next two got progressively more chatty until the last one when I had hard time getting them to calm down because they had just beat the other teams in field hockey (they were pegged as the underdogs in the tournament). This last class was a handful in that there was a huge discrepancy in terms of English ability. There were kids who spoke perfect English (mind you with a ton of slang thrown in) and then some who hardly understood what I was saying. For example, there were a couple of kids who just put their heads down to sleep, a couple who kept kissing and whispering in each others’ ear, and a few girls who played the ditsy role. So it made for some interesting work. I wish I would have had a different lesson for them because I think they would have been engaged if I had done something other than To Kill A Mockingbird.

Quit frequently I visit schools and they have me meet with the 9th and 10th graders only. I find this interesting and no one really has a reason for this. At Nordlandet, I happened to start talking to some 8th graders in the hallway and they were so excited to talk with me and did very well with their English. I forgot how much I love working with the younger students.

Ytrebygda Ungdomsskole

On November 25th and 26th, I visited Ytrebygda Ungdomsskole which is located on the outskirts of Bergen. The school has approximately 600 students, which is one of the larger ungdomsskoler I have attend thus far.

During my two days I did mostly the presidential election presentation, and one presentation on short stories and one using the inquiry stations. It has been awhile since I had 45 minute classes (lately the schools have scheduled me for longer stretches of time) so I was surprised at how fast the two days went and how quickly the lessons went.

The students in this school were fairly typical in that they had similar comments about the issues in the election and about American culture as other students have in the past. For example students spoke about American by saying statements like:

• Many different cultures
• Big buildings
• Movies from the US have much more humor than Norwegian [sic]
• They get warm lunch at school [sic]—This is actually one of the things Norwegian students seem to think is really cool about US schools.
• American teenagers are very social

One of my classes was interrupted by some students outside the window. As you can tell from the picture above, it was dark, cold, and snowy. However, a group of students who were just finishing their swimming unit in PE class decided to run around the school in their swimsuits. So during one of my lessons, the class was distracted as about 15 fourteen year olds ran half naked in the cold around the building. I chuckled, but some of the other teachers didn’t find it so funny.

It was at this school that I first saw (or maybe just noticed) a yearbook. The yearbooks appear very similar to US middle school yearbooks in that they are paperback and in color. However, my host teacher showed me her son’s videregående skole yearbook. That book was also in color and a paperback, magazine-looking text. The thing that seems different than yearbooks in the states is that each section starts with a class photo and then individual pictures of the students. In the class photo the students create a theme and then dressed the part. So there were pirates, all dresses (even the boys wore dresses), and some that were quite provocative like the pimps and hos groups photo. Some of the students wore their costumes for their individual pictures and did interesting poses as well. Like in the pirate group, one student had a fake machete that she was drawing across her neck at the time of the picture.

This school was also the first time I saw a wide variety of student art work hanging in the hallway. There were sculptures in glass cases, photographs framed and hanging on the walls, and drawings framed and hanging. This was very similar to the way US schools do it. Interestingly though one set of artwork was nude drawings of women. This would probably NOT happen in a US school, yet it seemed very appropriate considering the artwork that students in Europe are immersed in (especially here in Norway).

Ytrebygda Ungdomsskole is also a part of Comenius. Comenius is an organization affiliated with the European Commission responsible for Education, Training, Culture, and Youth. To see a video about this program check out http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/doc84_en.htm. Basically the goals of this program are:

• To improve and increase the mobility of pupils and educational staff in different Member States
• To enhance and increase partnerships between schools in different Member States, with at least three million pupils taking part in joint educational activities by 2010
• To encourage language learning, innovative ICT-based content, services and better teaching techniques and practices
• To enhance the quality and European dimension of teacher training
• To improve pedagogical approaches and school management

Because of this program the students and teachers travel extensively throughout Europe meeting and working with other schools, learning with them. Most recently the group went to France and Italy.

Ibestad Ungdomsskole

On November 20th, I visited Ibestad Ungdomsskole. It is located on an island called Rolløya and when combined with the other island (which is connected by a tunnel that goes under the ocean) it is called Ibestad. The island is off the coast of Harstad and is up within the arctic circle, which means the picture above was actually taken at 1:45 in the afternoon, but it is dark because the sun doesn’t come over the horizon during the winter months.

My travel from Oslo involved a flight to Evenes and then a bus to Harstad, where I stayed overnight in a hotel. The next day I took a taxi to the ferry, the ferry for 45 minutes to the island, and then drove with some special education teachers to the school (about another 25 minutes). Not only was the travel long to get to this school, there were several mishaps that made the travel a bit more interesting. First the airplane wasn’t pressurized correctly, so one of the blood vessels in my eye burst giving me a very bloody left eye. The flight was also interesting because of the snow storm that we had to fly through which a very turbulent flight. We then landed on a runway that had about 4 inches of snow on it that I was convinced there was no way the plane would be able to stop safely. The airport was so small that we had to deplane outside and walk a ways to get inside through a rather intense snow storm. Once I gathered my luggage, I took the bus on a very narrow road with visibility at maybe a couple of yards.

The ferry was also interesting in that as part of the safety procedures they explain how to get into a survival suit BEFORE putting on the life vest. For those of you who many not know what a survival suit is, it is a bright orange plastic suit that covers your entire body from your shoes to your head with only a small opening for your face (for a picture of a survival suit see http://jacobtanenbaum.com/~tasblog/uploaded_images/suit-765345.JPG). It is supposed to help maintain a bit of your body heat if you have to abandon the ferry. The following picture is of the ferry that I took. I shot the picture on my way home from school so it was around 2:15 in the afternoon when I took the picture:

The school had 44 students total in it from grades 8-10th. I gave three presentations, one to each grade level on the presidential elections. The students were really quite strong and the first two lessons went really well. The last lesson was actually one of my worst for the whole year. The group was the 10th grade and I was given the most time with them. Many teachers in Norway wrongly assume that the 10th graders are the most interested in what I have to say and this was true in this situation. The 10th graders did not talk at all. There were only 11 of them and there were at times up to 5 additional adults in the classroom, which only meant they talked even less. Of the 11 students three were labeled with serious learning disabilities and the others were very much not interested in what I had to say. Since my lessons are very interactive this caused a problem. I had 2 hours to fill, which has never been a problem before, but these students literally refused to talk. So even with some quick modifications, I was done in an hour and half and pretty much had to admit defeat at that point. Ironically the other classes were so talkative I couldn’t get through all my material.

When I arrived to the 8th grade class, they had the following written on the board:

This class had a really cute sense of humor and one girl sidled up to me and said very conspiratorially, “We know Santa Claus.” They also told me that they are “the land of the cold.” During the questioning one of the boys asked me why our athletes aren’t very good. After clarifying with him which sports he was referring to (soccer and cross country skiing), I realized that kids really have interesting questions. It reminded me how important inquiry education is at this age.

I had the students visually represent how Norwegians feel about the US election. The following are some examples that the students created. Some chose to create bumper stickers and others attempted political cartoons:

Two bumper stickers

Political Cartoon

Some other interesting things about this school:

The teachers were surprised when I said that middle and high school students in the US are generally not usually allowed to go outside during the day for recess (especially if it is snowing!). The school psychologist asked, “but wouldn’t that create more attention problems.” Touché. The Norwegian students have 15 minute breaks throughout the day as you know from my previous blogs and they often run around the school, play in the snow, play ball, etc. For my visit, they found an American football and practiced working on their spiral. It was so odd for me to have a better spiral than a group of 15 year old boys!!!

The girls also chatted with me during the lunch time about the school sex education program. I was a little uncomfortable with the conversation and I had to laugh at myself for being so American!! Much of what they said, I had already learned from a teacher, things like they can get pills and condoms from their school nurse for free. They were surprised by how white my teeth were and told me about how dentists in Norway are free up to age 16. This group also had fun teaching me some more Norwegian and I have a few new facebook friends from this group.

As I was leaving the school, I noticed students were using a sled-like thing to get home. When I asked, the kids explained to me that it is called a spark (some of you might remember it from the winter Olympics in Lillehammer). But as you can see above the driver stands on the runners and then push with one foot. The platform in the front can be used to transport another person or to put your shopping/school bags. Many older Norwegians talk about how they went to school on sparks all the time, but now that Norway doesn’t get as much snow as it used to it is not as common in the southern towns and cities. The kids let me try, but as you can see I was in heels so it made it a bit sketchy!

Drøbak Montessori Ungdomsskole

On November 18, 2008, I took the bus from Oslo to Drøbak which is a small town about 45 minutes outside of Oslo. Drøbak is most known for huge Christmas store that you can post letters from Santa. I visited Drøbak Montessori Ungdomsskole. This was really interesting to me because in the past I have always associated Montessori with early childhood education and so I was very interested in learning how the Montessori philosophy was applied to young adolescents.

Apparently Marie Montessori had just begun to outline how her philosophy would apply to older students when she passed away. So Drøbak Montessori Ungdomsskole says it is “Montessori-inspired.” The school is a private school, but due to the Norwegian education system, 80% of the funds come from the government while the students’ families pay the other 20%. There are 60 students in the school and much of the day is spent in multi-age engagement. However, due to certain testing requirements by the government some classes are conducted by grade level.

The host teacher, Borge, has spent quite a bit of his time in the US and actually worked to form a Montessori school on the west coast before returning to Norway with his American girlfriend (who is also a Montessori teacher in the younger grades). Borge is in an indie/rock/electronica band and because of this has worked to make sure the school has a rather impressive amount of musical instruments (mostly guitars, drums, piano, etc.). Borge is also an avid environmentalist and has worked diligently to get Drøbak Montessori Ungdomsskole very ecologically friendly. The school as a whole has only one normal size trash bin a week to actually dump because it has its own compost pile and individual recycling bins (i.e. plastic, paper, glass, etc.).

There are only two Montessori-inspired lower secondary schools in Norway (the other is in Oslo), but apparently there are quite a few in the US. The most famous one (and Borge is considering going there for some advanced training) is the Hershey Montessori School (http://www.hersheymontessori.pvt.k12.oh.us/) in Ohio. I have watched the videos and talked with Borge about the Montessori philosophy with adolescents and I am rather embarrassed that I know nothing about this, especially when it seems to fit so well with the middle school philosophy espoused by the National Middle School Association. To help you understand this a bit, I will share with you what the students told me they like the most about their school. They liked the “small numbers” of students (the Montessori believes that teachers should get to know students), “the computers” (they rarely use paper for ecological reasons and because the teachers feel it is more like the read world). The students “work at our own pace and level” (the philosophy is that students have different needs at different times and by allowing students to work at their own level they can better meet those needs), “individual learning” (much of their afternoon is spent in advanced study which is time spent in inquiry where students rely on teachers solely as facilitators and guides but learning is directed by students), and “there is no bullying” (the students work together as a community). Lest you think I was in a Stepford school, one student said he didn’t like the longer days (the school day is ½ an hour longer than the regular school day in Norway) and another kid told me he liked the basketball court.

The teachers do not have a teacher’s lounge, instead the lounge is a communal lounge in which teachers and students relax. This lounge has a pool table, ping pong table, and an area that has sofas and overstuffed chairs. There is also a communal kitchen students can use to make their own lunches. During lunch when I went into the lounge, I saw kids playing pool and ping pong or curled up reading right next to teachers who were working on laptops or reading a novel. This was such an obvious break-down of the usual power roles in schools. It was really cool seeing students and teachers working, relaxing, and talking together as equals. Borge says he likes this set-up because, “you know, talking with the kids, they have really interesting things to say.” This type of relationship with students was fascinating because I could see that the teachers really respected the students as real people with important things to say. This set the expectation for students to act that way as well. Over lunch, I sat with a Borge and we talked with one student who also has a band. The student was playing one of the acoustic guitars as we talked and was an amazing musician. Borge and him talked about managing a band, interviewing vocalist like two adults. Borge treated this 16 year old’s band as important and real learning.

Also during lunch I got to see one of the businesses that were set up. As Borge explained to me, Montessori philosophy is that students need to “get their hands dirty.” At the time, Marie Montessori meant this literally in regards to farming. Drøbak Montessori Ungdomsskole has taken a more metaphorical take on it and instead of farming they have student participate in industry. The students choose people to work with and develop and implement a business idea. The students donate 30-40% to a charity of their choice and then get to keep the rest of the money they earn. The lunch business I saw was a pizza and smoothie business. The students sold hot slices of pizza and made smoothies. According to the students, this business was doing the best (the kids seem to have an underground competition to see who makes the most money).

Borge scheduled me to do two 2½ hour lessons on short stories. The students signed up to come to my lessons so I had about 15 in each of my two lessons. Both groups asked great questions such as, “why is the US so diverse?” Of course they also asked if US high schools were similar to the way they are portrayed in the media (like Gilmore Girls) and is it true that we really have a ton of McDonalds. They asked so many questions that I had to tell them they needed to go and I could only do one more question. This reflected of course their strong grasp of English but also the way the Montessori tradition encourages questioning and learning.

The lesson consisted of the normal introduction and then the modified Tea-Party strategy. This group easily completed this activity and took much less time than any of the groups thus far. I then had them read the short stories in their groups and “stop and share something” at several intervals throughout the story. The first thing that I noticed about this group is that in both lessons most of the students chose to read individually except one group who read aloud. Oddly though both of the groups were a bit loud in their reading, none of the other students made a comment about not being able to concentrate on the reading nor did they want to go outside the classroom.

I noticed two other things in this group that was new. The first is that all the students read the short stories and I even saw students interact with the text, which I hadn’t seen happen any other time. An example of this was a small group of students who were reading a story about an abusive father who ends up beating the mother to death. When one of the group members figured out what happened while reading the text, she gasped and said, “She’s dead!” The other group members agreed and the talked briefly about the fact. The other aspect of working with this group that was different was that even when I wasn’t present in a group discussion, the students spoke English with each other. This is not something I ever require. I usually encourage them to use whatever language they prefer when they are talking amongst themselves, but to share with the whole class I have them do it in English. But this group talked in English, even when I wasn’t around which I found interesting in that it was obvious there is an expectation of learning that is placed on the students and so they choose to speak in English so they can practice it.

After reading the short stories, I had the students jigsaw and share their stories with the others and come up with some patterns among the short stories. They then returned to their original groups and came up with a thesis statement that illustrates what they now think about American culture and a visual representation of that thesis statement. I then had them share with the whole group. The following images are some of the examples of the thesis statements/visual representations:

As you can tell, the students has some pre-exisiting ideas about the US that came to play in how they saw the culture in the short stories. The one above in all green that is hard to see was one of the better ones I think. it says, "In many ways, people in Norway are similar, while in America where ever you go you see different people." The image is of two boxes the smaller one has four stick figures who look generally alike and in the larger box there are 12 stick figures who look different (some are fat some are thin, some have cowboy hats on, etc.). Ironically the one that has three different types of people thinking about hamburgers was actually associated with one of the better thesis statements (though many Americans may look different they often all want the same thing). And of course, I cannot not comment on the US president that was colored in with black marker (what a change from the US president giving the middle finger from earlier this year!).

I had to walk back to the bus, down a muddy path (yes in my high heels) for about 10 minutes. But during that walk I kept going back to how curious those students were, how cool they were to talk to, and how I want to go back and just spend a day hanging out with the students to get a really good sense of the school’s negative as well as positive thing… because right now, I thought it was a pretty cool school!

Ǻs Ungdomsskole

I returned to Ǻs Ungdomsskole on October 29, November 2, November 12, and November 13, 2008, to present to the 9th and 10th graders. If you remember Ǻs was my very first school visit and it was where I observed in three different English classes. This time I presented on the presidential election. Going back to Ǻs after traveling around a bit, I realized how strong Ǻs students are in terms of English. One of the very first things I have the students do is to tell me their name and one thing they like about living in their community. I always do it for them in Norwegian first which makes them laugh then I have them do it for me in English. It seems to reduce the stress a little for them. But the reason I do it is it gives me a quick assessment of the students’ English ability. The students at Ǻs had complex sentence structures and were fairly creative on their responses. When I did the agree/disagree activity, the students had such in-depth discussions, that I often only had time to complete that activity and briefly show some of the media artifacts.

When I visited on the 29th, I once again taught on the first snowfall of the year so the students were a bit high strung. The teachers did threaten the students with disciplinary actions if they threw snowballs outside. The first class, one of the girls even brought a blanket to wrap up in during classes. This was the first time I saw this, but has become more frequent now that it has grown colder. Students also walk around in thick fuzzy socks or slippers.

I did have my first student since I have been in Norway say that he wanted McCain to the election and there was a girl who also agreed with him, but was not nearly as outspoken about his beliefs.

On November 3rd I worked with the 10th grade group of students. This group was not only smart, but they were incredibly inquisitive and with the election occurring the very next day I had a lot of questions from the students. All of the classes were able to tell me the basic information about the elections. Things like who the candidates are, who their VPs are, what party each belong to, and how often the president is elected. This always impresses me as I know that many of our students in the US may not be able to answer those questions nor would they be able to tell you about the Norwegian Prime Minister. The students not only knew a lot about American politics, but they also had strong opinions. This particular group wanted me to explain some pretty tough questions. For example:

• Why are people who are “pro-life” also for the death penalty and assault weapons?
• Can you please explain to us why socialism is considered so bad in the US?

These questions are wonderful questions, but incredibly difficult to answer in an informal Q&A session. I also find it hard to be unbiased and try to shed a positive light on the US. The death penalty and torture are two topics that are hard to deal with and comment on as we are the only Western civilized country who still has the death penalty and as for torture… that is just a tough subject since many over here feel like Bush has crossed the line and committed war crimes.

One of my favorite comments came from the four corner activity (yes, I have been doing this lecture a lot lately… but now that the election is over). The comment I had on the PowerPoint was I believe that assault weapons should be banned. The entire class moved to the corner of Strongly Agree except one boy. As the students started debating their decision, the boy who disagreed said in all honestly and in earnest, “But what is America without assault weapons!”

I returned to Ǻs for two more days to meet with some of the ninth graders on the 12th and 13th of November. It was interesting doing my US election lesson after the fact, but I have been watching so much of the media coverage and reading so many stories about the election that it actually is quite fun. And since the students love Obama, it makes it even easier to talk about. However they do ask about racism in America. This has been a fascinating aspect of the election for me, so I have been collecting facts about it. For example, a Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published an article that said “In parts of the South, the white vote for Barak Obama was half what it was for John Kerry in 2004.” The students also ask a lot about the two men who were arrested for the assassination attempt on Obama.

On the 12th the 9th graders were great. A nice group of students who were not only talkative, but thoughtful in terms of issues regarding the election. For example, I had one boy who during the four corners activity said, “I can’t really tell you an opinion because I don’t know enough about the topic.” This was not a cop out, as one might have thought, instead he was one of the talkative kids in the class and he truly felt that he should not judge until he knew all the facts.

On the 13th, the 9th graders were much quieter. There were three students who had IEPs in the class and who struggled in English as they pretty much needed constant translation. Ironically, it was often the students who were not the most talkative that did the translation for the students. This reminded me how important it is in terms of assessment to realize that many times students may know the information, but may not be as comfortable talking in front of the class (especially in a foreign language class).

I’ve been doing this lesson so many times I think I can do it in my sleep. I have to say what continues to amaze me is how much the students are into the political cartoons. I remember teaching social studies to 7th graders and we had to teach political cartoons. The students were not really into them, yet the Norwegian students LOVE the cartoons, they actually go to those first and then to the videos second. I want to create a couple of other lectures just to mix it up a bit. I am thinking of creating one about Obama and one about humor in the US. So when I have some down time from all the traveling, I think I will begin creating those lessons and I will definitely be including political cartoons as a part of any new lessons I create.

Risenga Ungdomsskole

Risenga Ungdomsskole is located 30 minutes outside of Oslo in a town called Asker. Asker is most known for its wide range of sports most notably the Norwegian women’s soccer team (which is apparently very good) and the practice center for the Norwegian ice hockey team.

I visited Risenga on the 11th of November. It was an old school and almost everyone I met made some comment about how unattractive the school was. One person actually said they were waiting for the school to burn down so they could have a new one. Though the school was not beautiful, it certain didn’t look like old schools in the US. It was clean, freshly painted, and had new linoleum.

The teachers requested my US election lesson, and I thought that I should do something different since the election had already taken place. So I did the electoral college simulation and added information at the end about which candidate (Obama/McCain) won which states. The lesson went okay, but honestly not my best. I don’t know if it was because I was exhausted from all the traveling, or if it was the group. The lesson might have been too juvenile for them, though they were very engaged and interested. The problem with the simulation is that it works great when the popular vote is different from the electoral vote, because then the students get worked up about it. However when the popular and the electoral votes are the same, they don’t care as much and the simulation loses some of its punch. Of the five presentations I gave, only once did the two votes differ. And just in case some of you out there are wondering which brand Norwegian students prefer…. well it has been a complete tie.

The other new thing that occurred at this school was rather funny. When I had the students tell me one thing they liked about their school or community, I had three boys in back who worked together on a little sequence. The first student said how great his English teacher was, then the next one said he loved me, and then the last one of the sequence thought I should go out on a date with their English teacher and see the community to find what I might like.

Some of the girls also invited me back to Asker to see a handball game since I have never seen one live (or on TV for that matter). So hopefully I will be able to get back to Asker to see one.

Rugtvedt Skole

I visted Rugtvedt Skole in the afternoon of November 10, 2008. This school is a first through tenth grade school and has around 350 students. One of the teachers told me that the enrollment has continually decreased and they are struggling to have work for all the teachers. The enrollment problem seems to be similar to many small towns in that as the students graduate they typically move to the larger towns and do not return.

I taught two tenth grade classes in the afternoon. The first class was the Extra English class. When the students enter Ungdomsskole they can choose to begin learning a third language (in most cases this is German, French, or Spanish though there is a growing trend to learn Chinese, Arabic langauges, and Turkish) or the students can choose to go more in depth in English. The Enrichment English was meant to offer students who might be intersted in studying English in the videregående or in university, it has turned into more of a remedial class for students who are struggling in English. This was the first time I was invited to speak to an Extra English class and I did see a dramatic difference in their language confidence though not much in terms of their language abilty (though it was difficult to tell because they were so quiet). The Extra English class barely talked at all and when they did many turned bright red in the face and spoke so quietly I often had to ask them to repeat themselves which only made matters worse.

The other class I taught was absolutely adorable. They were chatty and funny and made some really great comments about the US and the inquiry stations. For example:

• America seems like a really great place, because any place you travel theres something to see. [sic]
• They have nice nature, funny movies, different people, lots of sports, and good food. [sic]

And my personal favorite:

• It’s many people and they like to eat and fight. Everything they have is big and every one like to party. [sic]

This group aslo asked some really great questions. They started with questions about education in the US:

• Er det uniform på på skolen? (Do they have school uniforms in the USA?)
• Are there strict rules for behavior in the schools?
• Hvor lange går de på skolen i USA? (How long do you have to go to school in the USA?)
• What do the cafeterias serve at American schools?

They of course also asked me about Obama:

• Have you ever met Barack Obama?
• Do you think America will be a better country now that Obama is in charge?
• Do you think Obama is in danger of being killed?

And then just some random questions about the US:

• What do you think about Americans non-healthy eating?
• What happens if you are really ill and need surgary and can’t pay for it?

The host teacher at this school was super sweet and showed me the textbooks the students use in English. I was suprised to see Romeo and Juliet as one of the reading assignments. When I asked her about that, telling her that this age group in the US reads the text as well and often struggle with it, she explained that there are some groups that she chooses to just skim the play as it is very difficult for the students. That her goal is for them to be aware of the play and how the language sounds.

She also showed me a two-page sheet that gets sent home with the students each week (see scanned image below). This sheet explains what the in-class and out-of-class work is for the week and what the students should know by the end of the week. The students then can self-evaluate themselves to determine if they accomplished the learning goals for the week. I loved this and felt like it was a great idea to take back to the US.

Grasmyr Ungdomsskole

On November 10, 2008, I visited two schools in Langesund. This was a town that had no direct transportation to it. So I had to take a train and then a bus and then a taxi to get to my hotel. The town is on the coast and therefore is a sleepy tourist town in the winter.

This was a difficult trip in general because I was so unsure about what was going on. I had difficulty getting information from the contact person, so I didn’t know how many lessons I would doing, how many students, or what level the students were. The contact teacher didn’t even tell me what lesson the teachers wanted nor passed on the information about needing a projector for my PowerPoint. I am not sure if this was due to timing, emails getting lost in cyberspace, miscommunication, or just disorganization. So I showed up at the first school and just assumed I would be doing two lessons with 25 students each and I picked the inquiry stations as the lesson I would do. I chose this as it requires the least in terms of language ability and if the students struggled with English, then this lesson works well.

When I arrived at the school, I found I was to do three lessons in the morning. The students were great and their English was fairly strong. However, I have been doing the election lesson for so long (and I really like the format of it) that the inquiry one I like as much and didn’t find it as engaging for the students. So I am trying to think how I can update it. For example, the students know a lot about music and movies and so this part of the stations is not as exciting for them unlike getting the chance to look at bumper stickers in the election lesson. So I am working with Allyson, who is having her middle schoolers create a video of what school is like in the US and will figure something out to do with that to get the students interested and thinking about something they may not know as much about.

Once again, I found it interesting that the teachers told me the last class would be the worst and it turned out they were my favorite class. They were the most talkative, asked a lot of questions, and were more engaged than the other groups.

However, overall the students did a great job. The following are some of the things they said as a result of rotating through the inquiry stations:

• In American there is all kinds of cultures, and America is a country for all kinds of people [sic]
• America is creative to make things, movies, who people watch around the world. Music what people listen to. It’s a lot of difference cultures. Beautiful woods and nature. [sic]
• I think that mostly all people in America thinks they own the world. [sic] I am not sure where they got this from, but I think it is interesting that this is the second time I heard this type of comment.
  

Gosen Skole

Gosen Skole is located in Stavanger, Norway. Stavanger is the 4th largest city in Norway (around 150,000 people). Stavanger is tied closely to the off shore oil industry and thus it is very international.

Gosen Skole is a very progressive and international school. Their students were some of the best in terms of English as well as their grasp of understanding of US culture. Many of their students study abroad during their time in ungdomsskole and many have travelled abroad. The picture above of the school is a little deceiving in that the school is undergoing construction, so the classes are currently held in these “tent” buildings.

Each year, Gosen Skole puts on a play that is written specifically for that year’s students. It includes music, dancing, etc. and is performed it in front of 8,000 people. It has become a Stavanger tradition. They gave me a DVD of last year’s school musical and it was amazing.

The curriculum at the school is very much like what I have seen in some of the best US middle schools. They are integrative and higher level/critical thinking. They have created these units that have forms similar to the one below

This are just two pages of the unit plan, but it goes on. These are placed on their school website and give to students and parents. It includes how they will be assessed and art work that relates to the unit. The teachers I talked with were using much of the “best practice” pedagogy like reading workshop. One teacher told me he used the book The boy in the Stripe Pajamas with his English class and I even saw one students reading one of the Twilight series books in English.
I visited the 10th grade students at Gosen and did a lesson on short stories. This was on November 5th, so I was incredibly tired. I was working on two hours of sleep since I had attended an election party the night before that did not get over until the election was called at 4:00 am Norwegian time and still had to fly to Stavanger that day. They of course were very excited about the election results and when I mentioned it at the beginning of my lesson, each class broke out in spontaneous and rather wild applause and whistling, once class even gave a standing ovation. It is amazing how much the perception of the US has changed almost over night. Even one of the teachers, made the comment that it seems like the Norwegians are warming up again to the US and that it is starting to be “okay to like the US again.”

I had to modify the short story lesson because the original short stories I picked were too long. So after the last time I did this particular lesson, I contacted Julie Niehaus at USC and she helped me get shorter short stories. The lesson this time consisted of my normal introduction and their introduction where they told me their names and one thing I should do while I am in Stavanger. This is always interesting because I get everything from restaurant suggestions to walks, sites to coffee shops. For me, this is fun because I get to see what the students think is important and interesting about their town and they get to be experts and share what they are most proud of. Of course I always have a few kids who tell me there is nothing to see and I should just sleep in and a few girls who tell me to go shopping.

I then ask the students what they know about the US. This group is the first group of students who didn’t start out with, “fat.” They instead offered quite interesting and very accurate comments about the US including information about the Statue of Liberty, the Civil War, and pop culture. One of my favorite comments came from a young man who said, “US is the country that everyone thinks they know a lot about. It’s the country that everyone talks about.”

After I get them talking to me about what they know about the US and who has traveled to the US, I do a modified version of Kylene Beers’ tea party. I give the students slips of paper that have one sentence on it. The slips contain a sentence from one of the six short stories. The students then need to walk around the class and see if they can find three other people that have sentences that would fit into the same story. This is how I put them in groups, get them moving around, and get them thinking about what the story might be about prior to reading it. Once they think they are in the right groups, I give them the correct groups on the PowerPoint. Each class at this school almost always were in the right groups which goes to show you how strong they were in both English and critical thinking.

Once in their groups they had to put their slips of paper in the order they thought would occur in the story and then began reading their story. I had marked several places in each short story for the students to stop and “say something.” At the end of the lesson the students shared a brief summary of their short story and gave a one sentence (like a thesis statement) about a conclusion they were able to draw about US culture from their short story.

Each group in each class came up with excellent conclusions. However, I began to see our YA literature in a new light. In the short stories I used earlier this year, the students pointed out how much bullying and intolerance seemed to exist in the US. In these short stories, this group of students pointed out that there was once again a lot of bulling, aggression, and violence which they felt was an accurate depiction of US culture. This made me really think about not only what our literature is saying about our culture, but it also highlighted how our US foreign policy has paralleled this. I started to realize that bulling, intolerance, aggression, violence, etc. is truly part of our culture. And unless I start using Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul I am not sure I can find YA literature (at least in short stories) that does not have that type message. I am now on the lookout for this so if anyone has some suggestions, I would appreciate it!

Heidal Skule

This 1st-10th grade school has 175 students and is situated in the town of Heidal which has a population of 1,500. It is located in the mountains and is about 30 km outside of Otta (which is the closest large town, but that is a relative word as there are only 3,500 people in Otta). The town might just happen to be the most beautiful place I have seen thus far in Norway. It was absolutely gorgeous nestled in the mountains with the fresh snowfall, the rushing river, and the smoke coming out of the tiny little houses (many with sod on their roofs). Absolutely breathtaking.


The school was recently remodeled and the inside was gorgeous. Each classroom had a smartboard and throughout the school hung beautiful pieces of original artwork from local people and antique school pieces. The teachers were part of the design team and were able to design much of the school structure.


The picture to the left is the common area for the students and the photo above is the teacher's lounge.

I presented in the auditorium on October 28, to two classes (9th and 10th graders) combined. Interestingly, all my students were in their socks as they took their shoes off outside of the auditorium. I had 37 students and about 4-5 teachers in attendance including the headmaster of the school. Of those 37, four of the students had some type of severe disability. I was supposed to teach about the US election for two 45-minute class periods.

I had low expectations for this lesson prior to teaching it for several reasons. First 90 minutes on the presidential election would not be the most exciting thing for Norwegian teenagers. Second, the idea of combining two classes never works well as the students are even more nervous about talking in English when they are mixed with a different class especially when it is a different grade. But then when I woke up in the morning and saw the dusting of snow and realized it was still snowing, I had another sinking feeling. It is always hard to teach on the first snowfall of the season. So you can imagine, the lesson was not my best.

However, I did get some funny comments and some interesting work. For example, when I had the students do the agree/disagree four corners activity. I had a group of boys stand under the “Strongly agree” sign for the statement: I believe that assault weapons should be banned. When I asked them why they felt that way their response was, “Because Americans are dangerous with weapons.” This, of course, made everyone laugh. This first activity of four corners was more difficult to do with 37 students and none of them wanting to talk in front of the other 36 students. Plus not as many students had a chance to talk. They were all moving around and at least thinking about the issues (though I am pretty certain several just went where their friends went).

After the break in which the kids went out and played in the snow (thus the reason they took off their shoes prior to entering the auditorium), we went onto the next part of the presentation. They were broken into groups and were supposed to deconstruct their given media (i.e. bumper stickers, political cartoons, TV clips, etc.) and then create a piece of media similar to what they looked at (i.e., if group A looked at bumper stickers, then they were to create a bumper sticker) to share with the rest of the class. Their media was supposed to reflect how they think Norwegians view the US presidential elections. To be quite honest, this didn’t go so well. They struggled with the deconstruction and they struggled with making the media. Of the 5 groups 3 were really strong:

Bumper Sticker

Poltical Cartoon

Magazine Cover (this one is my favorite!)

And another group who did an excellent job on the deconstruction of the social networking sites, but their visual wasn’t as creative. I did find their drawing of Obama interesting as they remembered to give him ears:

I had one group who did it at all. They were to create a skit of a TV interview with one or both the candidates. One girl came up to me after class and apologized for not doing it. She was the leader and one of the strongest of the whole group in English, but she could not get the others to talk in English in front of everyone else. This was interesting to me, because US students love an opportunity to be a class clown and do these type of performances. However, Norwegian students are a bit more shy and they often do not like to bring attention to themselves.

This school, though small and rural, was very progressive in terms of how it dealt with its students who struggle with learning challenges, bringing in outside resources (like myself, they had a 3 year relationship with a school in Ireland where the students even went to Ireland for a trip, and outdoor activities). In each season the school takes the students to do some sort of out door activity. One of these activities is for the 9th grade. Each year in March, the 9th grade students go for a week into the mountains. They take snow mobiles (not like ours, they look more like snow tanks) to get there while some of the teachers ski along behind. They dig snow holes, build igloos, cross country ski, and hike to the top of the 2nd largest mountain in Norway. There is no cell phone reception up in this area. I asked if there were ever any problems and I was told, “Ja… with the weather.” The week before the trip, the teacher give the students in-depth instruction on “mountain behavior.” I assumed that meant things like, “listening when an adult is talking and not wandering off.” Good thing I asked, because they meant things like dealing with avalanches, warding off frost-bite, etc. Last year, as they students were digging their snow holes, there was an avalanche. The teacher in charge told me, “That was a bit scary” and I thought that is a bit of an understatement. They held an informational meeting with the parents upon arrival back to the school and the parents “were okay with it.” Obviously they were not American parents! The school headmaster invited me to go along this year and I am going to try everything I can to do so. It sounds like such a wonderful experience and a fun way to interact with the students. I will just have to work on my Norwegian from now until March so that it will be easier for me to understand what is going on. I will also need to work on my tele-ing abilities so that I can ski down from the mountain.

Vinstra Ungdomsskole

Vinstra Ungdomsskole is located in the town of Vinstra, Norway. I visited them on October 27th and did four lessons for students and then an after school session with the teachers. Vinstra is a town of approximately 3,000 and when I got in on Sunday night around 10 pm the entire town was shut down including my motel. The only thing open was the one pub in town and there were maybe seven people in there. Luckily the bartender spoke some English and pointed me in the direction of the motel. Once I arrived the place was closed and locked, but there was a note on the door, some of which I could actually translate and quite a bit I couldn’t because it was written in what they call New Norwegian. Eventually I figured out that I could pick any of the rooms in back that had a key in the door. So the trip to Vinstra started out a bit stressful.

However, the next morning I was picked up by the host teacher, Knut, who is married to an American from Minnesota. They made sure that I was well-taken care of the rest of my stay driving me out to the ski resort, making me tacos for dinner at their house, and then driving me to Otta.

The Vinstra Ungdomsskole has around 375 students from grades 8-10. Though it is a small town, it is very liberal. For example, I was told that the nurse at the school is allowed to give out contraception including birth control pills to students. The school is also one of only two schools in Norway who have begun a new program that integrates English into their content classes. The teachers visited a school in Germany that is currently using this pedagogy. My first lesson that I taught was to an 8th grade social studies/English class. I was to do a simulation on the American War of Independence (a.k.a. the Revolutionary War) and it turned out really well. I did taxation without representation and gave out Non-stops (their version on M&M’s) and then taxed them. I gave the candy I collected as a tax to one of the students who I named the king (and yes I purposely chose the kid who was acting silly when I came in because I knew he would really act his part!). We didn’t have time to discuss the current day examples of this, but the lesson was fun and they were able to get the big idea.

I then did three lessons on the US election. I am starting to feel a little rote as I have done this lesson so many times. I have simplified it a bit. One way was to get rid of the free-writes as the students don’t get the idea of this and when I come in for just one class it isn’t something I can work with them to understand how to do it. Many of the comments and reactions are the same as I have received in other schools. But for entertainment purposes I thought I would share some of the funnier comments the students said during these lessons.

The first comment came when I was doing the agree/disagree four corners activity. The statement the students were to share their opinion on was Same sex marriages should be legal. Like in all the classes, the students were fairly evenly divided among the four corners. However, this time I had one boy who stood in the middle between agree and disagree. When I asked him why he chose to stand where he did, he responded, “Well, I don’t like the idea of two guys getting married, but two girls would be okay.” This of course caused all of us to laugh.

I also had the kid in the white hoody above come talk to me after class. He started the conversation, “Have you ever been on a goat farm?” I told him that my father had goats, but I have never been on a real goat farm. He told me all about the farm that he lives on, how they milk the goats, and his motocross injuries. It was so sweet. He truly loved farming. He told me as he left that his dream was to go to America and buy a farm. It broke my heart, because I am not sure that dream will ever come true for him. Though I told him that with the recent economic downturn he might be able to find a farm fairly cheap soon in the US.

I also had the kid in the gray v-neck sweater above, ask me if I ate Kentucky Fried Chicken. I said, yes occasionally but that I didn’t eat that much fast food in the US. He told me that was good, because he recently read an email sent to him by the PTA and he told me that “Basically Kentucky Fried Chicken are assholes.” I wonder when I will be used to the amount of swearing from the Norwegian students.

After school I presented to 10 English teachers. Knut asked me to talk about inquiry stations, webquests, and the elections. So I did a brief description of what I do with the Norwegian students and had the engagements there for the teachers to try. It was interesting for two reasons. The first was a teacher who said that all the ideas were okay but they seemed to take a lot of time. Knut told me this was typical of Norwegian teachers. That if something takes time or money, they choose not to do it. The other intersting part of this after school workshop was a teacher who commented about a US student letter. I brought with me several 8th grade students' writing from the rural south in which they were to explain what it was like to live in the US. One of the students repeated several times about how blessed he was to live in America. The teacher was surprised at this and said that "no Norwegian student would ever say that he was blessed to live in Norway." She seemed almost offended by the comment the US student made. I didn't probe this further, but wished I had after I thought about it further. It is a question I may need to ask Knut via email.

Heistad Ungdomsskole

On October 22 and 23, 2008, I took the train to the town of Porsgrunn to visit Heistad Ungdomsskole. Porsgrunn is a town that combined with neighboring Skein is around 90,000. There is a lot of industry and manufacturing in the area and sits right on the harbor. The area is most well-known as the birthplace of Henrik Ibsen.

The school, Heistad Ungdomsskole, has over 350 students from grades 8th-10th. The inside was newly remodeled and technologically updated. For example, each classroom had computers for each student.

Then for each grade level, there was a classroom that did not have computers for students, but was wired for presentations. The teachers used this when they wanted space free for students to work away from the computers. It was in this space that I taught all my lessons. The remodeling wasn’t just to add technology, but also to update the school all around. One way they did this was to have an interior designer come in for the faculty lounges and the offices. So all of the teacher space was decorated in a hip, Scandinavian style.

The school was set up in a similar fashion to US schools in that the students had lockers that they kept most of their personal items in. It had a large common room where the students ate lunch and hung out during their breaks. This room also had a screen and stage that allowed for performances and auditorium-like seating if needed. The picture below is of the common room and if you look closely on the left you can see a table with the panini makers available for students to use on their breaks (this is very common in the schools). The students generally make ham and cheese paninis and they call it toast, not a sandwich. The 9th graders tried to tell me it is because it is hot, thus it is toast. But I am skeptical…

On the left you can also see a sculpture that was created by one of the teachers at the school. The faculty and students are very proud of this piece.

The first day I gave 5 presentations. The first lesson I gave was with an 8th grade class and they were to go through a variety of stations where I had such things as music, clips from recent movies, photographs of people, travel brochures from various states, and letter from 8th grade kids in the US about what their lives are like. As they rotated through the stations they were to make comments, questions, etc. about what they noticed about life in the US. As usual, the first class was a little bumpy but by the end of the day and after a few modifications to my lesson plan, it got better. The part that was the most difficult is that the students didn’t really know what I wanted them to do at the stations. I realized that for them, this was not a typical activity so they needed a bit more structure to know what I was expecting as well as clearer directions which was actually more simplifying my language.

Since I started the lessons the same as I do with the others, I once again got interesting answers regarding what they know about the US. Most of the comments were the same as the previous students in the other schools (i.e., Americans are fat, love junk food, and have celebrities). However, I got a few new ones. For example, some students said “Paris Hilton,” “Nasa,” and “Jonas Brothers.”

Because the way I structured the lesson, it provided me with some assessment information and a way to see what the students were getting from the stations. Here are some of the statements students said about the US after browsing the stations:

• it [America] remind a bit me of Norway
• They [Americans] got more nature that I thoug [sic]
• different dialect, different culture
• I just love it, the mountains and animals, it’s just beautiful.

Comments like these suggested to me that they were getting what I was trying to accomplish with those stations. However, in all fairness, I did get some crazy, off-the-wall comments as well. For example:

• I see a lots of mans. [sic] I think this one came from a picture that the student was just trying to describe what she saw in the picture. This made me realize my directions needed to be a bit clearer!
• money and gold and shopping. Yeah, not sure about this one… no where in the stations was there anything about money and gold, unless you stretch it a bit with the rap song by Nelly, Grillz.
• Vi had not time [sic] This comment I loved because it is a great way to see how many times the students moved between Norwegian and English. It is one of those things that I had to learn to keep up with as they talked.

At the bottom of several of the students' papers, they made little notes to me. This was the first time that I have seen this and thought it was really cute. Many times the 8th graders are shy and don’t want to talk in English in front of their peers, so this group figured a way to talk to me with out having to talk to me. I had about 10 girls give me their email address and asked if I would give them to students in the US so they could practice their English and get to know an American kid. However, my favorite comment was the following, written at the bottom of a boy’s paper: I just need to say that I am a fan of Michal Peleps Big fan. [sic]

On the first day, I had a teacher ask me at lunch if it was okay if I took her 8th grade class by myself. She needed to go to the doctor and if I was okay with being by myself she could leave school early. I said, “Sure.” Then quickly began to worry. Here I was in a foriegn school with no authority, and legally responsible for 25 fourteen year olds who don’t have a really strong grasp of English. I began to think that I might have made a rash decision. This anxiety only grew stronger as the class right after lunch had a student who decided to light a match in the back of the room. However, the 8th grade students I was left alone with were amazing. It turned out to be the best class of the day. In fact at one point, a teacher walked accidently into the classroom thinking no one was in there. After he left, I did the "once over" you give your classroom when someone walks in to see what my students were doing. Are they engaged or are they bouncing off the walls? As I looked around, I was pleasantly surprised. The kids were in small groups, all working quietly and thoroughly engaged in what they were doing. It looked like the picture perfect classroom. Needless to say, I was relieved.

Though I was happy it was a successful class, I was even happier the next day when I told one of the teachers about how well the class went, and she told me she was surprised the teacher left me alone with that group because they are labeled the worst class in the school. “But,” she said, “it just goes to show, that if you expect students to be good they are.”

One thing I found curious and will be interested to see if this plays out in other classrooms, is the station that has photographs of people. One of the photographs is of two old ladies drinking tea. Every group who went to this station, thought this was the funniest picture out of all of them. This was strange to me because I have photographs of people playing basketball on donkeys and a circus family, but it was the old ladies drinking tea that made them laugh. I will have to get one of the students to explain to me why it is such a funny picture to them.

The second day I did 4 lessons all on the US Presidential Election. This lesson consists of doing a four corners (agree/disagree) activity on the current issues in election and then an analysis of contemporary media. I found it interesting that this group really enjoyed the political cartoons. They actually preferred them over the video clips that I had of the candidates. And I would argue that they understood the cartoons better than the last group I worked with and probably many American students (at least from my expereince with teaching political cartoons in middle school).

This school like many others in Norway are having an overnight party the night of the US elections. During the party the students will watch some US films, hear lectures about US politics, and closely track the developments as they come in on CNN/BBC. Every school when they tell me about their election parties always sarcastically comment, “I’m sure US schools do the same for our election.” I tell them that most people probably don’t even know who the prime minister is in Norway, much less when, where, and how he was elected.

Both days the students made me lunch. The first day was a salad and pancakes (not the Norwegian kind, but the fluffly kind) and the second day was a burger and Norwegian apple cake. Each day they left me a cute note like the one below:

The burgers were interesting as they gave me two slices of bread with butter and a piece of lettuce on each. Then they placed a handmade thick burger on top of each piece with sautéed onions and then some cucumbers on top of that. As strange as it sounds, it was yummy.

Once again, I was warmly welcomed by the teachers and was even given Norwegian chocolate as a thank you gift. The teachers told me the students really enjoyed my class and even said that they thought I was more organized and prepared than the Roving Scholar from last year. They asked if I could come back before I left Norway. So I guess, all in all, it was another positive experience. I realized as I walked from the train back to my apartment, that I had a smile on my face.