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!