Åsnes Ungdomsskole

On January 26, 27, and 28th, I visited Åsnes Ungdomsskole in Flisa. This is a small town that draws students from all around the area. Some students ride the bus for up to 45 minutes to get to school in the morning (this is a bit unusual for Norwegian schools). Though they are public busses (with a stop at the school) and anyone can ride, they have skolebuss on the front and most of the students take them to get home. Very few people in the area speak English; so this was actually the first place where I actually HAD to know some Norwegian to get by throughout the day.

The school has around 280 students from grades 8-10th. I worked with all grades and did several different lessons: inquiry, taxation without representation simulation, US High Schools, book-in-a-day, and Who is Obama. On day one, I had four lessons all approximately 40 minutes each. The first three classes were extremely quiet, almost brutally quiet. Then the last class was incredibly squirrely. I think I have been recently spoiled by well behaving students!!!

I used post-its this time with the book-in-a-day... I still haven't found the way I like the best. The problem with the post-its' is that the students faced the wall they were putting their post-it on rather than the class, so it was difficult to hear them.



I then had them draw some conclusions about the US from the book used (The Jacket by Andrew Clements).

The following are some of the comments from the inquiry lesson:

• In texas it is really mutch country so i think that it is really different between the stats. [sic]
• It’s typical american hanging out. football games and things like that. [sic]
• It mush to look at [sic]
• Americans peoples live in big houses and lissten on great music. [sic]
• They do normal things like we do.
• It’s different nature all over the country.
• Everything is big. In every ways. [sic]
• There are many kinds of people there.

On the second day I worked at the school, I had 3 classes of students and was supposed to have an afternoon session with teachers. Ironically, like many teachers in the US, since they were not required to attend, no one did. One teacher, the host teacher, showed up and I just talked a little bit about what I was going to do and gave her the handout. The students did the inquiry lesson and the lesson about US middle/high schools. The day went fairly normal. The main difference I saw at this school on the first day (and then was validated on day 2 and 3) was that this school had some serious cliques. This was the first time I saw students ostracized, not included in groups, and not treated very nicely. It hurt to watch because I haven’t seen that much in the other schools. Even if there was a student who maybe chose to be an outsider, in many of the other schools there were always one or two students who made an effort to include him/her. Not at this school. This appeared in some of the comments I received in the US middle/high school lesson:

• We would like to have more focus on our parents and what they know about what we are doing at school.
• US school has nothing to take from Norway. Norway sucks! Norway can learn to party!
• We could have more activities in the school like in the US.
• Norwegian schools could learn to be more polite. American schools could learn to be more friendly. (this was written by an immigrant student from Saudi Arabia—who informed me that my Norwegian was probably better than his and who I watched work alone because no one invited him to work with them).
• We should learn to set up a TV’s in the classrooms. [sic]
• The school [in Norway] maybe could give us more responsibility like the US. (I am not sure where they get this idea from, as time and again I think it is the reverse.)
• US can learn to take food from those home at the school. Norway can learn to take all the cultures with more respect. [sic]
• American schools should learn number grades, not letters. Norwegian shold learn codes on the lockers. [sic]
• The US schools should be a little more tidy. (This is my personal favorite!)
• We don’t think Norwegian schools are good enough to have something to learn away. [sic]
• We can learn how to job [work] together in groups
• US schools should not aloud [allow] candy at school [sic]

It is always the inquiry lesson, where I get the most positive comments about the US. I think this is partly because of the artifacts I bring them. I also don’t really try to push them into thinking deeply. Instead I want the students to just immerse themselves in the US. I want this immersion to be a positive experience and therefore I think they often come away with this highly romanticized view of the US. Here are some of the comments I received from this group of students:

• America has all the great movies.
• It’s a fine and large country.
• It’s a lovely country, alot of football (yeah!). It’s the dream country, right? [sic]
• A lot of different cultures. [sic]
• I learn about it is nice and the are many football games. There are big cars and big houses. The are good movies there. [sic]
• It is a big land with big things and people.

On the third day I worked with two 10th grade classes and one 9th grade class. I did the lesson on Middle/High Schools, Obama, and the inquiry stations. In the school lesson, I did the picture pass and realized that the pictures are working a lot better than the comics. I think it is too much for the students to translate the comics AND be deductive in a short amount of time. I do, however, think I am getting better at explaining what I want on the picture pass by the responses I am getting, though I have made some modifications. First I took away the picture books (they were too long for the students to read), and I gave only one or two pictures per group rather than 3 or 4. I would like to find some pictures of a school dance, after school sports, maybe a theatre class, yearbook signing, a pep rally, a typical schedule, and maybe a weigh gym. These are things I am starting to see are very different from Norwegian schools so the students would be interested in them. I also changed the handout. I got rid of the place to write the title and instead just put numbers (it was not important for what I was doing). This is still a little confusing for some, but they end up getting it after a few rounds. The only problem with this system is that I can’t tell on their notes which picture they are referring to. So in the future, I might number the pictures so that they can respond in the correct slot of the number. This way I will know what picture they are talking about. This time I also showed a clip from Oprah about two different high schools in Illinois and the huge discrepancy between the two. The students were amazed at this and were surprised at not only how nice the Naperville school was, but how bad the Chicago school was (a Norwegian school is somewhere in between). The majority of the students, however, focused on the fact that some US schools have strict dress codes or uniforms and that they receive hot lunches in school. Yet, I did get some other interesting responses from this lesson:

• The US should learn that people should make their own choises abot the chlotes. And maybe don’t be that strick. [sic]
• The norwegian school should learn to have more sun, and have more sport. [sic]
• The US could get more money for the poor schools.
• The US schools could be more similar to each other instead of good ones and bad ones.
  they shouldn’t learn shit from us [sic]
• Get more money in the US schools.
• Norwegian can learn from the US: homework help after school. The US can learn from Norwegian schools: moore skiing [sic]
• We should have a study hall so we did not have to do them at home (not because I do them but anyway) :)
• No effence to Norway but they are stupid, but if you wane know from Sweden witch is the best country you should take the teachers. [sic] (written from the lone Swedish kid in the class)
• One thing Norwegian schools should learn from US schools: warm food, cheerleading, each school have their own sports team (soccer, baseball teams etc). [sic]

This was the second time I did the Who is Barak Obama? lesson. I really don’t find it all that stimulating… probably because there really isn’t a lot of controversy with him and the Norwegians love him so much. So the lesson always seems to me to be a bit drab. I had to modify it slightly for this group due to time, so after viewing each of the stations I had the students write one sentence that answered the question, who is Barack Obama. Here are some of the results:

• Barack Obama wants to help American families, and he is a hard working family man [sic]
• He is a hard working man that loves his family. [sic]
• He’s the best in the world now. :)
• Barack Obama is the first black president of the USA, and he’s very symphatic. [sic]
• Barack Obama is a Afroamerican, as the people think is God. People have expectation that he should save the world. [sic]
• Barack Obama is a understanding person who wants to help other people with problems like no they have no job… [sic]
• Barack Obama is a loving and caring man!

The last class at Åsnes Ungdomsskole that I taught was a large group of 9th graders. I did the inquiry stations with this group which was a good choice by the teacher as there was a very wide range of abilities. But like in almost all the classes I have visited, the teacher commented on how surprised she was by the amount of English some of the students actually had. Many who have never spoken English aloud in class, spoke with me. I wish it was something about me, but I think it is more that I am new, can’t understand Norwegian at all, and am from America (which apparently is fairly exotic for some kids). Nina, the host teacher, said, “They can’t say no to you.” Which in reality they can and do, in that some just don’t write anything down; however many find it is easier to just do what I ask than argue with me (since they would have to argue in in English). So there are some pro’s about not speaking the language. Here are some of the comments the students wrote about the US after viewing the stations:

• I love American because they have Wal-mart and WWE. [sic]
• There are many different types of people in the US, they have different religions and listen to different types of music and so on. [sic]
• It’s a big difference in the music, and many cultures in the USA. The nature was very beautiful, small lakes to big mountains. Go on school in USA heard hard, if I don’t know the language [sic]
• USA is very nice and I would like to move to Miami Florid because is very macts sunn down there. [sic]
• Well, American is awesome, but some of the culture looks kind of boring and I don’t like the music examples. (this written by a student who wished I included techno music in my options).

And then in case you feel like these might be too advanced for a class with a wide variety of levels, I also received these two responses:

• I dont know [sic] (at least it was written in English!)
  
  
  (which reads: And they have very good movies [sic]).

A side note: I still love the comments the students write to me individually on their papers. For example, this time we were talking about whether or not Norway had M&M’s and one student told me they had them, but they were not colored. At the bottom of one of the handouts, a girl wrote, “we do have colored M&M’s!” This is very typical Norwegian. They do not like to be pointed out or show that they are smarter than anyone else. But they also do not want people to get the wrong idea. So often, I get comments written on their papers that corrects what another student said. I find this incredibly endearing.

The other thing that I still love to see is the students playing in the snow and cross country skiing during their free times. There is something that seems so pure and healthy… something very childlike about the whole thing. It reminds me how that 8th-10th graders are still kids and I wonder if we push our students in the US to grow up too quickly…