Brandsfjord Skole

On February 24, 2009, I visited Brandsfjord Skole which is a small town outside of Bessaker. Brandsfjord Skole has 36 students from grades 1-10. They are divided in multi-age groups of 1st -4th grades, 5th-7th grades, and 8th-10th grades. I met with all three groups and had a really nice day.
I started out with the 1st- 4th grade students. I had to create a new lessons for them as all of my other lessons would have been too advanced. So I began with a read aloud. I had planned one book, ordered it from Amazon, and it never came in. So instead I used American Adventure by Michael Garland.

The story is of a young boy who is on a scavenger hunt around the country to see the sites. He travels to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell. However, on each page there are different things to find in the illustrations, things like Uncle Sam’s hat, a bald eagle, and a coin. There are other more advanced things to look for, but I focused on those three and had the students look for them and then point them out when they saw one of those three. As all kids (no matter the age) love to be read to this was a great way to start out.

I then gave each student a map of the US and we colored the regions. I had a PowerPoint that had the map, the regions colored, and the states found in each region. I started with the West and the students repeated the state names after me and then colored in those states on their maps. I then had pictures from the region. I did this for each of the 5 regions (West, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast). After the students colored in the map, I had an envelope for each student with 5 different sites, one from each region and then the capitol. I then had the students glue the sites onto the right region. I put a 1st grade example and a 4th grade example below. I did find it interesting that the teachers (there were 3 in this class of 12 students) would come up behind the younger students and help color their picture. This was something I don't think most US teachers would do. I did go around and put a slash on the states that should be colored in a particular region for some students who were struggling, but I did not go in and color the edges like these teachers did.

4th grade example 1st grade example

After we finished the maps, I played for the students the song Fifty Nifty United States (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivpUBvOeD1s). I left the song and the lyrics with the teacher and they are planning to learn it later.

All in all first grade was not as scary as I had thought it would be. The teachers were helpful in translating, the students were excited about working with me and vey diligent, and the lesson was fairly innocuous that the students were not overwhelmed. At the beginning of the class the students had all told me their names and one thing they liked to do. They also drew me pictures of one thing they knew about the US. Here are some of the pictures the students drew:

I got a lot of American flags. Though several students had to get out a picture of the flag to draw it. I got several flags that were slightly backwards (the stars were on the wrong side) and one 1st grader said, "Oh shit" when his teacher told him not to color the stripes blue.

This is a picture of Mrs. Obama created by a 3rd grader

This is Obama and his family (and yes this 2nd grader thought it up on his own!)

Another 2nd grader and his picture of Obama.

This was a 4th grader and her illustration of Mini Mouse.

This was a 3rd grader who illustrated 9-11

This has to be my favorite. First off this was done by a 1st grader who came up with drawing Obama (in case you didn't recognize him) all on his own. I think the part that makes me laugh more than the hair, is the anatomically correct depiction of Obama.

After I visited the little ones, I moved to 5th-7th grade. I guess I am just a middle school teacher at heart, because even though I thought the little ones were cute, I felt like the best work came from this age group. It might be just because I know what makes 11-13 year old click, but regardless I thoroughly enjoyed this class—though they quickly reminded me about how smelly this age group is. Even though the snow fell all day, we had to open the windows to air out the room a bit! I did the “Who is Barack Obama?” lesson with this group and they only needed a little translation (mostly the youngest girl, the 5th grader). The students did a great job with the stations (actually better than the next class of older students). I did find it funny how this age group just flipped right over the somewhat nude pictures in the magazines that generally stop of the older students!

They then created great portraits of Obama. They wanted more time, so the teacher gave up part of the next lesson so the students could continue to work on them. Here are their portraits:

The last class of the day, another lesson on Obama, was the 8th-10th grade students. This group, too, was incredibly well behaved and a good group. They worked well together and even though they were not as motivated as the 5th-7th grade group they did okay when it came time to share their work with the rest of the class. Their production of English seemed much more fluid and they seemed more confident. Here are the portaits of Obama that this group drew:

I really love the small schools. One of the teachers explained to me that she loved her job because even though she has to often create 3 math lessons, for example, for one group of students, she feels like she reaches all the students. I liked this way of thinking. Because the students were on different levels (mainly because they were 3-4 grades all in one classroom) the teachers had to differentiate their teaching. But rather than think of it has a deteriment, they saw it as a way to reach all students. It is almost as if the multi-age classroom forces teachers to meet students where they are rather than getting stuck in what all 7th graders should know.

The school had a small common area that the students played ping pong and blared American music during breaks. But they also climbed into their snow gear and headed out into the downpour of snow. Some kids went outside to play a modified form of baseball. They did not have a pitcher, instead they had someone who stood next to the batter and tossed the ball into the air so the batter could hit it. It was quite a good system as everyone seemed to be getting hits and there did not seem to be the complaints about bad pitches!

The students at Brandsfjord Skole were delightful. They were well-behaved and kind to one another. I was only there for a short time, but I did notice that the teachers were more hands-on in terms of the lessons (walking around, translating, helping kids with the spelling, etc.) and I noticed that there were rules posted in the classrooms and on some of the desks. I wondered if this school just has better handle on discipline or if being in a small school makes it more manageable?