Bjørnholt Videregående Skole

On March 3, 2009, I visited Bjørnholt Videregående Skole in Oslo. The school has approximately 1,000 students from grades 11-13 (aka year 1-3). This was my first videregående skole, as there is another roving scholar who usually does this. However, the upper secondary roving scholar is booked for the rest of the year and the teacher who invited me teaches at the ungdomsskole (which I visited the next day) as well. So I got to experience the older kids.

The school was recently built and looks more like a college campus which makes sense as videregående skole mirrors our university a bit. The students apply to get in, are given scholarships to go to schools that may not be close by, and they focus on a particular “major.” So on this day, I worked with those students who are interested in construction. This means that in the class there could be both students who want to be carpenters and those who want to be engineers. On the campus, there is a cantina, a library, a sports hall (all of which are shared with the adjacent ungdomsskole), large lecture rooms, and small meeting rooms around the school.

I had two classes of about an hour and 15 minutes each. Both groups requested the Obama lesson. The first group consisted of about 25 Year Two (12th graders) students (only 2 of which were girls). Because of the lecture hall set up, it was very difficult to have the students move from station to station. We made it work, but it was a bit chaotic at first. The teachers later said that though the new school is nice, it is very difficult to do some of the pedagogy that they knew is effective for this age group due to the space.

My theory has held so far in that the older the students get the less they write on their note sheets. However with that said, I could see a more complex understanding of the concepts and of English in their work. For example in the following examples you can see that some have gone beyond the typical basketball, palm tree, and superman depiction of Obama (though some of it still exists):

This one, though it doesn't look particularly impressive, it actually has more to it than at first look. The students when they described it said it was meant to be "ironic." They explained how Obama was in a wheelchair because he works out everyday and the person behind him with the knife is a person who Obama let out of Guantanamo Bay and is now trying to kill him.

The second group consisted of about 55 (all boys) Year One (11th graders) students. I immediately switched up what I did knowing that moving 55 boys around an auditorium was asking for trouble. I am not sure why they put this group all together. But the teachers did bring in two additional male teachers to “help keep things calm.” Considering what could have occurred, I was impressed with this group. Yes, almost 20 showed up late. And yes, I had about five who put their head down and did not participate (though I made sure they spoke at least once in the class). But considering the chaos that could have occurred, it wasn’t too bad. The students’ work in this group was not as in-depth, but I decided to give them only one station to report on so they did not have as much to draw from. Here is some of the work they submitted:

I included this one because I learned some Norwegian slang from it. Apparently if you add skå to the end of someone's name it "gives it some bounce." So, if I wanted to be down with the Norsk homeboys I would be called Jennifer-skå. Doesn't really work with my full name... so maybe Jenskå. I kinda like it!

This one I thought was interesting because they put a mask on Obama's face to show the fact that we don't really know who he is. They added a paper that says "change?" to highlight the fact that we will have to wait and see what he does. I like the skepticism of the older students rather than the unquestionable adoration of the younger ones.

This group asked some excellent questions at the end of the presentation:

• What do you think about Obama’s economic plan?
• Will Obama really take the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
• Is Obama a friend of Palestine or will he only support Israel?
• Why did Obama bomb Pakistan?

And then in case you really thought seventeen year old boys were this up on foreign affairs, I also got:

• Have you ever met Obama?
• Is Obama’s brother a drug addict?

In spending the morning with a bunch of seven and eighteen year old boys, I noticed a couple of things. First, they touch each other so much. I have never seen so much wrestling, grabbing at one another, stealing hats, etc. Even one of the male teachers, grabbed a kid around the waist with fairly good tackle technique and wrestled with one of the students. It was a very physical group. From the graphic images above, I noticed there is also definitely a difference in the type of portraits. All the other groups I have worked with have been co-ed and both of these groups were basically single gender. But there were more stick figures than caricatures. I wonder if it is the age or the gender?

The other thing I find interesting is that no matter what school I go to, the teachers seem similar in that we never go to the classroom until the start of the class. This is problematic as it usually takes at least five minutes to get set up with the computer, the projector, and making sure we have everything. This I find a bit stressful, yet I think they do it to reduce stress. When I get to a school I am almost always ushered into the faculty lounge for coffee. We then sit and talk until class starts and then we go to the classroom. Often times the teachers don’t even leave the lounge until class has already been in session for a couple of minutes. My teaching experience in the US has not been like this. We assume that when class starts, everything needs to be ready. I am getting better about asking if it is okay for me to go and set up prior to starting, but this doesn’t always work especially if I am changing classrooms. I actually feel bad sometimes asking because I am taking the teachers’ time away from their coffee break. I do like the laid back atmosphere of the schools and think US teachers can take a little lead from that, but I have too many years in US schools to feel calm drinking coffee when my classroom is not set up!

I did love the break between the two classes. I sat and talked with three videregående teachers who taught the class I just worked with. They had interesting conversation about pedagogy (specially about working with students who struggle) and the English language. I could tell these teachers were bright and interested in continually learning. I would love to spend more time with them and listen to them about their views on education.