Longyearbyen Skole

On March 11 and 12, 2009, I visited Longyearbyen Skole in Svalbard. Svalbard is an arctic island that lies at 78 degrees north latitude. There are about 2000 permanent residents of Longyearbyen and then about 150 university students. The school had around 350 students fro grades 1-13 and since it is in such an exotic place the schools receives around 400 applications a year from teachers who are interested in working at the school. Needless to say the teachers are excellent and the students' English was remarkable. Many of the students have parents who teach in the sciences at the local university which is always called by its acronym, UNIS.
The school itself was beautiful. There was a large music room and a strong art department with students' artwork displayed all over. The cantina for the students even had their own fire place.


Like everywhere in Svalbard, the students and teachers all took off their shoes upon entering the school. Since I did not bring a second pair of shoes that meant I taught in my socks. This was strange at first because when I am in my socks I have a higher tendency to want to stand in tree pose while I am talking to the class. Several times I had to remind myself to stand straight. I also had to walk to this particular school which was about 2 km away from the hotel in the arctic cold...needless to say I also taught in long johns and fleece. The students are sent outside for all their breaks. The only time the teachers consider keeping the students in for their 15 minute breaks is if the wind-chill is around -30 degrees Celsius, which is approximately-22 degrees Fahrenheit. There are no public buses in the town most people either walk, ski, or ride their snowmobiles. So the students all walk to school. However, during the winter months when there is no sunlight, there is a school bus for the students who wish to take it. Several students do ride their spark to school.

I taught three lessons, one to the 8th, 9th, and 10th grade students. This was the first time I did the short story lesson with a group of 8th graders and it went fairly well. There responses were not as sophisticated as some of the older students, but they read well and enjoyed the activity. The best products came from two groups of boys:

One group did a fun little flip, but didn't dig too deep into the story:

(it makes a heart in case you didn't notice it)

And then my other two were a little less sophisticated in terms of English and getting the theme, but they did try really hard during the class. I think it was just a struggle to think critically in a foreign language at the level they were at:

For the 9th and 10th grade classes, I did the book-in-a-day lesson. For both classes I did The Jacket by Andrew Clements. I added an interesting component to this in that at the beginning of the lesson, I do the four corners activity and use comments that tie to the theme of the book. I decided to add one more comment to get kids connecting the book to their own experiences in Norway. I added the line, "Racism is an issue in Norway." Wow... I hit a nerve with that one. It's the last one I put up and the students get really passionate about this since Norway is dealing with a massive influx of immigrants and they are struggling with how best to accommodate these newcomers to their country. Interestingly enough, Longyearbyen has quite a few Thai families in residence so this has some significance. Ironically, most of the students who agreed with the statement were immigrants and most who disagreed were ethnic Norwegians. And of course they did admit that this might be a bigger problem in mainland Norway, but surely not in Longyearbyen.

After reading the book, the students worked in pairs to come up with some questions to discuss with one another about the book. For the 10th grade class this was difficult because they were not strong in discussing (they were strong in English, just not big talkers). Some of the questions they came up with included:

• Why is the father racist?
• Why is Daniel angry?
• What happens next?
• Why is Phil racist?
• Why did Phil not have the money Daniel offered him?
• Why did Phil take the jacket?
• Why does Daniel get upset when Phil gives him the jacket back?
• How does Phil feel about Daniel's grandma cleaning his house? (having someone clean your house is an odd concept for Norwegians because they don't have this in Norway. You clean your own house.)

I found it interesting that ALL the questions the students came up with (and the ones that I did not include here were all questions about sections of the plot that were confusing to the students), were directly tied to the text. None of the questions moved beyond the text to question neither cultural aspects of the US nor Norway. I don't know if this is because it is something they are not used to doing or if they were confused by my directions (I didn't ask for them to do this, I just asked them to think of 3 questions they would like to spend more time thinking and talking about).

At the end, I have them talk with their group to develop 2-3 conclusions they can draw about American culture based off this book. Here are some of the more interesting responses:

• American people like justice.
• Many Americans are racist.
• If something has been stolen or something happened, white people are always judging black people even if it's not their fault.
• The effects of slavery are still present.
• Many American people still judge by appearances.
• Racism is still a problem in US. [sic]
• The white always think the worst about the black, and the opposite. [sic]
• Americans can be very aggressive.
• The sport is an important part of the school. [sic]
• Some white people don't get so well along with black people. [sic]