"New Friends in Sweden"

Our six graders told about their favorite food, Kebob Pizza....

..and here is Mrs. Vester and Mr. Mosier's Kebob Pizza. It was great.

To our friends in Gothenburg for a lovely send-off Thursday Night in their city.

Another Exciting Day Draws To An End

It was another wonderful day in Sweden and at Bergsjoskolan School. Today we were able to visit our newly formed friends in the sixth grade classroom. The teachers Kerstin Thoren and Linn Kamgren allowed us some time at the beginning of class to share with students about our school.One thing we learned today that was interesting was that Kerstin has been with her students for six years. In Sweden, it is common for teachers to stay with their students for three year chunks (1-3,4-6, and 7-9). I used Google Earth to let students see an aerial picture of their school, and watched it zoom out of Sweden and fly across the Atlantic and zoom into our school.I also showed students on Google Maps, where Gothenburg Nebraska is located.We were able to share with the students pictures that Mrs. Vester took of our own Westside Middle School Students at Westside Middle School. The students were amazed by the shear number of students that are at our school, compared to their school. They really enjoyed seeing the pictures and had lots of questions. In Sweden, they are a lot more informal. Students address their teachers by their first name, which is very different for us American Teachers. Students had time to work on their Bird iMovie and were all very excited to talk with us. The students really want to learn about our American Culture and how we do things in the United States.Students are very much like ours, and I found out today from talking with a young lady whose parents immigrated to Sweden from Mogadishu, Somalia that there is an Amusement Park. This place is called Liseberg and has rides and roller coasters that the students really enjoy. I showed students the Six Flags theme parks and told them that my family also enjoys these rides. We had a very nice conversation. Mrs. Vester and I also played basketball out in the courtyard with some of the boys which was a very fun experience.

We met with Niclas Lofgren who told us about their Student Health Team. This is very similar to our SAT team at the middle school. In this area of Gothenburg the city has invested a lot of money to hire staff such as a school psychologist, what we would call guidance counselors, and a community counselor program that really try to work with the students and the parents. Niclas really stressed that students with special learning are really tried to be included in the school as much as possible.

After lunch we had a chance to visit some of the 8th grade students in their English class. Students were working with Kerstin Lindsten who is a phenomenal teacher. Students were working on an iMovie project were they had to narrate in English and had to talk about an English Speaking Country (such as Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and of course The United States.) Kerstin and her students set up the expectations of the project together and even settled on the deadline, which is this week Friday. Students who are not done on Friday, would not be able to turn in their work late and will have to take a zero. Students had an opportunity to show their work to their classmates to get feedback to help them strengthen their projects before they are turned in. It was very interesting listening to students describe our country from an outside perspective. It really made me think of the

geography projects I have had students do about a particular country and how it would sound to a native of that country. It was a very “surreal” moment.

In the afternoon we were escorted by two of Kerstin Lindsten’s students to a nearby school Backegardsskolan. I will let Mrs. Vester talk more about this experience. It was very cool what we did with the sixth grade students. Mrs. Vester and I also had a very lengthy conversation with two teachers (a 5th grade and 6th grade teacher) about Blackboard and PowerSchool. The teacher’s were absolutely amazed by the technology that these two programs provide for our students, parents, and teachers. The city of Gothenborg is getting close to launching their online platform called Harntorget. One of the teachers we talked to just

received his computer and next year his students will be getting laptops to use in school. He had lots of questions for us about using the computer. He felt that Westside was a lot further along on our use of Technology than their school, but I think that they are heading in the right direction.

A Day in the Life at Bergsjoskolan School (Day 1)

The school building includes all of the Primary Grades in the Swedish Education system. This would be their Kindergarten all the way up to our 8th grade students. The ages range from 6 to about 15 years of age. The school was built in the 1970's and there are no windows into the hallway, but most of the rooms looked like they had windows looking out.I think there are a little over 300 students total in the school.

Much like our students many of the older students have their own cellphones. Students are allowed to have them with them, but the expectation seems to be that if they receive a call they are to go out into the hallway and use them. I did not see any classroom phones and this system seems to work. I noticed a student in one class get out of her desk, go into the hallway with her cellphone and return back a minute later. I have had a lot of conversations with my Host Family. I am living with the "Headmaster" or principal. Her name is Ulla Karlson Hedlin and we have had lots of things to talk about. She is very curious about the similarities between our students and also the differences in our two school systems. Ulla told me tonight that teachers let them use their cellphone camera because the quality was better than the school's camera. And yes Mr. Schrad, Ulla told me she too has a lot of meetings and sometimes doesn't get to eat lunch or visit the teacher's classroom as much as she would like.

Bergsjoskolan is a very culturally diverse school. Very few of the students who attend this school are ethnically swedish.Mrs. Vester and I ate lunch with a group of students in what they call their "Canteen" which would be like our Cafeteria and these boys were from places such as Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Somalia, and many other places. These students also come from poorer families and in many cases are refugees from their home country. Despite this, they all speak very good conversational English. I asked one of the students where he learned English better (TV or School), and he told me by watching TV. In Sweden, they watch a lot of American Television. Tonight I watched the TV show HOUSE, and it was in English, but had Swedish subtitles on the bottom of the screen.

Mrs. Vester and I were ale to sit in on a class this morning where students were given their laptops for the first time. The students in our school are not able to take their computers home, but there sounds like plans for that to be in the works. This is only their second year of this project and they are taking "baby-steps." This was also the first school in Gothenburg to receive laptops, which held high significance to these students. Students where the first ones to open their MacBook Boxes today, and students are given complete access to their laptop settings. They create their own Administrator password and the first thing they did was use Photo Booth and the effects to create funny pictures for their desktop background. The philosophy of the school is that best "filter" for the computer is the one between the student's ears. They do have filters to block some websites, but they block very few websites. Students who visit inappropriate websites are brought in and given a "teachable moment" on appropriate use. If I understood correctly, the past two years no student has lost the use of their laptop because of discipline concerns. This may also amaze teachers and students, but the students were also given a USB flashdrive and were taught how to install Microsoft Office, MSN Messenger and a few other programs. They really want to teach the students how to use the computer from getting it out of the box, and its use throughout the school day.

After they installed the programs, they were than taught how to reformat the USB flashdrive to erase the programs and than use it as a Back-up for their computer. Ulla Hedlin told me that when students receive their MacBook computers they treat it as almost a special ceremony. They really emphasize to the students how important this computer is and you can really tell that this computer means a lot to the students. I asked a group of 6th grade boys if they play video games on their computer, and they told me "...the computer is used for school work", and no games were played. Many of them play games at home if their family owns their own computer, World of Warcraft seems very popular like in the United Statesl. As Mrs. Vester and I were observing the students in one of the classes as they were building an iMovie about birds most of them were all working hard (except to ask us questions about life in the United States). The students were very excited to show us their projects. They seem very proud of their projects and wanted to show them off. They even wanted to show use their projects from a few weeks ago involving the planets in the Solar System.

Teachers have a really large Teachers Lounge. Candles are used a lot in Sweden, as it starts to get darker they seem to be used to help with lighting in the building. Teachers also have a coffee machine that makes Hot Chocolate, Cafe Lattes, Regular Coffee, and several other coffee drinks. Fika is a big deal here in Gothenburg. Mid-morning teachers try to make it down at some point to get a cup of coffee and eat this pastry dish which is somewhat like a Cinnamon Role (but different if that makes any sense). Coffee is the major drink here and you always see teachers drinking and getting coffee.

As I start wrapping this Blog up, it is 1:20 am in Sweden and I need to get some sleep before we start our day in about six hours. Gothenburg is a very beautiful city and very European. They have narrow streets and you have to be careful of the bike riders. But being on a major river by the sea makes it a very beautiful city.