Rudolph, Class and Snow

It has been 3 days since my last post, who knew this would be so difficult to keep up?

On Wednesday, November 3rd, we took the bus Umeå Tourism Centre. We received a lot of great information about the city and the woman there was good at speaking English so she was able to give us lots of great tips and ideas. We just did some walking around and shopping for Reindeer bracelets, a request from a colleague who visited Umeå years ago. We only found one shop with these bracelets, but it costs over $80, yikes! After shopping for Reindeer, we went to a pub for dinner and ate it. We went to a pub that we had wanted to try earlier, but was too busy for us non-Swedish speakers so we went in for an earlier dinner when there weren't as many people around. Nikole and I ordered the reindeer and it was pretty good, check out the picture for details.

Thursday, November 4th, we had class from 10-3. It was great meeting with our Swedish supervisor and learning all about the school system here. There are so many differences in the schooling systems, I'm really glad we got a class to get us up to speed. Here are some of the major points I took away from the meeting...All schooling costs are free to the students' families, books, transportation, lunch, health care, all free. This is true from Preschool to Upper Secondary School. If a student chooses to attend a private of 'Independent' school the only cost charged to the family is finding transportation. All students (over 99%) graduate from Upper Secondary School, there are not dropouts. Students are able to choose an area to focus on in Upper Secondary School (grades 10-12). This helps the students choose classes they're interested in and stay in school. There are only three grades given MVG=pass with special distinction, VG=pass with distinction and G=pass. Students are expected to master 3 languages before graduation, Swedish, English and either French, German or Spanish. Can you image this being a requirement for US students? What a difference that would make! Most of us leave with a pretty good understanding of English and knowing some words in Spanish, French or German. In Sweden if you do not know 3 languages, you will not get into a good college, even if your grades are perfect, it is expected that you know these languages. We also learned about the classes we'll be teaching. Jess and I will be teaching at a school on the far end of town (45 minute bus ride). We'll be teaching grades 4&5, in one classroom. Although we're teaching in regular education rooms, there will be students at all different levels in the room. In the US students with learning disabilities (LD), emotional behavioral disorders (EBD) or cognitive disabilities (CD) may be pulled for some or all of their class, in Sweden these students are all in the regular education setting. I am so interested to see how this works! Also, each student has an individualized education plan (IEP) and students with special needs has a specialized IEP. How wonderful would it be if we took the time to coordinate a student's educational plan according to their strengths and weaknesses. However, there is a much smaller teacher to student ration than in the US. It was a really informational and interesting day of class. We got a break in the middle of the day to go walk around campus and take some pictures. I am so excited to go to the school on Monday! After a full day of classes, we grabbed a quick dinner and went to a club on campus. We happened to get there on Karaoke night! Most of the songs were American, so we knew all the words and could sing along. It was really interesting to hear the Swedish students singing in English. Although they know the language well, their pacing and pronunciation of words were interesting! We sang Aqua's Barbie Girl. It was entertaining to say the least and I was feeling no shame and did the Ken and Barbie voice just like Aqua does. I'll never see those people again so why not....Something else we found - drink at home! It was so expensive to drink at the club. So tonight as we're planning to go back to see a live band, we're drinking our box wine before!

Today we got up to find snow on the ground! It was so beautiful and was a great backdrop for the Sculpture Garden, Umedalen Skulptur we visited today. It was one of my favorite things we've done so far. There were modern art sculptures all throughout this park. I acted as tour guide with my pamphlet and we trudged around the park for a few hours looking at the many installations. (There are many more pictures of this on facebook.) It was interesting reading what the artists intentions were, some of them were quite clever. I had many favorites and enjoyed the way they made you think and experience the art to fully understand the meaning. It was a great way to spend the morning, however it made me realize I needed some warm boots! After the tour of the park Nikole and I had some amazing soup and coffee at a little cafe then went boot shopping. I was finally successful (this was my 3rd or 4th attempt!) While we were at the cafe we noticed a homeless woman come in shivering. The girls at the counter gave her a glass (not a to-go cup) of warm milk and honey for free. After giving her the drink, she went to a table where some people had left some uneaten food. She went to the table and ate their leftovers. NObody there seemed to mind or really pay attention. The cafe was extremely busy and they did not ask her to leave or kick her out. They let her eat the scraps and drink her milk without disturbance, even though there were other paying customers who couldn't find a place to sit. I don't know how long she stayed, but she was still there when we left. Nikole and I commented on how that would never fly in the US, she would be kicked out, not allowed to sit at a table, use the bathroom if she were not a paying customer; what a difference in attitude. We also noticed on the bus that elderly people did not have to pay to use the bus, they just showed a special card and took their seat. I like the way Sweden takes care of each other.

Loving, learning and growing everyday :)