Culture shock was huge. I had no idea that Sweden was going
to be so different from what I was used to and what I had expected. I landed in
Jonkoping on Friday the 31
st of March. The airport is teeny tiny
with only one security guard present as I get off my plane. I begin to panic
because I realize that I am in Sweden, but no one has checked my passport, and
I haven’t been through customs. I go up to the security guard and try to hand
him my passport, and he looks confused, but then laughs, “You don’t need to
show me that, this is Sweden!” Okay then, I am in Sweden!
Still in a daze from
a long long day of traveling I grab my bag and exit the airport expecting to
find a bus or train to take me to the Central Station, but the parking lot is
nearly empty. A taxi driver, who speaks very little English, approaches me and
asks if I need a ride. Yes. I get in the car and in about 20 minutes we arrive
at Central station where I meet a fellow intern from Arkansas and wait for a
Jonkoping University student to bring us to our accommodations.
The rest of the
weekend is a blur of trying to set up wifi, visiting IKEA, trying to navigate
the foreign grocery store, and getting to know where we are living and who we
are in the program with. By Monday, after an orientation meeting, I feel much
more comfortable. Jonkoping is a much smaller town than I expected, there is no
big metropolitan area like I thought there would be in the third largest city
in the country, and there are a lot more immigrants than I expected.
Tuesday is my first day of school. I’m nervous that I’ll be
late. My assigned school is the International English School and it’s a 10
minute walk and a 40 minute bus ride away. I’m not sure when school actually
starts because each student has a different schedule with different start and
end times each day. Their schedules look more similar to the schedules of
college students than the schedules of American 8th and 9thgraders. Students have their core classes 2-3 times per week and art, textiles
or woodshop just once a week. My mentor teacher only teaches 14, 1-hour classes
and 1, 3-hour “extra class,” throughout the entire week giving us a ton of plan
time, and coffee breaks that the Swedish call Fika. The schedule isn’t
standardized at all, the math classes last 2 hours, art is 1 hour and some of
their other classes are 30-45-90 minutes, so it would be impossible to have a
bell schedule.
Teachers are expected to tell students when to leave and
students are expected to make it to their next class quickly, if they have
classes back-to-back. Some students have 20-30 minute breaks randomly
throughout their schedules so there is a student break room with ping-pong,
pool, snacks, and couches, or students can study in the common area, or play
outside. When students are done with all of their classes for the day (between
2-4pm) they can choose to stay and study or they can go to an extra class, or
they can just go home. I was talking about American schools in the teacher’s
lounge, how most teachers have 6 classes per day, 5 days per week adding up to
30 hours a week with students. This seemed crazy to them compared to their
15-18 hours with students per week. They say, “No wonder Americans are unhappy,
they’re working themselves to death!”
Our first class on Tuesday is at 10 am. We have 15 students
and they are working on Story Puzzles. They each made up and illustrated a 4
part story, then folded each story panel together to make an interactive flip
book. I walked around the room to ask each student about their work and quickly
noticed that most of their stories had dark themes like death, suicide, loss,
and tragic love. Most of the stories involved someone dying or falling in love
with the wrong person. A story that stood out to me as a representation of
Swedish spiritual culture is about a young girl who plants a seed, the plant
grows from the seed as the girl ages, and then the girl passes away, but her
plant lives on.
They seem very comfortable with the idea of death, they think
about the afterlife, and they worship the Earth and nature because they realize
that nature will always outlive a single human’s existence. I’ve been told that
the Swedish are not very religious but from what I have observed in the
students’ artwork it is clear that they are actually very spiritual. The
students in my class who were immigrants made their stories about soccer,
material possessions, or going to Harry Potter world, there is a very clear
cultural difference between these students.
In our next class the students are making 16 boxes where
they use color, line, shape, and symmetry to create different but connected
designs in each box. This lesson is very technical so the work isn’t as deep as
the Story Puzzles. Since I don’t have much to talk to the students about, I
have the opportunity to ask questions about assessment. Students can get A-F in
a class and their grade is determined by a very specific rubric made by the
government. The sections of the rubric are similar to Arkansas frameworks, but
each student has to meet each section of the rubric in order to pass the class.
A very simplified example
E
|
C
|
A
|
Barely learns skill
|
Learns skill
|
Masters Skill
|
Little understanding
|
Satisfactory understanding
|
Exceptional understanding
|
Little involvement
|
Some involvement
|
Very high involvement
|
If a student has reached an A level in two of the criteria
but is on the F level on just one criteria, they do not pass the class. If a
student has reached the C level on one criteria but the A level on two
criteria, they get a C for the class. It is the teacher’s responsibility to
make sure they are offering an opportunity for students to learn each category
of the rubric, but the students responsibility to work at perfecting each
skill. It’s possible for students to make Bs or Ds but that gets more
complicated, and I don’t fully understand it yet. So in order to get an A they
must be meeting the A level in every single category throughout the school
year, in art there are about 10 different criteria on the rubric. It is very
hard for students to earn an A, but assessment is given in a way that tries to
be consistent with what they have actually learned. Swedish parents don’t
expect their students to make As because they work very hard to get Cs or Bs.
Compared
to assessment in America, this system is much tougher but it gives their next
schools, which they have to apply to get into, a clearer picture of how the
student actually performed, instead of getting 75% of applicants with about a
3.0 gpa. Looking at their version of assessment made me realize how much grades
are inflated in America. From my experience, especially in art, most students
make As, but the range in quality of work for an A is huge because we might
give an A to a student who merely meets all expectations for a project,
(because in America it is expected that a student will receive an A for doing
what they are supposed to do), but then when a student exceeds expectations and
goes above and beyond for a project there is nothing higher than an A to give
them so they are assessed as being on the same level as the student who only
met expectations which doesn’t seem fair.
By the end of my first week I felt overwhelmed by all of the
new information that had been thrown at me and a little bit disappointed that
the students weren’t more excited to have an American Intern who was going to
be teaching their classes. The students were nice, and respectful to me, but
not friendly like my students in Arkansas. I think the small class sized will
give me the opportunity to learn more about each of the students, but I will
only see them once a week, so 4 times total, minus the holidays, standardized
testing, and absences. It really isn’t enough time for me to make solid
connections with the students but hopefully they will warm up to me over the
next few weeks!
--
The College of Education and Health Professions began offering out-of-area field placements
regularly four years ago.
The program is similar to the internships education students complete in Arkansas.
They spend time in different grade levels and different types of schools to get as
well-rounded an experience as possible. They start by observing their mentor teacher
for a few days and then take over the classroom as if it were their own, preparing
lessons and teaching them.
Students are eligible to apply for additional scholarships
from both the Study Abroad Office and the College of Education and Health Professions
to help cover additional costs. For more information on these international teaching opportunities in Belize, Peru and Sweden, please visit
http://teacher-education.uark.edu/internships.php
If you have the opportunity to study abroad - do not hesitate! Attending UARC (University ofArkansas - Rome Center) was the perfect way to experience living in a foreign country for the
