Author Archives: kmm530

First week of student teaching

When I heard that we would be getting four weeks of student teaching practice in Sweden, I didn’t expect that we would really be doing anything other than observing, and possibly not understanding a thing as the schools are entirely Swedish speaking. Well, I was wrong in both cases. 

First of all, myself and my friend Kaila were placed in the same school we observed in February, Torpaskolan, only three blocks from the university. Secondly, we were placed with the same teacher, Lasse, who is an extremely talented teacher. Thirdly, we taught on the SECOND DAY! The first day of school was a “football” (soccer) tournament, so we spent most of the day basking in the sun, watching the kids play soccer, and checking out the cute professional soccer players who came in to help :). The second day, however, began our teaching practice. We are in a fifth grade class with 19 students, all of whom are extremely anxious to learn and just fantastic kids. We taught the english lesson on Tuesday, and ended up having an extremely successful day! The next few days we were able to teach more, bond with the kids, and experience some amazing Swedish schooling! I am completely in love with my school, and this experience in making me want my own classroom more and more!
To add to all of the excellent teaching, I also found out that I passed my Swedish exam, and am able to understand most if not all of the lessons taught in Swedish! It truly has been incredible!
Things to look forward to in teaching practice: An overnight camping trip with the kids next week, a talent show, open-school day for parents to come in, and more teaching practice! 
Until next time, peace love and TORPASKOLAN!
(PS: we even taught the kids: WE ARE… TOR-PA!… THEY LOVE IT!) 

Location: jonkoping, sweden

Easter vacation

We recently had 6 days off of class for the Easter holiday (as Sweden celebrates 4 days in a row!), and I managed to make the most of my time. 

For starters, my best friends Kaila and Elesa and I, along with our friends Pawel from Poland and Oscar from Mexico, spent a couple days traveling around Stockholm! The Scandinavian capital is absolutely one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. As college students, we were somewhat short on funds, so instead of actually visiting museums and famous monuments, we enjoyed the 65 and sunny weather by attending an outdoor Turkish festival, eating at an outdoor cafe and enjoying each others company. We also stayed at one of the nicest hostels I think I have ever seen and met a lot of interesting international travelers!
After Stockholm, we decided to relax in the 70 AND SUNNY weather of jonkoping for a few days, before heading off to Granna, the candy capital of Sweden, for the day. They are famous for their peppermint sticks, and they are truly delicious!
The break was a much needed time off from school, and gave us the perfect amount of rest time before we start our student teaching on tuesday! I look forward to teaching, although am slightly nervous about the language barrier! 
Sorry for the short nature of this blog, but I seem to have thought I really was on vacation! The next one will be juicier and longer i promise! 
peace, love, and sunshine <3

Location: jonkoping, sweden

Difficult Lecture

Today in class, we discussed the difficult topic of coping with children in the classroom who have experienced loss. As an education major, you don’t often think about the sad things that you may need to deal with. Today’s lecture was particularly difficult, and made me a little nervous about my future profession.

 

When I was in third grade, my best friend Natalie lived down the street from me. She was one year younger, and we got along like sisters. She and I would constantly play together, get into plenty of trouble, and spend hours at either her house or mine. This same year, Natalie’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I remember my mom telling me that Mrs. Bradon was sick, but I just assumed she would need to go to the doctor and she would be fine. Only a few short months later, Mrs. Bradon passed away. I remember my mom telling me that we were going to the funeral, and when there, I sat next to Natalie and colored for hours. We sat there in silence, coloring.

 

At the time, I never really thought about what happened much. I assumed that Mrs. Bradon was away on holiday, or that she would come back soon. Natalie and I continued to play, and nothing seemed to have changed. However, subconsciously I think I knew that Mrs. Bradon would never come back, and would never be there to make us lunch or warn me not to touch the radiator (when every time I ignored her and did it anyway… getting burns on my hand to prove it). Looking back now, especially after this lecture, I can see that Natalie was going through the toughest time of her life. As a future teacher, it is more than likely that I will go through dealing with a bereaved child. In such a case, I will look back to my past and remember Mrs. Bradon every time I come across a similar situation. Perhaps my sitting there, coloring with her, was the best thing that I could have done at the time. Allowing Natalie to know that I was there for her, that nothing had changed for me, and that I would still color with her even though her mom wasn’t going to be there anymore, supported her in a way that was subconscious. I would like to imagine that that helped her a significant amount, but I don’t know because of being so young at the time.

 

This lecture was particularly necessary. Oftentimes, as stated before, teachers do not think that anything will go wrong. We have this presumption that every child is happy and fine, but the reality is that children are often going through a lot more than we think. Learning methods to help children deal with troubling times made me nervous about teaching, but also put me slightly at ease, as now I have some ideas of methods I could use in the future. We as human beings do not like to discuss difficult topics, but they are very necessary and will prove to be helpful in the future.


Location: jonkoping, sweden

Stockholm for the weekend with the family

This weekend, my family came to visit me! My mom, dad, aunt and uncle traveled from Pittsburgh to Sweden for about a week, 5 days of which were spent with me. They arrived Thursday, and took my entire exchange group to dinner. We had 16 people total, and we had a blast!

 

Friday morning, we left Jonkoping at about 1pm, headed for Stockholm. We had to make several stops on the way for food (especially at the candy store!), but finally arrived in Stockholm just in time to make a reservation at the icebar. The icebar is located in the famous Stockholm Ice Hotel, and can only hold a certain number of people at a time. This icebar is also only allowed to be visited for 45 minutes at a time. One must wear a special blue robe with gloves to enter, and once inside it is truly amazing. Everything is made out of ice! The walls, the chairs, even the glasses are completely ice. We stayed for all of about 30 minutes before we were too cold to spend anymore time there, so we left and found a sports pub where we could have dinner. After dinner, we went back to the hotel, and, exhausted from the day, we went to sleep.

 

Saturday, however, after a large buffet breakfast, we woke up ready to hit the town. We visited the old town, which was absolutely beautiful. Originally built by German influences, the buildings were spectacular and unique. We passed the royal palace, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize museum, and continued on to the National Museum. We were able to see original paintings by Rembrandt, Cezanne, Degas, and even Monet. They also had a special art show occurring at the time called “Lust and Vice”, which consisted of not only modern, but also classic, works of art dedicated to lust and vice. Although rather risky, most pieces were incredible.

 

After a lovely morning, we had a big lunch and continued on for some shopping and further exploration. We visited the grand hotel, as well as a few more stores, before we decided to head back to the hotel for some rest before dinner. I, myself, napped for about two hours! For dinner, we managed to find a Friday’s and have a nice dinner after a long and historic filled day.

 

This morning, we were able to reserve seats on the three hour boat tour (I know what you’re thinking, and no, Gilligan was not there…). We traveled about an hour and a half north of Stockholm before turning around and heading back. Sights seen included the home of the “Swedish Rockefeller’s” who own many banks around Stockholm, Oil companies, historic buildings and vacation homes of several Swedish celebrities. We also got an extremely extensive history of Scandinavia, such as the fact that Finland only became an independent country in 1907, and because of this, out of all the Scandinavian countries, Finnish is the most foreign language.

 

Overall, we had an amazing weekend in Stockholm, and I am already planning on saving my money to buy an apartment on the exclusive street in central Stockholm.

 

Until next time, peace, love and Stockholm! 


Location: Jonkoping, Sweden

Swedish

Since January, I have been enrolled in a Swedish language course, to try to pick up some of the sayings and a little of the language. The class recently ended with a huge exam on friday. Apparently, every single year, all the PSU students fail the exam multiple times due to its extreme difficulty (the test demands that you know pretty much the entire language in 2 and a a half short months). My goal this year was the be the first PSU student to pass the exam, and not have to sit at the retake. 

Studying for the exam was not only about reviewing the books and notes from class for me… I decided to take on a different method for practice. For about a week or two before the exam, I went to local cafes, sat in the train station and walked down the street just listening to people speak swedish. I remembered from my childhood that learning french was most successful for me when I was exposed to the language and put into a vulnerable situation. I would go to the store and attempt to order in Swedish, and I would listen to what was said to me and try to figure out how to respond. Overall, I took it upon myself to simply LISTEN and learn from the culture around me. 
All in all, I would say that this method proved to be very successful. I found the test to be easier than I thought, and although I am still waiting for my results, I am fairly confident that my grade will be a good one. The biggest challenge of any foreign language is to break through the primary barrier of feeling insecure and just let yourself be immersed in the language. You truly cannot be afraid to TRY speaking the language, and as soon as you let yourself go and allow yourself to learn, you will put yourself in the position for success. A lot of my friends hated learning Swedish. They saw it as a waste of time, and chose not to pay attention, or even try to study for the exam. They figured that when they failed, they could retake it until they passed. I, however, took a different approach. I went to every class (with the exception of one, where I happened to be quite sick), and took notes. I also practiced outside of class, and took all opportunities to use the language. Even if my grade forces me to retake the exam, I feel as though I have passed regardless, because I allowed myself to learn. Now, I can say with confidence, that I can speak a little Swedish, and I could probably get through any daily conversation, still risking of course a few mistakes here and there. 
Until next time: fred, k�rlek och svenska. (peace, love and swedish) 🙂


Location: jonkoping, sweden

One day in Ethiopia

This Monday, myself along with two other classmates (Isak from Sweden and Millie from the UK – not just classmates also best friends ever… who I forgot to mention in a previous blog and may have offended so now need to make up for it here :)…) will be performing an experiment for our current class: global survival and environmental issues. For one day, we will attempt to live off the minimum water supply suggested as necessary for survival: 25L. This includes not only drinking water, but also water used in the shower, washing hands, dishes, etc. It will certainly be a challenge, and the goal of our experiment is to attempt to reduce our intake of water, due to the current water crisis occurring in most under-developed countries.

This project is our final assignment for the current course I am in, and has been appropriately titled a “deepening project”, in order to deepen our understanding of a specific issue facing the world, and making an attempt to change the way we live our lives to help improve the current state of our environment. 
We will be keeping a blog of our results and observations if anyone is interested:
I will be writing a followup to this blog, as well, after the day with limited water!
We have been researching the differences in water supply between Sweden and Ethiopia (what we have deemed the two extremes of the water crisis), and it is unbelievable how different the availability of water is… in Ethiopia, out of 85 million people, 49 million have no water. This compares to the 9 million people of Sweden, all with access to clean, safe water. Also, Sweden’s biggest problem is reducing their over-use of water. This project will certainly prove to be a test of whether or not we can survive on a limited amount of water, seeing as we all come from countries with a big problem of over-using water! Stay tuned…
peace, love, and water 

Location: jonkoping, sweden

Role Play Climate Conference

This week, for my current class (global environmental and survival issues), we had a mock climate conference (a COP 15.5 if you will…). Myself along with a partner represented the small, vulnerable country of Bangladesh, and the “conference” lasted an entire school day. Countries represented included China, India, Japan, USA, Bangladesh, Samoa, Uganda, the EU, Saudi Arabia and Russia, along with two Swedish organizations (a non-profit organization and an energy company). We began by researching climate issues on each of our countries, registering (with a fake name: mine was Anika Saha), and presenting our goals to the group. 

As a delegate from Bangladesh, I was given the heavy task of representing one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change. Only 13 years ago, 2/3 of my country was forced underwater due to severe climate. My country has one of the highest population densities, with 160 million inhabitants, 60 million of whom are below the poverty line. We are a developing nation, at risk of being home to some 20 million climate refugees in the near future. Our main goals in the climate conference were to negotiate agreements with other countries (mainly industrial countries) to sign binding commitments of emissions reductions. We also supported a flexible mechanism on the technological side, where countries would agree to reduce emissions while simultaneously aiding developing countries reduce their own emissions. 
As such a small nation, we had very little power in the meetings. Binding contracts were signed to reduce emissions as well as give money to the developing nations (in our group that included Bangladesh, Uganda and Samoa), however the sum agreed upon was not enough. In order to properly allow us to continue developing and reduce emissions, we would need a total sum of 400-500 billion Euros annually, and we ended up only receiving 200 billion. 
At the end of the conference, I was satisfied with my role, yet disappointed with the results reached. The climate conference was extremely interesting and educational, and I got so much out of it. I can understand so well how difficult the actual issue of climate change is affecting every single country in the world, and it was amazing to have this experience of a mock conference to see the extreme difficulty that countries are actually having in trying to solve the issues. Also, I was able to see what a negative impact the US has on climate change (20.6 tons per capita emitted annually versus Bangladesh only emitting 0.3 tons per capita per year). Also, the US has agreed in the past to commit to emissions reductions, however their numbers continually go up. 
If we want to change the future of our world, and avoid a detrimental fate of negative affects on the environment, we truly need to take action. Small steps will have more of an impact than you can imagine, so hopefully everyone will take this blog into consideration and work on reducing your own carbon footprint. I started walking places instead of taking the bus, and I have started going green in many other ways, as well. Thanks to this conference, I was able to get a glimpse of the urgency of the problems, and plan on doing anything I can in my own life to improve our world. 

Location: Jonkoping, Sweden

well adjusted, lots going on

After over 6 weeks in Sweden, it is very safe to say I am well adjusted to my new lifestyle. In fact, I feel as though I have lived here my whole life. As my first 5-week course comes to a close, I am saddened to see one of the best teachers I have ever had retire. Ulla, my intercultural encounters teacher, taught her very last class this past Wednesday. She was truly an inspiring teacher, and I fully enjoyed her class. My final assignment for this class is due tomorrow (Monday the 1st of March ALREADY! AHH!). We threw Ulla a small party to wish her luck in the future, and she became very emotional and told us how much she appreciated what we have done for her. 

On top of starting a new class this week, I am welcoming home all my friends who went away for the long weekend. As I have been to most of the places they went already, I chose to stay behind and relax. I ended up having a very fun-filled weekend, being able to watch NHL recaps at a local bar, having pizza and movie nights with a few new friends and going skiing for the first time since I’ve been to Sweden! It was truly an amazing weekend, and I am sad to say Monday is right around the corner…
This week is also extremely exciting for me as I will welcome to Sweden my mom and Grandma, who arrive Thursday night! They will only be staying until Sunday, but my best friend Nick will arrive as they leave! Lots of visitors will be so nice, however I hope to find enough time to spend with them as my next course seems to be very time-consuming. 
Anyways, until next time, peace love and sweden. 
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skiing!!!

Location: jonkoping, Sweden

GO THON! BEAT CANCER!

Although I am the whole way across the world, I am still cheering for THON from Sweden! All weekend long, my fellow Penn State friends and I watched the live webcast of THON, and emotionally celebrated the final result together in Sweden. I even kept tweeting about it, saying the Sweden was FTK!

It is truly amazing to me to see how this student body is so capable of being so selfless, spending an entire weekend to make the lives of children better by giving them hope. We shared the information of THON with many of the international and Swedish students here in Jonkoping, and the response we got almost every single time was: unbelievable. 
The Swedish students and I discussed how incredible this weekend is – how the entire weekend is organized and carried out by students, and how the children look forward to this more than Christmas morning! They Swedes claimed that nothing like this would ever happen in Sweden, and the ones coming back to PSU are already anxious to be involved. They had a hard time grasping the idea of THON, but after countless youtube videos and stories, they finally realized how epic and meaningful this weekend truly is. 
$9,563,016.09. It truly is unbelievable. We surpassed all expectations for this year, and as my mom said to me after the total was revealed: you know what this means… 10 mil next year. FTK <3 
I’ve never been so proud to be a Penn Stater, and I’ve never missed PSU so much in my whole abroad experience. 

Location: jonkoping, Sweden

Observation in a Swedish Primary School

As all of you already know, I am studying in Sweden this semester. Yesterday I had my first opportunity to observe a Swedish school, and follow a teacher around for the day. I was assigned to a year five classroom (10 to 11 year olds) and spent the day observing and helping. To summarize, I loved it. I never wanted to leave. The school system that is set up in Sweden is not only successful in teaching children the basic subjects, but it promotes a significant understanding and acceptance of internationalization and tolerance of all cultures.

 

The day started off with an English lesson. The teacher, L�sse, (who by the way is called by his first name by both the other teachers and the students), warned my friend Kaila and I that not all the children were proficient in English. We prepared ourselves for a long hour and a half, but when we arrived, we were shocked to see that L�sse’s idea of “not proficient” was America’s idea of bilingual. These 10 and 11-year-old students are truly incredible. Not only are they already fluent in Swedish, but also they are extremely proficient in English and were able to carry out conversations about everything and anything. We exchanged stories, told each other about our lives, and even discussed things not to say. L�sse shocked us by asking us to share swear words with the kids, and in a panic I simply shouted “Don’t say butthead!” L�sse also didn’t fail to tease me about being from Pittsburgh, the city of “losers”, however it was all in good fun!

 

After this class, the students had their first break of the day, which allowed the teachers to have a “fika” (Swedish coffee and snack break), in the biggest and nicest teachers lounge I have ever seen! We were able to talk to L�sse for a bit, and then returned to the class for an hour of free time. Some kids were finishing math assignments, others were reading, and others were playing a geography computer game. Kaila and I decided to oversee the geography game, and were yet again surprised to find that these children know more about the world’s geography than any American class I have seen. These Swedish students were scoring 100% on naming the states in the US and their capital cities!!!

 

Once the break time was over, we went to lunch and then got to watch some of the “textile/home-economics” class, where half of the students were in sewing class and the other half were in wood-shop. This class, which consisted of about half girls and half boys, was taking part in both sections of the class, which perhaps lessens the line between gender roles and allows the children to realize that although certain gender stereotypes exist, boys are perfectly capable of sewing and girls are perfectly capable of wood-work.

 

The next part of the day was perhaps the most exciting. Kaila and I were given the opportunity to interview L�sse, along with the head of Swedish as a second language program. We were able to discuss the pedagogical approaches that they both take to ensure inclusion in the classroom, and embracement of internationalization. L�sse told us of how he grew up in Nepal, and has a very different approach to teaching. He believes in allowing the children to be faced with difficult decisions and see how they can handle them. He has actually created several programs to allow for tolerance of different cultures. For example, he has set up a “whale done” program, where the children are meant to give positive reinforcement to each other (similar to how a trainer would train a killer whale) and the student who gives the most positive reinforcement receives a certificate. Another program is setting up an imaginary country. L�sse puts real-world problems (controversial issues facing the world) into this make-believe country and sees how the children solve it. Recently, L�sse visited Nepal and experienced the severe pollution they are currently experiencing. He brought this back to the school in Sweden, and the children came up with the idea of setting up a similar system to “Keep Sweden clean”, and surprisingly, thanks to this year five class, Nepal has recently implemented a very similar program. This teacher is truly inspirational! As far as Swedish as a second language goes, the woman in charge told me that in an ideal world, a student would learn half in Swedish and half in their native language, however due to the low percentage of Swedish as a second language students, this cannot occur. She claimed, however, that the key to success is to ensure that you are continually building the students abilities in Swedish and in their native language. One girl from in the class moved here three years ago, and recently took a Swedish language proficiency test, resulting in her scoring at the middle of the class! L�sse expressed that although this is excellent for her, is makes the Swedish students look bad, seeing as some students whose mother tongue is Swedish cannot perform higher than a pupil who has only just learned the language. L�sse said that should be the next goal of the education system in Sweden – to improve the performance of pupil’s Swedish in the classroom.

 

Overall, my experience was unbelievable, and I looking forward to doing my 5-week student teacher practice at this school in May!


Location: Jonkoping, Sweden