More on Education in Sweden

Wow-what a busy day!  We went to Johannesbäcksskolan (a school).  It is an elementary school.  We saw a special education classroom and the children all took turns speaking English to us and sang a song in English for us (The Lion Sleeps Tonight).  We learned about how they structure inclusion and it sounds great—I wish we could do that at Dowling.  The students are in grades 4, 5, 6, and paired with a 4^th grade class.  The two classes have a door connecting them and the inclusion times are determined by the two teachers.  They may come together, for example, for a lesson on Swedish history, but after the presentation, they divide back up for the activities or assignment based on that lesson.  They have secret friends with that class where they draw a chip with the other child’s name on it on Friday and are their “secret friend” for the next week.  They have to be extra nice to them, make sure they have someone to play with at recess and sit with at lunch, etc.  What a nice idea!  They also have English together, learning new words and singing English songs.  The inclusion is with one class so it is much more sane and can be carefully planned to be beneficial for both classes.

The students have an after-school program that is optional and the parents pay a small fee.  The students go from after school until their parents pick them up (usually by 5:00).  There is an actual curriculum with activities.  The special needs students have a class after-school as well.    

The younger students, grades 1-3 have a shorter day than the others:  8:15-1:00.  The 4^th and 5^th go until 3:00 and the 6^th graders until 3:30.  What a great idea for those younger kids.  The younger students have shorter specialist times during the day and the teacher has prep time after they leave in the afternoon.  They also have cooking (with a full home ec type of kitchen) and handicrafts.  We saw a 5^th grade class finishing making hot cross buns for the entire 5^th grade (for Easter) and a class making spiders out of angora wool balls.  We saw students in a wood shop cutting and sanding wood to make cars.  Two boys there gave us a tour.  We saw several younger classes working on math.  And Cynthia and I saw a great mobile made of shapes hung from a bicycle wheel on strings with the student’s name attached.  The shapes were made from papier mache and had clips attatched to the ends of the strings.  The wheel was hung from the ceiling in the classroom with  lightweight chains.  A newsletter or other paper to go home can be hung from it and it was very colorful, lighting up the hallway.  We had lunch there then fika in the teacher’s lounge and then Gunnar and I walked around Uppsala.  Most of us went shopping.

In the evening we had a presentation and dinner from the Education Office.  They explained the structure of Swedish governmental offices, the school entrepreneurship program, the school sustainability program, and the preschool bus.  I will wait until tomorrow to explain the preschool bus because we will be going on it.  Also observation at Gunnar’s school and another school nearby.  One of the Swedes, Peter, is planning a social outing tomorrow night for all of us—possibly bowling.   We didn’t even see Gunnar’s wife,  Margareta, today.   She left earlier and was in bed when we got home.  Have to wait until tomorrow night to get a picture of them to post.  Good night!