Off to Sweden

Three weeks from tomorrow I fly to Sweden!  I've had two Swedish classes and have two left.  I can't speak Swedish, but will hopefully be able to say a sentence or two when we're done.  I am part of a teacher exchange between teachers in Minneapolis and Uppsala, Sweden.  We don't trade places like a traditional exchange.  This fall I hosted a teacher from Sweden.  He is also a special education teacher, though his students are older than mine and higher functioning.  He stayed with us for a week and visited various schools in Minneapolis.  I felt badly that we are a very boring family with busy children and didn't really take him out much.  One day I took him to the sculpture garden and another day we took him as a family to the Mill City Museum.  He went to the Science Museum with some other teachers from Sweden.  There were several of them staying with various teachers, principals, and school nurses.  We also scheduled a few evening meals for the delegation.  I will stay with Gunnar and his wife when I am there.  We will leave Saturday night, arriving middle of the day Sunday in Stockholm, then we take a train to Uppsala where our delegation will be met.  Our group contains our leader, a principal, two general ed teachers, me, our environmental ed teacher, an art teacher, and two community/adult ed teachers.  We will spend the week viewing schools and learn how they do it there, hopefully learning things that we can bring back to our own classrooms, or at least bring back a greater understanding and connections with other teachers.  It will be interesting to see how they structure special education there.   If they have classroom teachers, like me, or if they are primarily resource teachers.  So much to do before we go.  Additionally, we have a Swedish class tomorrow and next Wednesday and a fundraiser for the foundation that we need to be at on Monday.  Shelby also has a concert at the Cedar Cultural Center on Wednesday that I will go to after my class and Annie has district history day competition on the Saturday that I leave, so I'll miss the very end of that.