More thoughts on school

I can't seem to organize my thoughts about school here in Sweden, so I'll opt for disjointed bullet points today.

~ Still getting accustomed to the crazy schedule. We had parent/teacher/student development meetings this week for some of the kids (Peter and Marianne on Tuesday, Meg today, Ruth's meeting was pushed off till next week or so), and I asked Marianne's teacher/mentor about the irregularity of the days. He said it has to do with there being more children in Sweden than can easily be taught everything the government mandates, so they have to work with the teaching resources they have and squeeze it all in to these crazy times. I don't really follow, but I guess it's an explanation of sorts.

~ Marianne's meeting was intended as sort of a mentoring session with her assigned mentor/teacher, with a parent present - so I sat listening as he asked her questions and tried not to chime in unless he looked to me for an answer. You can guess how good I was at that. He had a good talk with her about how to approach this year, very realistic given our short time in the country. He explained to her that there's a lot more freedom here, both the obvious physical freedom to roam during the school day, but also with homework and projects. There's no punishment for not doing them. Students are expected to do them because of a desire to learn. The grading scale goes from A-F, but unlike ours includes an E grade (E for effort, if you will), and all grades except F are passing. So he warned Marianne that in this first term, she may see some lower grades, even Es and Ds, because teachers tend to err on the low side and leave room for improvement, and that's fine and still acceptable, which can be very difficult for students from elsewhere, especially those used to straight As, to cope with. Indeed. We'll see. He encouraged her to have open dialog with all her teachers, and said she'd most likely get better grades if she did ask questions and build relationships with the teachers. "Grading is qualitative, not quantitative" which I take to mean, the teachers just give grades based on how they feel the students are doing. That's tough for a student like Marianne who likes to dot all her "i"s, cross all her "t"s and be graded accordingly.

~ Peter's meeting was a small group of students and parents with the teacher, talking through the curriculum and setting goals for the students this term. His teacher is from Ohio originally but has been in Sweden for decades (Marianne's teacher is also from the US originally), and I like her very much. She seems well versed in meeting students where they are and helping them learn on individual plans. They have a reading series they use, but there are many levels a student can work in. Similarly, Peter has all the basic knowledge in the first math book presented, so he's already working a second level book. Overall, I think the goals they plan to teach will meet his needs for the year.

~ Peter was so brave the first week of school, with not a peep of complaint about going to school, but not so yesterday and today. He's started doing the same thing he used to at home - getting generally sad about having to go to school. Yesterday he started crying outside his classroom. This morning he got grumpy on the walk to school AND cried outside his classroom. He's always happy at the end of the day and tells me what a great time he's had at school... he just doesn't like having to leave me in the mornings. {sigh} I think Nathaniel will walk them to school tomorrow to see whether drop off goes more smoothly if I'm not there. I can't ask the big kids to be responsible for the walk to school if he's being like this. I have no doubt he'd get halfway there one day then declare he wasn't going and bolt back toward the flat. They could work with him on the one block walk to St. T's, but I can't take that chance on city streets in Stockholm.

~ Marianne and Ruth each got very basic phones this week so they can now call and text Nathaniel and myself. We only intended to get one, for Marianne to have, but given the quirky schedules we realized Ruth needs a way to communicate as well. I feel better now, knowing they can let me know if something unexpected comes up at the end of the day*, like Marianne's whole swimming thing last week where no one was going back to school but her. Apparently during the winter, the swimming group takes the metro to indoor pools in the suburbs. I asked her teacher whether she needs a metro pass, and he said no, that the teachers would have a school pass. I said, then, will a teacher bring her back to school at the end. He said, well, the teacher would at least get her onto a train to take her as far as Odenplan (the nearest subway station, about a 15 minute walk from our house, or 8-10 minutes from school). Um... okay. So we won't know what pool they're going to on any given day till she's gone, and she may only be brought/sent back as far as the nearest metro station. Coooooooool. We've spent some time looking at maps and discussing walking with confidence on city streets and whatnot. I wish she'd signed up for performing arts with Ruth, since that happens at the school instead of all of over the city, but apparently ALL the 8th grade girls were swimming... And we didn't know what any of it entailed till signups had happened (the first day the kids were at school, with no need for parent approval!).

~ The other day, Marianne told me on the walk home from school that her science class had gone on a field trip to a museum that day. Just out of the blue, again with no notification to parents. I think I guffawed, and she said, "What?!" I told her it was fine, and of course I was happy she had a good time, but it's just so different from needing to sign a permission slip for our kids to walk to the park four blocks away. Here they can take a whole class on a city bus to a museum without my knowing they've ever left the school.

~ I have, not shockingly if you've seen the name of the school, been pronouncing the name of the school wrong all this time. Rödabergsskolen. Turns out the g is sort of like a y, so it's something like road-uh-berry-show-len, though that's missing some of the finer points of the pronunciation. Nathaniel is taking a Swedish course through KTH, and the kids all have at least one Swedish lesson per week, which leaves Rachel and me lagging behind in our language skills. We're out and about more, but with no clue what anyone is saying till I say, "Uh, sorry..." and the person immediately switches into English. I'm always in awe of the language skills of persons outside the US. And I'm very grateful for those skills now, while I flounder. Nathaniel wants me to learn Swedish, in the hopes that we can maintain some fun family Swedish speaking thing once we go home... we'll see what I manage to pick up.

*****

 ~ I just took a break in writing this to go to the school for Meg's meeting. She's old for her class (I think all the kids except Ruth are) and the teacher said the reading/writing was likely below her level since English is her first language, not even factoring in that Meg has always been an exceptional reader/writer, but that she can bump her to a higher level for that. The math actually looks pretty close to what I'd expect. Once I'm done with all these meetings, I'll page through the curriculum I requested from St. T's and see how they compare, and if there's anywhere I feel we need to supplement with additional learning at home. Meg's teacher asked my feelings on homework (I'd rather they have as little as possible so they can focus on being kids after school - running, playing, reading for pleasure). She said that she agrees, but some parents from other countries WANT more homework, while in Sweden, it's actually mandated that no more than xx amount can be assigned at any grade level. There are a lot of things I'm learning about the education system here that I really appreciate!

*While at the school, Marianne grabbed me to tell me that she has a two hour class this afternoon after "all students dismiss at 12:40 for development meetings" per the flyers all around the school. How can she just have another two hour lesson when the whole school is supposedly released?! So. Confusing. I suppose you could say there are things I'm learning about the educations system here that I don't particularly appreciate, as well.