Day 1: Meeting the school

Today was the day!  I finally traveled to my school for my placement here in Norway.  After all of the time and money that it cost to get here to Norway and specifically to Rosendal and Husnes.  I finally can say that I made it!

I woke up this morning pretty early because I was nervous and because I wanted to just be ready.  After some muesli and yogurt for breakfast, we (Sarah, Brooke, and Kylie) were out the door and off to the bus stop to take us to Husnes.  We take the same bus that the students take to school but that is because the students take a normal bus (on a school route) but there are other people on the bus as well.  Some people that don't go to school.  We ride the bus and see a bunch of kids and wonder if any of them are going to be kids in our classes.  I don't think that I saw any of those kids but that doesn't mean that I won't see them tomorrow or later on.

We got off the bus and then Sarah went with her teacher to the elementary school and the rest of us followed Morten into Husnes where we met a lot of people and got acquainted with our desk spaces that we will have about the next 2 months.  We then were introduced to the rest of the teachers at the teacher meeting.  That part was in English.  After that Morten (principal) switched to Norwegian and I didn't really understand anything.  But oh well.  It wasn't important that I understand.

The thing that I am realizing about Norwegians and English is this.  Yes, Norwegians speak English.  But that is not their native language.  They are more comfortable speaking Norwegian and they may not know every word that I use in English.  They shouldn't be blamed for this because English isn't their native language and therefore it shouldn't be expected that they know every word.
This became apparent when Morten switched to Norwegian in the faculty meeting and how Berit (Brooke's cooperating teacher) said that it was too early to speak English because she hadn't completely woke up yet.  Also I realized this when I was talking to some other Norwegians.

After the faculty meeting, Morten showed us around the school.  It was nice.  It definitely didn't look like it was 40 years old.  One of our first stops was in a classroom where there was this student with special needs and her teacher.  She was super excited to see us and show off her transformers.  It was way cute.  We also got the tour of the rest of the classrooms and group rooms.  There are about 253 students at the school between the 3 grades.

Once the tour finished then I went back to my desk and waited for only a minute and then Erland came and picked me up.  He brought me to his group.  He was teaching 2 students how to use Excel to solve some math problems.  Then there was another girl in the room, H.  Honestly I was bored just watching Erland teach the other 2 students because he was speaking in Norwegian and I wasn't really understanding what he was talking about.  So I talked to H and tried to work with her.  I found it really hard to try and teach her something that she needed when I didn't have the language in order to talk to her.  Before the class I didn't know the Norwegian words for 1-10, add, subtract, multiply, divide and equals.  Even once I had those words translated (they may have been translated correctly, maybe not) it was still difficult to try and explain since I still didn't have all the words I needed to teach but I needed to at least try and teach something because so far I was the one doing the learning not the girl.  I still didn't know how to talk about fractions and how to simplify fractions which was a problem since our task was multiplying fractions that would then need to be reduced.  It was difficult but I enjoyed it.  I hope that H enjoyed it as well.

Once we (Erland and I) finished with that group, we went over to the classroom and started a lesson on combinations.  But before Erland started teaching he had me introduce myself.  So I introduced myself and talked about where I was from and a little bit about how school works back in America.  There were a couple students that asked questions (Why did you come to Norway?  What is school like in America?) and then that was all the time that we had.  I sat down and then Erland got up and introduced (lectured) about combinations.

With the last 15 minutes of that class Erland stopped teaching and the students were able to start eating their lunches right in the classroom.  That was interesting.  We then went to the faculty room and had lunch (PB&J and a carrot which is great!).
After lunch, Erland and I were able to look at the calendar and try and plan out different things for the class periods that I was going to teach for.  The planning went fairly well. I have somethings that I need to prepare and so they are going to come along.

Morten then took us (Brooke, Kylie and me) on a tour of Husnes and the things there. The tour didn't last very long but once it was over then we met up with Sarah.  Then went to the grocery because isn't that what the cool kids do?  We bought a bunch of stuff and then got on the bus.
Funny story on the bus.  There were a bunch of people on the bus when we go on so I couldn't sit down close to my new friends.  So I decided that I was just to relive my Russia times and bus surf.  Well, as I was reliving my those days I recognized that the girl that was a seat in front of the girl I was standing had just taken a snapchat of me!  Then she did it a second time!  I have no idea what she said but I saw her take the picture and then circle my head and then write something.  It looked similar to the picture to the right, except that her snap would actually show her face and then the circle would be around my face.  There I go.  Breaking hearts the first day on the bus home.

Once I got back to the cabin we talked with Nate about his day and then talked among ourselves.  It was fun to compare our days.  Then because the internet sucked at the cabin we went to the school to get better internet.  Let me tell you.  I thought the internet there was fine but now I realize it sucks.  I guess it is sufficient.