Day 12: Friday

This is the meeting with all the 10th graders.

Next week Erlend is going to be gone with the rest of the 10^th graders on a skiing trip.  Too bad I suck at skiing else I might have gone skiing with them for the week.  Also, that doesn’t really fulfill my purpose here as a student teacher.  I have already accepted that though.  But that means that the classes that I have been in aren’t going to be here.  So I am working with the 9^th grade teachers to see when they are teaching math and planning with them so that I can come in and do some teaching.  I am really excited about next week because I already have set up to teach 3 different 9^th grade classes.  That will be good for reflection and thinking about how I can better teach these Norwegian kids.

The other ramification of Erlend not being here next week is that we had to do my mid-semester evaluation today instead of next week.  It was another reminder about the struggle that people have that are not native English speakers.  Actually there are some native English speakers that would have a hard time filling out that evaluation form anyways.  But it took a while to get the evaluation form filled out.  Erlend has great conversational English.  He also has good technical math vocabulary.  But when it came time for the very technical language on the evaluation form it was somewhat difficult for him to understand the questions that were on the form.  I would then try and think about synonyms for certain words or put the questions in my own words.  That was a task all by itself.  The end result of filling out the evaluation was accomplished and so I would deem that a success.

A fun thing that happened today during lunch is that they had a lottery with Easter candy.  The way it works is that every Friday (I think it is weekly) there is a basket on this table with all sorts of prizes.  It costs 5 kr to buy a ticket.  Then during lunch time they put all the tickets that were bought into another basket and then randomly pick a ticket.  The teacher with that ticket is the winner and they get some pre-determined prize (chocolate).  It was really fun to be in the room and participate.  There were some teachers that weren’t at lunch but when their ticket was called they still would get the prize.  I am not sure where the money comes from or what is done with the money that is collected but it is a fun idea. 

One more thing for today.  It is really excitiit.ng when I have a good idea that is both a good idea in my head and on the computer.  I am excited for the presentation I have for the 9^th graders about graphing functions.  It should be great!

After school we went into this furniture store and Kylie found a chair that she loved.  She got really excited when she saw it and sat down in it.  We also watched the Man Who Knew Too Little Little later on Friday night.  We did it even though there were a ton a kids around because they were sleeping in the school for some 4-H event.