Sweden: Primary and Secondary Observations
While in beautiful Gothenburg, Sweden, I had the opportunity to visit 2 schools: 1 primary and 1 secondary. The primary visit was with a great veteran teacher, Unni, at Gamla Påvelundsskolan (“Old Påvelunds School”).
Unni has been teaching in the Swedish system for over 20 years and has a wealth of experience to draw from. She has taught all grade levels K-9 and served as a part time administrator. Her students absolutely adore her and call her by her first name, as all students in Sweden do with their teachers. My impression after shadowing Unni for a morning is that having her as a teacher is a lot like having a wonderfully caring grandmother as your teacher. She has retired 4 times but continues to return to the classroom as a long term substitute, which is the role she is currently filling.
As a side note, it’s interesting that due to Scandinavia’s (in particular Sweden’s) fantastic parental leave policies, when a sub is there for a maternity leave of absence, they may have the students for up to 18 months, which may span multiple school years, as in Unni’s case. She was wrapping up the students’ 2nd grade year and will be with them until April of their 3rd grade year next school year, since primary teachers generally loop with their students for the first 3–4 (sometimes 6) years. That really drives home how incredible the parental leave policies in this part of the world are!
Unni welcomed me and gave me a quick tour of their school, which is in the midst of being rebuilt. Even their temporary school was very modern and well designed with up to date furniture, technology, and spacious classrooms.
Once Unni’s second graders arrived they started the day with some silent reading to calm down after their P.E. lesson, and then she announced my visit and I spent some time introducing myself, showing where I was from on the map and explaining my project and answering questions they had for me (what’s your favorite color? where are you going to go this year? what’s your favorite country? and a million other insightful and mundane questions, like any second grade class would have. Coincidentally, this was the day I ended up losing my voice😝) Unni translated for me since students begin formal English lessons in 3rd grade in her school (although many already understand and speak it at some level due to travel and media exposure).
After our Q&A, students spent about 20 minutes working on adding to their end-of-year portfolios, which was fascinating to observe in my opinion. They all went and got their cubby drawers from various corners of the room and then proceeded to sift through their work and add it to various year-long learning portfolios documenting their progress with math, science, writing, etc. This process was entirely self-directed and Unni simply helped them with a few logistics (e.g. difficulty with getting a years’ worth of hole-punched pages to line up in order to bind them for the final product). Otherwise, students were very independent in adding to their collections of work. I also learned during my visit that students in Sweden do not receive traditional grades until about 10th grade, and so progress is shown through these bodies of work and that parent-teacher conferences include and are led by students who also set goals for their academic progress. Awesome!
The final part of my visit was an unexpectedly fun glimpse into the school lunch system in Sweden. I was invited to lunch along with Unni and her class. She explained that all students eat the hot lunch provided by the school (this is compulsory) and I was pleasantly surprised to note that there were no less than SIX veggies in addition to a fish entree. Students served themselves, which is a reform in the last few years intended to encourage more student independence and responsibility — by serving themselves, Unni explained, if a child does not finish the food on their plate it is fair and expected for teachers (who eat the same school-provided lunch alongside their students) to ask them “Why have you not cleared your plate? Nobody has served you anything you do not like or did not ask for. Do not waste!” I also noticed several students getting up to serve themselves a second helping of peas, potatoes, or fish. So refreshing to see children voluntarily consuming real, fresh food! It really puts into perspective how inappropriate some of our cafeteria options for our students are in the US — pizza, chips, soda, candy, and ice cream? How will that help students focus and learn in the second half of the day??
After lunch, I bid a fond farewell to Unni and set off for Göteborgs Högre Samskola, a private high school that was celebrating its students’ graduation today. After a few struggles with purchasing my train ticket (learned the hard way that only a Swedish Visa was accepted on the train!) I arrived about 10 minutes after I had agreed to meet my host (and felt terrible) but luckily was just in time to watch the students come pouring out of the front of the school in their cute navy-esque graduation caps and celebrate by dancing to their class song:
My two hosts, Klara and Katarina, (see picture below), took me on a brief tour of their high school after watching the seniors stream out of the building. One thing I noticed was that much like Norway, there are lots of open spaces available to students and staff alike with a variety of seating— couches, tables and chairs, lounges, etc. These open spaces provide many informal meeting spots for collaboration among colleagues and peers. I wish we had more of this in our US schools and hope that maybe we will after our renovation in UA.
After my brief stop at the secondary school, Klara took me on the tram to visit a primary school that feeds into their school. It was unfortunately one of those end-of-school-year, nobody-where they-usually-are kind of days, so we were unable to locate any teachers to speak with there but she showed me around a bit so I could snap some pictures, and I was able to connect with the head principal, who was eager to connect his staff with teachers from our schools in the US. This school was very distinct in that it was made up of 3 or 4 huge old houses that have been renovated into classrooms. As a result, it had a very homey feel and was clearly a very child-friendly start to formal education.
Overall, when comparing my experience in Norway to that in Sweden, I felt as if (from my limited observation), Swedish schools had a bit more structure while still maintaining a strong emphasis on student independence, just like in Norway. Students seemed more consistently on task and tuned in during instruction, although this may just be that Unni’s students are especially well behaved or engaged due to her mastery of teaching? Or, also likely, Norwegian students are paying attention but not always showing it in some of the traditional ways as we understand it in America: engaged body language and sustained eye contact. Students address teachers by first name in Sweden and this along with the setup of the classrooms leads to a homey, cozy feel within the learning environment, similar to Norway. All teachers seem to welcome the chance to broaden their students’ experience to include perspectives from abroad. The role of the administrator is usually just administrating here, although Unni has been a part-time administrator, so perhaps this varies by school or is a recent change to the Swedish education system. Like in Norway, the school days in Sweden are shorter than in the U.S. (starting at about 8:05 and running until about 1:30, with an after school program available and attended by the majority of students until about 4 or 5 PM, just like in Norway). I am really eager to see how the compares with what I will see next in Denmark!
