A Return to the ‘New’ Normal in Norway
It is a very strange time we are living through and it is especially strange to experience this global pandemic outside of my own country: away from family, friends, my home, my community, and my government. I hold two world realities in my mind each day — the one I’m experiencing physically in Oslo and the one I’m culturally, socially, and bound to by family in the United States. A place I go to in my thoughts and my feelings and where I feel I really ‘live’ mentally most of the time. It’s bizarre to be outside an experience but so involved in the ups and downs and have stakes in the outcomes, while physically experiencing a very different reality altogether.
We are going into week five of having our kids back into their new ‘normal’ routine with schools in Oslo. When we were weighing the idea of returning to the United States back in March I don’t know if I could have predicted what would unfold there and how things would turn out for us here in Norway, but I’m grateful that we stayed and I’m grateful that we get to have closure on our year here with school for the kids and a few more high school visits for me.
I’m not going to lay out a comparison between how two countries are handling COVID-19 differently — especially between Norway and the United States. That would be deeply unfair. The United States and Norway cannot be compared; it’s not like comparing apples and oranges — these are two fruits, roughly the same size, both round in shape. Instead, it would be like comparing a fruit salad (the United States) to a single blueberry (Norway). Norway is much smaller than the United States, both in size and population, and while some aspects are similar, the social structure, government, and mentality are markedly different.
Instead, I’m going to give a glimpse into how unified national leadership, a decently-funded school system, flexibility and trust from educators, and equal trust and flexibility from families (and in turn employers), can make reopening schools possible.
Preparing to go back: re-connecting and educating families
Norway’s schools are run through a national Ministry of Education and guidelines for safe phased reopening of schools were presented at a national level with the ability for local municipalities to make decisions on what would work best for their communities. Our school, Bogstad Skole, sent home information about school opening procedures two weeks before kids went back (April 27) and Myles’ teacher called to check with us to ask if we are in any risk groups, and if we are able to comply with new rules and regulations (which I’ll get to).
A week before Myles returned, the school made several videos for us to watch and discuss with our kids. In one, the gym teacher showed the kids how to wash their hands properly. Another demonstrated how to sneeze and cough into your elbow. A final one discussed staying apart from one another. We watched these with Myles and talked to him about the importance of hygiene and maintaining distance from friends.
The return: schedules, cohorts, and classroom set-up
The elementary schools opted for a phased reopening with 1–3rd graders returning first (there’s no kindergarten here, you start school at age 6). The justification for starting with younger kids is that distance learning is much more challenging for younger kids, they require almost constant supervision from parents, and there has been evidence that the effects of COVID-19 are generally less severe for kids in this age group and infections between students and in schools are not the main source of outbreaks.
Myles’ class, which was previously 19 kids, was reduced to a cohort of 13 kids, with the school utilizing the gym and music teacher, plus a substitute, and several other staff to help reduce the class sizes across the 1–3rd grade. Previously, the 2nd graders (there are three classes) had shared a large classroom space and broke into smaller groups throughout the day with a rotation of three teachers. Now, Myles’ cohort was moved into an unoccupied upper grade classroom with desks marked out a meter apart and they have no contact with kids from other cohorts. This helps with contact tracing if an outbreak occurs within a group.
The school day is staggered so that kids are not congregating outside or in hallways at the same time. Parents are not allowed inside the building to prevent additional bodies from occupying the space and potentially spreading the virus. Everyone eats at their desks inside instead of mixing outside at recess, which is also staggered in small groups with each group assigned to an area of the playground that has been separated by caution tape (and now with parade barriers). The after school staff works during recess to ensure kids stay in their areas and they help facilitate play that encourages social distancing. With each change during the day (starting the day, recess, lunch, back inside, leaving for the day) the kids wash their hands and their desks and they don’t share any equipment (headphones, pencils, etc). Myles’ hands look like I’ve sent him to work in an industrial laundry in the 1800’s, but he is really getting with the program on hygiene. Up until last week, his after school program was reserved for the children of essential workers, but now they have opened it up to all kids and cohorts are maintained during after school time as well.
Willa’s set-up looks similar, except that she’s in a group of eight kids with one adult and she spends most of the day outside playing. Parents meet the small groups outside the barnehage and the group goes inside together to wash hands. At the end of the day we meet them outside the fence from the barnehage. The day is a bit shorter than it was in pre-COVID-19 times (8:30–3:30), but employers know that and accommodate families with kids.
Both kids spend at least ½ of their time outside every day and field trips are routine. The approach to field trips is much different in Norway than my experience in the United States. For each field trip for kids at Myles’ elementary school in Oakland we would get a permission slip weeks in advance, parent drivers would be arranged, a detailed schedule of events would go out, booster seats would need to come to school, and teachers would give constant reminders in the days leading up to the trip about every last detail.
Here, we sometimes don’t even know that Myles is going on a field trip unless he needs to pack something specific and a field trip can simply mean walking to a nearby park for games and free play for the afternoon. I think we need to re-think some of the ways we approach field trips in California schools and allow our kids more freedom to roam in parks and open spaces, with or without the threat of COVID-19.
For older kids, those in 4–7 grades and 8–12, their days are staggered and many schools have kids physically on campus two to three days a week with the rest of the time online or outside and alternating with smaller cohorts. The staggered day helps alleviate congestion on public transportation and allows for the classes to spread out more safely.
Since the schools reopened in April I have been watching the COVID-19 numbers for Norway and have expected a spike in cases. Erna Solberg, the Norwegian Prime Minister, warned that if the infection rate went above R1 (meaning one person infecting more than one more person) the schools would close again. So far, this hasn’t happened and infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths remain relatively stable.
One of my greatest anxieties these days, the one that I knit through my brain every night as I’m trying to sleep, is what schools will look like in the Fall when we go back to Oakland. When Oslo’s schools closed in March we were fortunate to be able to divide and conquer with homeschool as parents since neither of us were working full-time. Even with us both home, focusing mainly on our kids, it was a challenge. The kids were plugged into screens way more than I’m comfortable with, Myles bucked against school activities while Sam patiently helped him, and we tried to keep the kids as active as possible. One afternoon, as we rounded out week six without school, we took the kids on a bike ride to a nearby lake. Myles didn’t want to go and complained fiercely as we pedeled up an incline, asking to rest, asking to go home, and generally being obstinate. I ignored his complaining and continued up the hill until he began screaming, crying, and then began to physically hurt himself and attempt to destroy his bike. We stopped and he absolutely raged at me and I raged back. It was scary and sad at the same time, but I’d noticed our patience with each other deteriorating over the previous weeks. Willa had also started to unravel a bit, left on her own with an iPad she would turn to unboxing videos and watching fully grown women cut open squishy toys on YouTube kids, a disturbing and addictive force.
A week later both he and Willa started back at school, and while things haven’t been perfect, I have noticed that emotions and our interactions have improved. Both he and Willa come home with positive attitudes and seem more calm and less restless. I think being in an environment where they are not the focal point, in a space outside their homes, is helping them to balance and regulate themselves better when they return home each day. I’m grateful to the clear national leadership, educators, and parents for truly pitching in and being willing to think creatively and flexibly about how to restart society again.
While I’m excited to return to family, friends, and my home, I am not looking forward to the animosity, unrest, and uncertainty that COVID has brought about in the US. I worry for my country and my community. And I’m confused. How can we expect to reopen the economy without thinking about families and those most vulnerable in our communities? How can parents be expected to go back to work, or even work effectively from home, if they are supervising a large part of their children’s schooling? How can the government and employers transfer the burden of childcare and education to families and not expect a massive negative impact?
It’s deeply disturbing to me that Governor Newsom is cutting the education budget in California and I think this mis-step is going to seriously thwart any effective reopening for our schools. It will shake the morale and any confidence educators have in leadership and trickle down to families. This is a time to infuse the schools with resources, hire additional staff to support social distancing, utilize spaces like public libraries, rec centers, and corporate conference rooms and offices to spread kids out safely. I commend CEO’s like Jack Dorsey from Twitter for helping bridge the technology equity gap in Oakland, this is an excellent step, but I also hope that the same type of infusion of resources will go into supporting teachers and strategies to help build in face-to-face school learning as well.
There are a million reasons why we can’t go back to school in the Fall in California, and perhaps it’s my own fears and anxieties over being tasked with educating and entertaining my kids that gets in the way of believing all of those reasons. However, I also want to make a pitch for trying. Leadership in California should look at what other countries are doing, how they are adjusting their framework and schedules, and how that is impacting the overall spread of COVID-19. To throw up our hands and say, “eh, we just can’t do this, it’s too hard and too dangerous,” would be a confirmation that our society and our government have a misaligned values system that prioritizes the economy, the privileged who can hire help during these crises, and will further increase the equity gaps that were so blindingly obvious even prior to this pandemic. I don’t want to go around waving the Norwegian flag everywhere (ok, but I do sometimes), but I have seen how this country uses resources (taxes, oil wealth) to ensure that equality is central and the wellbeing of people come before the wellbeing of the economy, corporate greed, and the vocal and wealthy. What does that look like? Schools opening before the economy does so that people can get their family life in balance and then return to work with confidence that their children are safe and cared for.
