Blog #6 Carte Blanche

Time has come for the sixth and very last blog. We haven´t got any specific theme or any other directions of how it’ should be designed. Carte blanche - as our teacher said. So this blog is our own choice. An easy one, was my first thought but I have been sitting starring at the screen for almost half an hour by now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok! Let´s start with the headline – Stubborn as a mule

A long and lazy summer holiday had come to it´s end and a new term was going to start. When I woke up in the morning I was sleepy as usual and was a bit late when I took my coat and bag. Standing there in front of the door, I felt that something was wrong, something was missing. Then I remembered - My keys, the keys to my locker, my workroom and to all classrooms in our school. Then the next question popped up in my head - Where did I put them? Last time I used them were in the beginning of June and now it was the middle of August. I panicked and desperately rushed through the house and tried to find the keys. I couldn´t see them anywhere. Since I was late I had to go.

When I finally came home again, I turned the house upside down in my efforts to find the keys. But they where gone. I remembered that I had taken care of them and putted them in a safe place, so I was certain about that they should be somewhere in our house. The only question was, WHERE?

The first week in school I tried to manage without keys. One day I had to go to our caretaker Bengt and sign up for a new key, but only the door key. My colleagues were delighted of my on way of catching my post in the locker. I used a very long ruler to catch my letters. From one of my friends I got a string for the key, in order to keep it around my neck.

At home the detective work continued for weeks and months. My husband was my assistant so he was involved, as well. I knew they were in the house somewhere and I was also certain that we were going to find them someday.

During the spring many of my colleagues told me to give up and they were laughing when I still were coming with my ruler. I believe they understood and that I´m stubborn as a mule.

This weekend something unexpected happened on Saturday morning. We were going to Vänersborg on a competition and I told my husband to use the rucksack instead of a plastic bag when he was putting down the training clothes. I was busy with something when he wanted to show me something very special - the KEYS. He found them in a pocket in the rucksack. What a lucky day! There they have been for almost a year - in the hall.

Tomorrow it´s Monday and the first thing I´ll do when I´m coming to school is to leave the key back to our caretaker, with a big and happy smile. I suppose my colleagues will be surprised when I can use a real key instead of my long ruler.

When the term has come to it´s end and the summer holidays are here again, I´m planning to put my keys in safe place, so I know where to find them when school starts again in August………. and why not in the rucksack?

Blog #5 A watching eye.

A couple of weeks ago we got problems in our school. Some of the pupils had sabotaged the toilets, so it made it impossible to use them or made them so disgusting that no one wanted to go inside. We can all imagine the difficulties and worries that this caused among the pupils during the week this were going on. The frustration was total. We tried to find out what was happening and who did it? And also of course ….why? Many teachers thought that there were more conflicts among pupils, noisier and that the environment in corridors and common places in school had become worse than before. Someone suggested cameras outside the lavatories. Finally, we came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to discuss this matter in all classes and to try to make them understand the consequeses. In some school they think it´s necessary to put up cameras to make the environment in school more secure and in an attempt to decrease all the damage.

In fact, I can understand that they have to use cameras in schools, as a short- term solution just to try to stop the emergency problems. It´s a hard and rough climate in many schools nowadays, especially in bigger cities. Stuff reductions and increasing grants make the situation even worse. There are lots of pupils who are afraid of moving from one place to another in their school and that´s a huge problem so …..of course something has to be done. In some schools there are places which are difficult to overview. Many people might think that a camera is better than nothing if a pupil feel more secure. It can be the cheapest alternative and an easy way to solve difficult problems.

Nevertheless I believe there must be other ways of solving these problems. I don´t like the idea of using cameras for supervision in school because we can´t replace human beings with a camera. I believe we need more adults in schools today and not only teachers. In our school we used to have a woman working in our cafeteria earlier but she is now replaced by pupils. She was very important for the pupils in many different ways. She also kept an eye on them and they knew it. There were always a lot of teachers sitting among the children at the café and it was nice and quiet. Now it´ has changed and the atmosphere is not the same at all.

Cameras in public places are becoming more common than ever. I accept it and also believe they are good in many cases but when it comes to cameras in our Swedish schools I say: No thanks!

Towards the top?

During the last few years we´ve got reports constantly that tell us that Swedish student´s results are not in the top on the lists comparing with other countries in Europe. It seems to be very important to have the best students and our politicians have tried to analyze the causes of the low results. They sometimes talk about that the Swedish pupils’ don´t have enough demands in school and that makes affects on the knowledge. Now there will be changes, when schools can give written reports to parents from first grade, national tests in third grade and earlier grades. The expectations of these measures are high.

One affect would be that grades in 6th grade will motivate pupils to perform better. I believe it´s true that many children will do the very best and that the grades will be important because of this. This will also make it important to let the pupils and also their parents familiar with the goals. Maybe it´s easier to understand and talk about the goals when they get grades earlier.

The parental support will be determined for many children if they will pass or not. The new reform seems to make parents more participated in school than before. We know that parents are able to push and give their children support if they are interested and have enough time to help them with homework and so on. On the other hand we know that all children don´t have this support and sometimes parents want to help their children but circumstances don´t make it easy for them to do it.

Will all pupils be winners at the end with the new reform? Everyone wants to succeed but unfortunately we know that everyone can´t. In our schools there are lots of pupils with difficulties and how about them? Will they be the losers? I suppose we want children to believe in themselves and don´t give up. If schools can´t give support to all these children we will fail in our ambitions to get a better school.

To summarize my thoughts about all this, I think it´s important to find pupils with special needs as early as possible and much can be done, if we do it in early ages. Therefore, I believe in all these early tests and I think it´s good if we involve parents from start. The parental support is something useful. Many years ago I didn´t believed at all in early grades but I have changed my mind and have come to the conclusion that grades is something clear that both pupils and parents understand. From my point of view we could have taken small steps and it would have been enough with grades for Swedish, English and mathematic in 6th grade.

Blog #3 What a beautiful world!!?

The climate change has already become a part of our daily lives. We can see the consequences all over the world today. On TV we frequently get rapports from different counties with extreme weather. I found it hard to watch all the people who fled from the flames in Australia some month ago. The fears in their eyes said more that thousand words. The hurricanes are stronger than before. Cloudburst and following floods appears quite often. We can see the effects when the Polar Ice is melting down. When thinking of how badly we treat our common world, it´s easy to get depressed. Sometimes it feels like we have lost the game already, especially when a catastrophe is close to us. But we can´t just close our eyes and give up.

We all have a responsibility for the future and have to think of what kind of world we want to give to the next generation. It’s quite obvious that our lifestyle has had and still has bad effects on our environment. All choices we make have some kind of effects, good or bad and if we make more good choices, we can change things in a better direction. Small steps are better and no steps. At the same time we must be aware of that all people doesn´t live under the same condition. Many people around the world are homeless, starving or are in the middle of a conflict. For all these people life can be a matter of just surviving and thinking of environment and stuff like that for them is secondary. They don’t have any choices at all.

Finally, I must say that I believe in humanity and I don´t think we have lost the game yet although the world have just woken up. It’s good to see that great efforts are made every day. Politicians and statesmen make decisions to decrease the discharges all over the world. In the meantime I´ll do the best I can and I will try to influence people around me, because I will never give up hope for a better world.

Blog#2 Television in my life.

It was 1958 and in my home, in the hall something very exiting was happening. Our family was gathering around a big box which just had arrived, directly from Germany. My parents have told me later, that this was the cheapest way to buy a new TV at that time. I must have been in the same size as the box standing there and I can still remember the exiting moment when my parents opened it. This is my earliest memory ever and I was only four years old by the time. I don´t remember anything more around this occurrence and I can just imagine how thrilling it must have been when they for the very first time, pushed the button – ON. TV had come into our life and was going to change our family lifestyle dramatically.

One channel, screen in black and white and no broadcasting on Wednesdays, that´s what I remember from these first years. When I tell my pupils about this, they get a strange expression in the faces and I can read their thoughts “Is she that old?” Yes, I am and it has been interesting to follow the development during these fifty years. I just wonder how many hours I have been spending in front of the screen, watching TV.

One of the first programs I can remember is “Hylands hörna”. It was a family entertainment on Saturday evenings and…… we loved it. I can assure you that there wasn´t much activities in the neighbourhood while they were broadcasting. The program made an great impact on people and when they started different kinds of collections, a whole nation was committed. TV also made us see places we never thought existed. “Villevalle I Söderhavet” was one of those programs that made us curious about the world. There were also great number of Western series and we were taught that cowboys were the good and the Indians the bad ones. Clichés and the role of the sexes were confirmed. But who cared about such things as long as we could see the cute Little Joe and his older brothers in “Bröderna Cartwright” and follow their adventure week after week. Later we watched another series called “Vägen västerut” and who will ever forget Manolito in “High Chaparral”. At the same time we were collecting cards with movie stars which we exchanged. If you were lucky you could get Manolito in pairs.

This was happening long time ago and many new series have passed since those days. Our teacher wrote in her blog something about “Dallas”. When I first heard about it during the eighties, I swore that I never was going to see it, but you know how it can be with principles. One evening I was sitting by the television when the program began and I was lost. That´s the strange thing with series, you just have to know what will happen next time. It´s something magic. After a while the characters have become so familiar to you, that you can´t wait another week before meeting them again. I saw a Danish series some years ago in 24 parts called Nicolai and Juliet. I liked it very much and remember how I missed them all afterwards.

In a lifetime we sleep for about one third of our lives and I just wonder for how many years we watch TV. Let´s see ……..I have already slept for 18 years and I have seen TV for many years so …do I still want to waste more time watching TV? Is there time for another series in my life? The answer is ………..YES.

Blog#1 Childhood Memories

What is the most important thing for a child?
What experiences would I like the children of the world today have when they grow up?
What are the responsibilities of the adult world?

These questions make me think of my own childhood growing up during the fifties and sixties. I lived with my parents and my older sister in Linköping. Fifty years ago things were quite different from today. Life was different. School was different. Attitudes and almost everything was different. But children´s need was not different from today. It´s still the same.

Thinking of what´s important for a child I still remember something I asked my mother, when I was five or six years old. I asked her who was going to be my mother if she should die. I couldn´t imaging a life without a mother and I wondered who was going to take care of me? I think I remember it as clear as it was yesterday, because of the silence and that I never got an answer. My parents were the most important people in my life. When I grow older my grandmother became a very important person for me. I really loved her and I knew that I was important in her life. So my answer to what´s the most important thing for a child is , to have someone that cares for them, someone to trust. I wish every child should have someone who loves them.

There are lots of good experiences I would like children to have when growing up today. When growing up they will experience that life it´s not always simple. It can be both hard and unfair. But that´s the way life is. We can´t protect them from all bad things, but we can try to let them see all the good things in life. There are so much nice things to do if we just can see it. You don´t need a lot of money to be happy. I don´t say that money isn´t important but it worries me when so many children say that their dreams are to be rich and famous. Instead of doing things together it´s common that parents buy things for them. I think that it´s tremendous important that parents spend much time together with their children.

When thinking of all the responsibility we have as adults, I don´t know why I never hesitate a second to have children on my own. Today our two children are twenty- one and twenty-seven years old and I can discuss with them about their thoughts of their childhood. I can guarantee that our discussions are very interesting sometimes.

Finally, I think that most parents do the best they can in their efforts to raise their children. During the fifties there was a specialist in children´s diseases and in psychoanalysis, Donald Winnicott, who spoke about that mother´s were good enough to take care of their children. Good-enough-mother became a new expression. So If you can´t be the best parent you can try to be good- enough and that will do!

Welcome to share this blog with me! As a student at the English grammar couse, I will write about six different subjects this term and I hope someone in my group will read and perhaps comment on something I´ve written. Hopefully, I will improve my written proficiency.
Looking forward to meeting you!