The joy of being a student

Well, I totally thought I would blog about this earlier, but yes, my status has shifted from `working´ till `student.´ I don´t know for how long or where I´ll end up on this path, but I´ve decided to give it a try.

I´ve been rethinking (is that a word?) my life many times the last months. And I decided to take a break, at least, from teaching and study for a year or two. I miss my last job more than I would have thought, though I only worked there a short time it was such a great challenge to get to teach High school and meet so many uniqe new people. I miss being part of a working environment, the mandatory coffee in every break, and talks about our hard working and not-so-hard working pupils!!

So I started student life after more or less six years of teaching and am, to my surprise and relief, enjoying it a lot. I was wondering how I would feel, if I would handle it, if I would even like the subjects in "global studies." And I did! I loved it! If I could, I would read around the clock. It´s like a whole new world opening up to me, and thanks to amazing study friends in Maria and Ina, I´m actually understanding most of it too.

 

Coming here just meant shifting location, and continue studying. That´s why people around can see me almost every day at the Banyan Tree Café, with my nose in a book, and in between sipping a coffee latte, checking facebook and enjoying visits with my nephews and niece. It´s a nice environment to study in. I hate to brag now that it´s rainy and getting cold in Norway (!) but this morning when I arrived at 7.55, heading for my morning coffee, the sun shone so brightly by 8.10 that I had to find a table in the shade...

 

Some paragraphs are really tricky. This one I read several times without really understanding it´s meaning. Why make it long and complicated when it can be short and easy?

  

Living here for a while I also get to follow up my nephews and niece in school/kindergarten/preschool. It´s an honor, and I love reading their little stories, pick them up from school and hear them talk about what they are learning. Although there definitely are differences that I don´t think would fit in a Norwegian classroom, I find it best to be open here and in that I´m learning a lot. I´m actually fascinated! And even though it is a private Christian school, it still says a lot about the American system. I love the idea here that kids can learn so much when they are small because they actually find it fun, and to really expect a lot of them. Kaleb has been in Korean class since first grade, and is now learning Korean, English and Norwegian. Both him and Lukas have to memorize quite a bit, even whole pages at times, and they both love it and thrive at it! Lukas had his first performance in front of the class when he was 4, a simple, childlike assignment to present an animal for the rest of the class, of course bringing it with him as an example!! He chose the cockroach - (kakerlakken) and had Kaleb catch a huge black one to put in a jar. Not to bring Norway down, but a 5 year old is suppose to count to 20 in his own language in the Norwegian school. Here, Lukas, has to learn to count to 100, in a foreign language. And they learn the alphabet and how to read in two and a half months. And it is no problem for him!

For me, thinking of the cases of very clever, but bored pupils back in Norway, and how they sometimes have been left to themselves because of strong focus on those with special needs, my heart is glad to see kids learn so much, and the focus on discipline and hard work to achieve and leave so much fruit!

In the first picture Lukas and I are doing his homework on the playground before he´s getting some playtime. Kaleb and his friends are meeting up (usually Magnar or Christina are joining) to do homework, either in the park or at the café. I´ve tried to join them for my studies (since it is the same café, but I ended up chatting with them so it didn´t work!!)