[back to Kristin Lavransdatter][articles I’ve written] [home]
Aug. 22, 2002
Dear Mrs. Riggs and new second graders,
Greetings from Norway! As you read this, Zoe has already been in school for a week. Zoe is attending Norwegian school and all her classes are in Norwegian. Her teacher, Inge-Marie Haugeskal, speaks English to Zoe when Zoe needs help understanding what’s going on, but mostly Zoe figures things out with the help of her 25 classmates – all of whom are thrilled to have an American girl in their class.
In some ways Norway is very much like Vermont, but in very many other ways it is quite different. There are lots of mountains here, but we live on a big arm of the sea called a fjord, and the city where we live, Trondheim, is built on the side of the hills that form the walls of the fjord. It’s very pretty, with an old gothic cathedral in the center of the city built beginning in the 11th century, and a big fish market and lots of boats and ferries everywhere. In some ways the fjord reminds us all of Lake Champlain, since it’s long and narrow and doesn’t have big waves -- because it is protected from the main body of the Atlantic Ocean.
But in other ways Norway is very different from the United States. For one thing, gasoline is very expensive here – about five times more expensive than in the United States – and so people drive their cars only when they have to. Many more people take buses, walk, and ride their bicycles. The whole town is built so that most everyone lives within walking distance of the local school, grocery store and post office. Zoe and her older sister Molly can walk to school in 10 minutes and can easily ride their bicycles – on bike paths – to the local grocery store to pick up eggs or milk if the family needs it.
School is different, too. Zoe goes to school from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays, but on Wednesdays, her class goes for a hike in the woods nearby and doesn’t do any schoolwork at all! And on Thursdays and Fridays, Zoe’s class gets out at 12:30, not 1:30! Kids in Zoe’s class are also studying English (this will be Zoe’s best subject, I think) as well as the more traditional subjects like math, Norwegian, geography and science.
Another big difference is that there is no cafeteria, and all the kids in the school bring food from home every day and eat in their classrooms. The kids all carry very small plastic lunch boxes that look a little bit like little rectangular Tupperware containers that measure about six inches long by four inches wide by three inches deep – not too much room for cookies in there! They also make sandwiches with only one piece of bread, if you can believe it – they put a piece of brown sandwich wrapping paper on the top of the open-faced sandwich and then wrap the sandwich up in the paper, which is almost like waxed paper without the wax. No one uses plastic bags for sandwiches, and almost always the sandwiches are made with butter and cheese, with some kind of sliced meat on top. Nobody eats peanut butter unless they are from the United States and Fluffernutters? Forget about it!
All the kids also bring fancy pencil cases to school, called pennals, with a complete set of markers and colored pencils inside. When Zoe and Molly and I did our school shopping, this is what we bought. Everything else is supplied by the school – writing pads of paper, workbooks and regular textbooks. But kids cover their books with paper, much like kids do in the United States, except that they always use fancy wrapping paper with pictures on it. We got some for Zoe; it has Disney characters on it from Peter Pan, the Lion King and other cartoon favorites. I’ve put some samples in with this letter.
Students also call their teachers by their first names and teachers stay with the same group of kids throughout their entire seven years in elementary school – so the kids in Zoe’s class have already had their teacher, Inger Marie, for two years. As a result, everyone knows everyone quite well. In spite of that, all the kids have been very, very friendly. Yesterday when we walked to school, eight of the 12 girls in Zoe’s class were waiting by the entrance of the school for Zoe so that they could welcome her and play with her. , and they all know each other quite well., and when it’s time to come in from recess, one kid walks around the school yard ringing a cow bell.
[back to Kristin Lavransdatter][articles I’ve written] [home]