oktober 13, 2016 av asaole

Three Hundred and Seventy-Ninth Asic – Nobel Prize in literature 2016, Part 1

What Makes a Good Book Good Enough?

That is one of the things that keeps me busy when I start reading any book whatsoever… Like many other students I was forced to read several books by Nobel Prize winners in school as a teenager, and I guess my teachers picked the novels for different reasons… One of the authors I started to like by reading in school was John Steinbeck. I was thrilled by the way Steinbeck built up his characters in ”Of Mice and Men” and how the story developed. From a few hints on how George and Lennie had to move on again, after something terrible had happened, I realized I was already thinking; What had happened? As a young reader of a classic novel I was thrilled enough to keep reading until the very last page… I also read ”The Pearl” with great interest and without any effort, but for a novel like ”The Grapes of Wrath” it takes 455 pages before you know the end of the story. As a young reader, I did not meet that challenge, but this summer, during a vaction in California, ”The Grapes of Wrath” was my perfect companion. I drove past the road sign with ”Salinas” and I went to Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium where a section in the Museum describes John Steinbeck’s writing and I was happy to know that in my car, the book was waiting for me to turn the next page and the next…

John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in 1962,

”for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception”

To me as a Swedish reader, both when I was young and now, I must say Steinbeck really made a difference. I can see his deep engagement concerning important issues in society and although ”The Grapes of Wrath” was written in 1938 and first published in 1939, the content is extremely important also in 2016. In Europe where I live, migration is an every day topic, since many thousands of people are on the move between different countries. Some end up in camps or in asylum seeking procedures where bureaucratic systems cannot handle the massive number of applications quickly enough. Migrants today, face the same kind of ignorance and racism as the Okies (people from Oklahoma, moving to California) in Steinbeck’s novel. Migrants both now and then, left for the thought of a better future, filled with hope, but also fear. Their plans may be delayed or sometimes changed, and for a few the plans and hopes may never be fulfilled, due to accidents or other problems along the way.

Describing the process of change in a person’s life, like Steinbeck does in ”The Grapes of Wrath”, is a delicate matter, since it is walking on a thin line between being true or being pathetic. Neither can you exaggerate too much nor be too shallow. When the story begins we meet the American state Oklahoma when the weather conditions have been very poor for a long time. Draught and winds have left the land destroyed and every corn field has a layer of dust that makes the corn worthless. The protagonist Tom Joad, is an ex-convict from Mac Alester, where he sat four years for homicide. Now he is out on parole. Tom Joad comes back home in company with an old friend of the family, Jim Casy. In order to find job and better opportunities the Joads decide to leave Oklahoma for California. During the long trip from Sallisaw, Oklahoma to California both Grandpa and Grandma die. Tom’s brother Noah, and his sister’s boyfriend Connie leave the family for different reasons, but the rest of the family stick together. Ma and Pa, Tom and his brother Al, their sister Rosasharn who is pregnant and the younger children Ruthie and Windfield all come to California after a very tough trip through several states, over mountains and finally through the desert.

The novel very closely describes the extremely poor conditions for migrant workers in California in the thirties. Racism, cruelty and violence together with greed seems to be the rule and being from Oklahoma, means being an Okie, which is a stigmatised group at the time. No matter how hard they work, they seem to face very little understanding and empathy from the Californians. The Joads and the other Okies move from one workplace to the other and get less paid for each time they move, so it seems. For several reasons Tom gets in trouble again.

Throughout the novel, Steinbeck give descriptions of the surrounding landscape and certain topics of interest. One of the chapters is like a dialogue between a car salesman and an Okie buyer and written with humor, although the underlying message is that many poor Okies were fooled by the car dealers, selling off good cattle or mules in trade for a jalopy. Another such chapter is a very nice description of a few instruments, the harmonica, the guitar and the fiddle and how they blend in together for the coming dance evening, when a certain piece of music is played. That is also where ”Swedes up in Dakota” (p 342) are mentioned, which is fun to read for me as Swedish.

But apart from these humorous chapters, there are also some very critical topics, as when Steinbeck describes how land owners had too much fruit and too much potatoes, too many pigs and instead of giving the food to the extremely poor workers, they poisoned the potatoes, drowned the pigs and drenched the fruit in kerosene, only for the pleasure of not giving it to the starving workers. That is when ”The Grapes of Wrath”(p 349) is uttered…

For a period of time, the Joads live in the Weedpatch camp, which is a state camp. For the first time in their lives, Ruthie and Windfield see toilets. The workers are all involved in taking care of the camp together, making sure it is kept clean. Here the Joads meet other people they can trust and make friends with and for a moment the reader is fooled to think this book has a happy ending…

I highly recommend ”The Grapes of Wrath” if you would like to get a glimpse of migrant life from the inside. The novel reveal several complex issues and through the Joads and their discussions throughout the novel, you and I get a chance to consider those issues, too. With the coming election in the USA, the voters can decide whether there will be harder times or not for migrant workers from abroad, picking fruit and cotton in California for the benefit of American producers. Some of the migrants came there just like the Joads, with the hope of a better future. Some of the current Californians are likely to be decendants from Okies who came in the thirties.

Let us read books like ”The Grapes of Wrath” and never forget what made us the ones we are today.

oktober 13, 2016 av asaole

Threehundred and seventy-eighth Asic- Trump or not, that’s the question!

The battle between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has been one of my favorite soap operas this year, but as we are getting closer to Election Day I must admit that I am surprised that Mr Trump is still counted as a possible future President of the United States of America. But having said that, I also know that a number of Americans I talked to this past summer, were not at all as surprised as I am. This was clear to me when my family and I were visiting the USA as tourists in Florida, California and New Jersey. Since I enjoy talking politics I kept asking people I met about their opinion in the coming election. Interestingly they all seemed to enjoy the topic and shared their viewpoint with a stranger like myself.

The first person I talked to was a cab driver in Miami. He was a Haitian and on my question about the potential of the two candidates and their chances to become presidents he said that neither of the two were good enough for this wonderful country, but if he had to pick one, he would vote for Mrs Clinton AND…he said; the Cubans around Miami would most likely vote for Mr Trump, for the reason that they were all still very disappointed with the JFK leadership in the sixties. They would not likely change their opinion no matter what candidate would run for president now… They would all vote Republican, according to the cab driver.

A few days later we met another cab driver in San Fransisco. He was of Swedish origin and had his opinion crystal clear. Mr Trump was his choice… The reason was that Mrs Clinton was not to be trusted and had been involved in too many political decisions that she could be criticized for. I said that from my point of view, there were plenty of things that one could easily criticize Mr Trump for, too, but the cab driver claimed that the most important issue for the President of USA, would be keeping an economic balance and who would be better at doing that but a billionaire?

A lady whom I talked to for a while when lining up for the ferry to Alcatraz shared the viewpoint that Mr Trump was just playing around. In her opinion Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump were involved in a conspiracy, since they have known each other for many years and may have decided that Mr Trump would be running for President only to make sure Mrs Clinton would easily win…

Last but not least, a member of staff in the National Constitution Center, held the viewpoint that there had to be NEW THINKING and then Mrs Clinton would be disqualified for the reason that she had been a politician for way too long…

Four different opinions from four different Americans, but with one thing in common… They all seemed to be fed up with the SYSTEM and just wanted the Election Day to come, to get it over with. Lately when the tone in TV debates have been worse than ever, I am likely to agree. I want the Election Day to come, so we get the answer to the thrilling question: Who will be the President of the United States?

september 10, 2016 av asaole

Three Hundred and Fifty-Ninth Asic- 9/11 in Retrospective

Fifteen years ago I was on maternity leave with my youngest daughter. I spent my days breastfeeding… at least so it seems in a retrospective. My daughter was the kind of baby that you cannot really feed enough, so I found myself watching all the available soap operas… There was however one afternoon (But it was MORNING in the USA…) that was not at all like the rest. In Sweden where I live, like in most other countries, we have the tradition of ”breaking news” if something extraordinary happens. I remember the 9th of September 2001 exactly like that. I was actually watching an extra news alert with the footage of the first Tower of WTC burning when there, right then, the second tower was hit. The Swedish News reporter commented this and I remember I felt strangely aware of that particular moment, as a ”NOW” to remember forever… A truly moment of MINDFULNESS.

My first reaction after a short while, was to write to my friend in NJ. At the time he worked as a teacher in a school south of Philly. I wrote ”Are you safe?” and he pretty much replied ”Yes. Why do you ask?” and as I remember it, he and the rest of the staff in that school did NOT know from the start what had happened in NYC, but I did, 8000 km away… That was the start of a surreal experience of watching a part of our history from my livingroom. In fact, it all happened then and there in front of me and it was horrific. I remember thinking of the future then and now I think of all the things that have happened AFTER that date. There are wars and conflicts all over the globe. Terror and meaningless violence has become a part of our time, no matter what we think. It makes me sad that so many people worldwide suffer from conflicts or become the victims of terror acts. I think the only way to change is within ourselves. Worldwide peace may not come during my lifetime, but I hope for a more generous era soon to come. It is about time we give peace a chance.

#Himmel, #asaole

augusti 16, 2016 av asaole

Trehundrafyrtionde åseriet- Den svenska skogen och dess dragningskraft för själen

Tallskogen och jag har för länge sedan hittat varandra. Jag tror att jag alltid har trivts i den öppna skogen där man har möjlighet att se väldigt långt under trädkronorna. Dessutom är det ju fullt möjligt att ta sig fram smidigt och lätt, i jämförelse med de skogar där undervegetationen fullständigt tar över och man får slå sig fram genom sly och buskage. Så här års är det blåbär och lingon som samsas med kråkbär odon och mjölon. Jag hittade en tallstam att luta huvudet mot en stund. Den var solvarm och slät och i bakgrunden hördes vågskvalp. Nära stranden där jag var, fanns inte enbart de väldigt höga tallarna, utan även deras yngre släktingar… Här fanns plats för både tallfjortisar och tallungar…

När jag var liten läste jag Elsa Beskows böcker och varje gång jag nästan pulsar i blåbärsris den här tiden på året, tänker jag på hur Putte kämpade i blåbärsskogen…

I tallskogens närhet finns sjöar med rent och klart vatten. På ytan skymtar en och annan vit näckros och på avstånd hör jag storlomen. Det är helt klart tallskogen som ger mig mest energi, men den dunkla mystiken som präglar en vanlig granskog är också tilldragande!

A pointing finger in the forest När jag kommit ut ur tallskogen hittade jag en ensam gran som uppfordrande pekade mot en granskog en bit bort. Jag bestämde mig för att göra granen till viljes… och sökte mig in bland de mjuka mossiga tuvorna där stenar och stubbar sedan länge gömts undan. I vilken granskog som helst tänker jag kanske inte på John Bauer, men i den här typen av orörd urskog, så är det svårt att låta bli… Det är en riktig trollskog! Så känns det! Vid något tillfälle under min promenad vänder jag blicken uppåt och ser torra grenar på en grupp med granar. Jag drar mig till minnes att granar ibland växer i grupp, som syskon… Det såg jag också vid besöket i den Nordamerikanska skogen Muir Woods i somras.

Ändå kan jag inte låta bli att tänka på att den här skogens grenverk måste te sig skrämmande mot en månbelyst kvällshimmel… Förr i världen när man trodde på skrömt och trodde sig veta att skogsrået och trollen bodde i skogen, ville man kanske inte heller gå här på kvällstid? Bakom stenarna lurar varg och lo i den vidsträckta skogen långt bort från människors hus. Det är fint att det är dag, tänker jag… Då slipper jag undra om jag är själv här eller inte…

Alla vassa konturer och hårda ytor är försvunna under ett grönt och mjukt lager. Här och där trotsar några stjälkar harsyra eller en liten svamp den dominerande mossmattan… Där granar av ålder släppt sina barr eller ståtar med torra grenverk av okänt skäl, kämpar myror för att utöka sina domäner…

För egen del stannar jag till och lyssnar…

Skogens omisskännliga sus dominerar i den skenbara tystnaden.

Jag gläds åt att vara så långt ifrån allmän väg att inga bilar kan höras.

Detta är en lisa för själen!

augusti 16, 2016 av asaole

Three Hundred and Thirty-Ninth Asic- The Magic of Swedish Forests

When I meet friends from other countries who would like to know what I appreciate most with my own country, Sweden, I always mention the forests and the clean environment. Forests within Sweden differ with the regards to where in the country they are. In the very south you may find forests of beech or other trees with leaves, but very few fur and pine trees. On a warm summer’s day the beeches serve you a shady place for a moment of rest. In the area where I live, however, the pine trees or fur trees are the most common trees. Long ago the widely spread forests were very important for mine industry and steel works. Wood is still of importance for Swedish export. If I spend time in the forest I think of the other values, such as the beauty and the quietness I find there.

This time of the year there are plenty of berries and mushrooms in the forest. I like both lingonberries and blueberries and occasionally I find wild raspberries. Water, like in little streams or lakes are to be found everywhere, too. Sometimes you may see a person using a fishing rod to get some fish for dinner, but generally you are all alone… Sweden has many places like this and there are lots of opportunities to experience wildlife and nature.

After a while in the pine tree forest with high beaks and very little on the ground, I suddenly spotted a fur tree, seemingly pointing in a direction where there were merely fur trees, as if I would be a more happy visitor underneath the branches of the nearby fur trees. I do however favour fur trees and the light there… But, having said that, there are of course beautiful places in the deep dark forests of fur trees and also where there is a mix of different trees as well…

Walking in the forests means being careful for every step you take, since you may stumble and fall on branches and stones. To me that is one of the beautiful details with taking a walk there. I find it very rewarding just to breathe the clean air and stand still for a while. When doing so, I hear those very quiet noises such as a mosquito trying to get me… Fortunately, the Swedish mosquitoes are of a nicer kind than the ones in tropical countries.

Guess what? When all of the above is covered in SNOW in the winter, the BEAUTY still remains… it is just a DIFFERENT kind of beauty. 🙂

augusti 13, 2016 av asaole

Three Hundred and Thirty-Sixth Asic: Tourist in the USA- Pure luck, God or just a coincidence?

There are moments in life when something wonderful happens to us and we are purely amazed by the fact that we are there, right that very moment. Some of those moments are for me connected to my trips in the USA. One of them, was at the time when George W Bush would soon be elected president for the second time… I was travelling in Pennsylvania in the Lancaster region when me and my friends came to a little village where a growd were lining the road, as if something was about to happen… They had brought their camping chairs, their blankets or just stood upright beside the road… Obviously they were waiting for something to happen…

My friends said that since there was a nice indoor market, we could just as well stop to check why everyone was out this particular day… 🙂 My friend G asked a fellow standing by the road what the commotion was all about and got a surprised look in return: ”You mean you don’t KNOW??? Mr Bush will be here any time!” OK… Let’s say both G and MA were not that thrilled, but politely said ”OH!!!!” with a proper voice, hiding their inner feelings… We decided NOT to check the indoor market, but rather stay outdoor and wait to see what this would be like…

I’m not tall at all, so I decided I would most certainly get a better view from the parking lot, on a higher level from the road… My friend G decided to join me there, but MA stayed by the road. We, me and G, got a nice overview and could easily spot MA from where we stood. After a while a police car drove by and through a loudspeaker someone said: ”Clear the road! Clear the road! The President is on his way!” The road was already quiet and no cars were in sight… but suddenly a car came from a distance, not a nice looking car, but rather a jalopy with open windows… The car was crowded with young men shouting mean comments, and on the side of the car someone had written: ”George Bush SUCKS!” Whatever the young men were yelling through the windows, it did not sound like ”cheering” to me… This happened very quickly and the crowd around us were all appalled, but the two of us, me and G LAUGHED, because honestly, this was quite fun… Where did they come from, first of all? And how did they manage to pass through the police checkpoints with that text written on their cars… Well… Soon enough we understood that all the people around us where not just any kind of audience, but rather fans and supporters of George W Bush, pure Republicans all of them. We found it best to keep quiet from now on, but whispered and giggled quietly that this was really FUN to see…

After a while another police car drove past on the road in front of us. Again someone said through a loudspeaker: ”Clear the road! Clear the road! The President is on his way!” From where G and I stood we could see MA and she turned around sometimes to let us know she was alright. Suddenly we noticed that a couple of black limousines passed and that very moment a lady right beside MA was talking to her and made MA turn from the sight of the road to listen to what the lady was saying… Right then, when the two of them were speaking, a touring coach emerged from the right. The crowd started to yell and wave and G and I could clearly see the President of the United States waiving to his audience…but MA missed this… Afterwards, this was kind of fun, but also sad, since I had been able to spot the President, but to me that was not a big deal… MA however had thought of this moment as a chance to see the President, but because of that ignorant person beside her, she missed her chance… We joke about this nowadays and I am sure there will be new chances for MA if she for instance would want to see Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump in person this year… 🙂

But… was it just pure luck that I had a chance to see the President of the United States during my short stay in the USA? According to both MA and G it is not THAT common that you have a chance to spot a President during your lifetime. A tourist in the USA, such as I , can be lucky to get back home talking about this memory from the USA. I actually spotted George W Bush!!!

The summer of 2016 I have been travelling on the West Coast of the USA together with my family. Before I went there I thought a lot about our trip and tried to plan for things I wanted us to see. I also thought about what to listen to in the car… Why not make a Spotify-list for our trip? I thought. I added typical ”on the road”-songs that in one way or the other could be connected to America, but in the end, I didn’t really have TIME to check out HOW to connect my ready-made Spotify-list to the radio system in the rental car… So… I guess I had to stick to the rental car RADIO then, huh?

Back home I had a few songs on my list that meant more to me than the others. Years and years ago, I listened a lot to Simon & Garfunkel. I love their LIVE-LP from the Central Park in NYC and I played it over and over when I was in High School. For my trip on Highway 1 I had planned to play a few of those tracks, but like I said, I was more or less left to the producers of several different radio programs that I zapped between, while driving…

Just the very moment when I drove off the Highway into the parking lot for the bay where all the sea lions rest close to Hearst Castle, I suddenly noticed that the radio played American Tune (Simon & Garfunkel). NO other tune had been more perfect at this very spot… But how did it happen???? Luck? God? Random choice of some sort? I don’t know! But it was PERFECT for our experience at the time!

A few hours later when we FINALLY reached the very block where our hotel was situated in Santa Monica, the Radio show played America (Simon & Garfunkel). I cannot see why these two Simon & Garfunkel tunes had to play these particular moments without any reason… Instead I try to think it was meant to be for some reason… Or do they play Simon & Garfunkel day in and day our in California??? 😉

A few days later when we were finally leaving MA and G for this time and going back to Sweden… we experienced another extraordinary musical ”coincidence”. I was set for driving off… All our suitcases were put in the boot of the car…the family was buckled up and ready to go… We let our side windows down to be able to shout our last goodbyes through the car windows… Guess what??? From the car stereo a loud scream is heard: ”I’m moving out!” (Billy Joel).

As a matter of fact we WERE ”moving out”! We were now saying goodbye after a week or so in MA’s and G’s home! We were not just leaving TOWN, but rather leaving the USA for Sweden again… MA and I both like Billy Joel. There are SO many different artists and musicians out there that could have been played on the radio that very moment, but after all it was Billy Joel… Why? I cannot find any explanation whatsoever but I am very grateful for all of these moments in my life. They all showed me what pure MINDFULNESS is and I would not want to be without any of these memories. And… Thanks to MA and G, I have lots of fun memories to go back to anytime I like! Thanks! ❤

augusti 4, 2016 av asaole

Three Hundred and Thirty-First Asic – The Grapes of Wrath- A Sort of Book Review

What Makes a Good Book Good Enough?

That is one of the things that keeps me busy when I start reading any book whatsoever… Like many other students I was forced to read ”Of Mice and Men” in school as a teenager, and I guess my teacher picked the novel for a few different reasons, among one was the endurable length… I was however thrilled by the way Steinbeck built up his characters and how the story developed. From a few hints on how George and Lennie had to move on again, after something terrible had happened, I realized I was already thinking; What had happened? As a young reader of a classic novel I was thrilled enough to keep reading until the very last page… I also read ”The Pearl” with great interest and without any effort, but for a novel like ”The Grapes of Wrath” it takes 455 pages before you know the end of the story. As a young reader, I did not meet that challenge, but this summer, during a vaction in California, ”The Grapes of Wrath” was my perfect companion. I drove past the road sign with ”Salinas” and I went to Monterey and the Monterey Bay Aquarium where a section in the Museum describes John Steinbeck’s writing and I was happy to know that in my car, the book was waiting for me to turn the next page and the next…

John Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in 1962,

”for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception”

To me as a Swedish reader, both when I was young and now, I must say Steinbeck really made a difference. I can see his deep engagement concerning important issues in society and although ”The Grapes of Wrath” was written in 1938 and first published in 1939, the content is extremely important also in 2016. In Europe where I live, migration is an every day topic, since many thousands of people are on the move between different countries. Some end up in camps or in asylum seeking procedures where bureaucratic systems cannot handle the massiv number of applications quick enough. Migrants today, face the same kind of ignorance and racism as the Okies (people from Oklahoma, moving to California) in Steinbeck’s novel. Migrants both now and then, left for the thought of a better future, filled with hope, but also fear. Their plans may be delayed or sometimes changed, and for a few the plans and hopes may never be fulfilled, due to accidents or other problems along the way.

I highly recommend ”The Grapes of Wrath” if you would like to get a glimpse of migrant life from the inside. The novel reveal several complex issues and through the Joads and their discussions throughout the novel, you and I get a chance to consider those issues, too. With the coming election in the USA, the voters can decide whether there will be harder times or not for migrant workers from abroad, picking fruit and cotton in California for the benefit of American producers. Some of the migrants came there just like the Joads, with the hope of a better future. Some of the current Californians are likely to be decendants from Okies who came in the thirties.

Let us read books like ”The Grapes of Wrath” and never forget what made us the ones we are today.

juni 14, 2016 av asaole

Twohundred and Ninety-Third Asic- A hint of Swedish Midsummer

A couple of years ago, I experienced a very cold Midsummer’s Eve in the middle of Dalarna, Sweden. It was impossible to keep warm and later in the evening, I spent time in my sauna, which was indeed the very first time during summer! The lake I admire in the picture is called Siljan and that is the biggest lake in our county, however the other lake , called Väsman, close to my own town Ludvika, is also very beautiful.

Facing Lake Siljan

In this post I’d like to share a few photos from this morning when I was out walking. I hope you enjoy the scenery! The flowers are all typical for this time of the year and we use them when we make wreaths for our Midsummer celebration. This year I will most likely spend my Midsummer’s Eve in San Francisco, California, so I deciced to just add a little Midsummer feeling two weeks ahead of time… 😉 First a picture from long ago… Thank you Mom and Dad for sharing the typical traditions of our country!

Åsa, Dalke and Inger

Almost every Midsummer’s Eve all my life, I’ve spent in a church village called Stora Skedvi. I’d like to share a few of those very typical fiddle tunes with you, although here they are not played by my father’s group of fiddlers… First a march called #Trettondagsmarschen, that is usually played as the opening of #Bingsjöstämman, a get-together for fiddlers and those who love folk music, usually held the first week of July every summer. The second march is called #Rättvikarnas gånglåt and is also very famous.

Trettondagsmarschen

Rättvikarnas gånglåt

A couple of hundred years ago, people used this kind of music to endure longer walks, such as when they walked from their part of Sweden to the capital city of Stockholm for work opportunities there. It was easier to walk when someone played the fiddle… But instead of Spotify and iTunes for us, the fiddlers also shared their music willingly for dances in the evenings when all had stopped to rest for the night. A typical dance in my part of Sweden would be a ”polska” (Polish, as in from Poland), #Karis-Pers polska which is a slow dance with a high degree of sensuality between the two dancers, a man and woman… But a valse like #Bränd-Pers vals would also be appreciated by the dancing crowd. In some parts of Sweden it is possible to still dance these more traditional dances to live groups of fiddlers.

Karis Pers polska

Bränd-Pers vals

The celebration of Midsummer in all parts of Sweden is very traditional, but Dalarna is known for the tight connection between folkmusic and folkloristic traditions in general. Fiddlers playing their special music first of all, but also playing to typical dances for kids and adults. Crowds gather round Maypoles dancing together for fun as in ”Små grodorna” (the little frogs), or other such songs.

In Dalarna where I live, every little village proudly present a unique variety of traditions, unlike that of the village a few kilometers away. The food may vary, too, although most people would have sill (pickled herring) and fresh potatoes with sour cream and crisp bread with butter and cheese. Many would probably also have some strawberry cake with lots of thick cream (jordgubbstårta).

This year I will not be home for Midsummer. I will most certainly think of days in the past when I celebrated Midsummer, but I will also find ways to make this year’s Midsummer’s Eve memorable, although I will spend it abroad. I wish you all a lovely summer and hope you will follow my blogposts from over there… Look out for blogposts with the hashtag #Swedish tourist in the USA

Would you like a second opinion on my version of Swedish Midsummer? 😉

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maj 17, 2016 av asaole

Twohundred and Seventy-Third Asic- A World of Language Learning Starts in Your Computer

I’d like to share with you how learning can become interesting to young students if focus on learning derives from questions raised by the students rather than the teacher. I was teaching a mixed group of students in grade four and five in the Swedish compulsory school system. The students all had very few contacts with native speakers of English or with students from other countries. I wanted them to improve both their written an oral English and thought of different ways. It was in the middle of the annual summer vacation and as usual I spent time thinking of the coming school year. Isn’t that typical for a teacher? I know I’m not the only teacher who spends time planning for future teaching while their off of school.

Anyway, I thought of the idea of getting some kind of pen-pal for each and every one of my students. At this time I had just got my first personal computer through work and I wasn’t very familiar with how to use internet as a resource. I was therefore searching for different websites in order to find addresses to PEN-pals. It wasn’t until I came across the website http://www.epals.com with the very new word #epals, that I realized that PEN-pals were completely outdated! I was thinking like a dinosaur! Briefly, ePals is a website where teachers or students or for that matter teachers AND students can get in touch with each other in order to collaborate in different projects. It doesn’t have to be international projects, but in my case it was.

From the start I didn’t plan to collaborate at all with any American teachers. I was focused on the UK, since I was going to the UK in September in 2000. I spent a couple of hours reading different profiles in the ePals website and then I wrote my own profile. Already while I was browsing the site, I got a few mails in my inbox. There were two of them from American teachers and one of them was from a British teacher. They all seemed very nice, but since I was in a hurry to get my project going, I wrote to the British teacher, telling him about my plans to go to the UK and I also fired off my question about the two of us meeting each other to plan our future collaboration with our students. I wrote “Since I come to the UK in September, I hope we can meet and plan for our mutual project!” Then, since I was in a hurry and also because I know that teachers don’t like to spend time doing the wrong things, I wrote back to the two other teachers politely telling them that unfortunately I had already found a teacher in Britain whom I wanted to collaborate with and thus I didn’t need to write to them…

The “British” teacher replied to my email saying something like “It’s not that I don’t WANT to meet you, but how exactly did you think we could meet if you go to the UK and I live in New Jersey?”
Anyone who gets an email with that comment could have given up, but I’m not that kind of person. I wrote back. The “British” teacher wasn’t at all British and the REAL British teacher, whom I mistaken for being American, was of course already lost and gone, so what options did I have??? I started off brushing up my own English, by writing back and forth to this particular American teacher, who seemed to be a nice person already from the start. He was a teacher in a class in the same age span as my students, so after a few weeks of planning we started off writing emails between the two different schools.

At first, we instructed our own classes to write more general letters about themselves and share photos and details about the school system or what the school looked like. But gradually as the students got to know each other a little better, they started to ask their own questions and compared the learning situations in Sweden and New Jersey. My students, who were used to several breaks during school days, were shocked to notice that the students in the American school had fewer breaks and also lacked a nice lawn and a playing-ground at school. Outside the American school was instead a parking lot.

There were a lot of similar topics that gave students in both ends of our mutual collaboration a chance to challenge their language skills. In the American end students had a more cultural based viewpoint to our project, whereas in Sweden the focus was mainly on language and how to express oneself. One thing lead to another and the American teacher and I also visited each other’s schools and got the opportunity to see through teaching what it was like to teach in a completely different school setting than the one we were used to, respectively. I remember from MY teaching during one single day in the American school, that it was weird to be addressed Mrs Olenius. I also found it interesting to interact with the student in MY way, rather outspoken and joking, and notice how a few of the American TEACHERS frowned. It seemed to me as if they were taking their ROLE as teachers much more seriously than I do, which was interesting to note.

Later, my American friend visited me and my class in Sweden. He had brought with him a few interesting lessons to teach and one of them was in Physics, where he wanted to show the students how an American Hurricane builds up, by using two large bottles that he quickly moved in order to make it seem like a hurricane inside the bottles. An interesting thing with his experiment is the obvious difference between the ways we would do such an experiment and the way he did. He ended up getting eager students around him who wanted to do the experiment themselves, not just look at him doing it. In Sweden I’d say most teachers would give their students the opportunity to try out such an experiment by themselves. Another thing the American teacher probably noticed is that his usual reference to the famous Wizard of Oz didn’t work in Sweden. Why not?

A Swedish student in grade five generally wouldn’t know what kind of movie that is.
I’m happy to say that this American teacher and I have been friends for a long time now and thanks to him, I have learnt a lot about America that is more positive than I could ever imagine. Maybe it was meant to be that I mixed the American teacher with the British?