Professor of Sherlockology and Advanced Snape Studies

I was living in Sweden in 2016 and I remember proudly taking a picture of my envelope, ready to be mailed to the US in time to be counted. I had not been following US politics or the election that closely. It is a little understandable since I was living in Sweden and part of my life there was trying to acculturate to life in Sweden and Swedish and European news. I went to bed excited because I thought the US was finally about to elect its first woman president. I woke up and learned that the US had instead elected a man who was a blatantly racist, misogynistic, incompetent reality TV show star and social media influencer. That very morning I had a Swedish class in which I was the only American. The topic was on the election process in Sweden. Almost everyone in the room was horrified and instead of talking about Sweden, we talked about the US. I was asked to explain what happened. I couldn't. I felt so ashamed, humiliated and despondent. At work, my students and colleagues kept talking about it and asking me about it. I couldn't explain my country. I felt so much shame as an American and I felt so naive and out of touch but tired. I could not explain it to all the people who asked me because I didn't see it coming and I could not relate. It was a raw awful week - not nearly as raw and horrifying as it was for those in the US but it stands out because I felt so alone. There were no other Americans I could commiserate with, not even my husband who was so checked out of things due to his own issues that he had not even voted that election. 

Swedes take their vacation time very seriously. My university quite literally shuts down for five weeks while everyone and their mother is on vacation. I am having to beg colleagues in the US to send me PDFs of research articles from their own institutions since my university library is closed, and I have to wait until August before I can put in an interlibrary loan request.  Some of my colleagues have left explicit away messages in their email indicating that they will not be checking or answering email until August 11th and for students to wait until then to contact them. People still come into the building from time to time, but all but a few of the bathrooms have been closed until mid August since the cleaning staff is on vacation!

Yesterday I received two emails from students who wanted the answer key to the resit exam they took in the beginning of June. There is no readily available answer key (I grade my portion of the exam and my colleague graded the vocabulary and pronunciation portion) for resit exams; we are not obligated to provide a key and students are encouraged to read the feedback on their exams when they pick them up (which these students didn't do); and even if I wanted to put an answer key together out of the goodness of my heart, it's the very last thing I would devote a day to during summer vacation.

You can probably imagine the great satisfaction and joy with which I deleted these emails.  

WE WON! WE ACTUALLY WON!

On Wednesday, our  college hosted a Science Slam competition among its 5 departments. This meant that teams of 3 researchers from each department had 3 minutes each (9 minutes total) to present their research in an accessible yet interesting way to a crowd. I was tapped to be on the team for our department (Culture, Language and Media or Kultur-språk-medier in Swedish) for some reason - probably because I'll say 'yes' to anything. I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but we actually WON!


( In which I am super last minute... )

I just completed my first week of teaching observations where I had the chance to observe my students teaching in 7th, 8th and 9th grade classrooms (the pupils were 13, 14 and 15 respectively). Some things stood out, and I'm not sure yet if I'm seeing a trend that signifies Swedish educational norms, or if this is just a few isolated cases. Some of what I noticed were other issues that I think are more universal:

1. In my first class (9th graders), I sat next to a group of boys who misbehaved. Two were clearly bored and unmotivated, but the third was dealing with something else. He wore a hoodie that nearly covered his face and sat hunched over his iPhone, fiddling with it the whole time. He had no paper, no books, no computer. He made eye contact with no one. Never have I seen a student so closed off. The student teacher was trying to get him to do the work and got him a computer and other things, but even that didn't seem to matter. I was getting such a strong feeling from him that something was wrong, I almost wanted to cry. I spoke with the teacher afterwards. It turns out that the boy had lost both his parents in the past few months and the fact that he even bothers showing up to school is a victory of sorts. I don't think my student teacher knew this, but he handled the boy gently. However, this made me think how working with the problems of children and all the trauma they can face is another part of a teacher's job. I don't know that we prepare future teachers sufficiently for dealing with this.

2. In my second class, (7th graders), I observed that all the students had the same pencil, shared a common eraser and wrote in identical notebooks to do their in class activities. This made me think of the first class where all the students had school issued laptops for working on. At one point, a few of the students had filled up their notebooks and the teacher had to go to the supply closet to get more. This is when I realized that students weren't required to supply their own school supplies like paper and pens and pencils. It's all provided by the school/the city. I observed the same thing in today's school. This stands in such contrast to the long list of school supplies that US parents have to buy for their children at the beginning of the year and the increasing tendency in some places for parents to have to raise money to buy other supplies for under-funded schools (e.g. tissues, toilet paper).

3. None of the classes I have visited have more than 20 students in them.

4. Every school has a large kitchen and coffee room with sofas and magazines and tables and chairs for the faculty to have lunch separately from students. This is completely separate from the staffroom where teachers have desks and computers and copiers and other supplies. The break room/lunchroom is not meant to double as a workspace.

5. No uniforms. None at all. None on the teachers either. Teachers with piercings and tattoos have no problem and are not required to cover or remove these as they would in many US public schools where such body modifications are considered unprofessional and distracting. There are also US school districts and schools where teachers are not allowed to wear knee length boots with skits because they are too sexy and distracting to male students (Philadelphia), where teachers cannot wear headbands because the students are forbidden from wearing them as they can signal gang affiliation (San Antonio), where teachers can wear black or blue patent leather shoes but not red patent leather shoes because they are too sexy and distracting to male students (San Antonio).

6. Everyone is on a first name basis. Students refer to their teachers by their first name. I was introduced by my first name. There is no Ms. or Mr. anybody going on. I wonder if the students even know their teachers' last names.

7. There are people on Tumblr and in fandom who are 14 and 15, quite visibly so. Sitting among a groups of 14 and 15 year olds today made me think of these fans and see them as really, really young. I normally observe fan interaction online through my own lens. It's been 25 years since I was 15, and I really wonder just how false my memories of my 15-year-old self are. At the same time, there are 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds whose ages surprise me, and I don't know how much harm we actually do to young people by forever sequestering them with people the same age. How is a teenager ever to learn how to be an adult if they are kept away from adults (who are not their parents?) The pressure of the peer group is so merciless, and I appreciate that online fan communities are a place where teenagers and adults can mix.

8. There is no security when going into a Swedish school. I made arrangements for my students to meet me in a certain location so I can find the classroom. But I do not ever have to check in at the front desk, go through a metal detector, have my bag searched, file a background check with the police, or have to wear a badge identifying me. Some of the teachers I spoke with today shared their experiences visiting American schools (where any combination of these things is the norm) and expressed discomfort and horror at the process.