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This week I was in Bergen, Norway’s cultural capital, on its west coast!

• Tuesday, 03 February I took a train to Oslo and then flew to Bergen
• Wednesday, 04 February was a busy day! I had a mid-year check in with my Fulbright liaison and Director of the Fremmedspråksenteret, where I work. Then I did a workshop for teacher educators at Høgskulen på Vestlandet on defining and enacting justice. Then I zoomed into a WAC Week talk I was asked to give about effective writing assessment design. Went out to dinner with most of the Rovers and Bergen Fulbrighters.
• Thursday, 05 February went to the Bergen Katedralskole to observe Rover colleague David teach a workshop on indentured servitude and then a teacher workshop on how he built the student workshop. Sauna after dinner!
• Friday, 06 February went to Stend Vidaregåandeskule with Rover colleague David to learn from students and observe David teach his NYC Beyond Times Square workshop. After school had coffee with teacher educators from Høgskulen på Vestlandet. Went to an Olympics Opening Ceremony watch party! 
• Saturday, 07 February flew back to Oslo and train to Halden. 

If you’re a reader of this blog, you might have noticed that I tend to talk a lot about building community. I learned when I watched a lacrosse program that I built crumble that nothing is sustainable without community. This week I was able to cultivate much community among fellow Rovers, Fulbrighters, and teacher educators. 

Rovers. One of my Rover mates, David, invited me to teach a teacher workshop with him at Bergen Katedralskole. So I booked my flight and additional workshops with other teachers since I was going to be in Bergen. But then the Fulbright office had questions about what I was doing outside of Østfold, my roving region (I’m the only regional Rover). I explained and they told me that I could go, but Fulbright wouldn’t be paying for it. What a bummer. I fumed for several days, and then came to a compromise: through the connections another Fulbrighter helped me make, some teacher educators in the teacher prep program at one of the Bergen universities asked me to come and give a workshop on defining justice, so I would make this a research trip, stay with a colleague, and pay the rest out-of-pocket. I cancelled my Roving sessions and just focused on things that would support my research and my work as a teacher. 

Turns out, 4 of the 5 Rovers were also in Bergen this week! I missed Ryan, our elementary Rover, who left earlier than I arrived, and Kristin was back in the States at one of her daughter’s NCAA ski events, but Kathrina and David were in town! It is so rare that we are together! We had drinks together at Henrik’s, best pub I’ve been in in Norway. We went to a sauna (with other Fulbrighters) and then got a snack and nightcap together at Pingvinen after. I even learned how David and Kathrina met their spouses! 

But it wasn’t just the social events that helped to cultivate community. I got to observe David teach. There’s something really special about watching people do things they’re good at. And there’s something even more special about watching your friends do things they’re good at. Since August, I have been hearing about David’s workshops. He’s been especially keen to tell me about how his workshop on indentured servitude would be a good pairing with my workshops about systems of oppression. So it was a treat to watch him conduct his workshop, but also observe how he interacts with students. I had been wondering how other Rovers introduce themselves and why they’re in Norway to students, so I got to hear it during the introductory part of his workshop. I had been curious about what other Rovers do in their workshops: how much do they talk, how much do they have students in groups, do they use slides? I got to observe Ryan in the fall work with a group of 5th graders; it’s always great to learn from colleagues because it also makes me think about my own teaching. And, David and I even got to get a bite to eat after teaching and just chat and learn more with and from each other. 

On Friday, David and I headed out to Stend Vidaregåandeskule, a little outside Bergen in the Fana kommune. David wanted me to come out with him to this school because it had all sorts of vocational programs and was just a neat place. After a late night on Thursday (sauna! nightcap!) I almost cancelled on him! I was really glad I didn’t! In addition to observing David do his NYC Beyond Times Square workshop and being able to walk around and talk to students about their interests and how that might overlap with what NYC offers, we also got tours from the students! The forestry students showed us their workshops, their equipment, the trees they chop. We got to ask questions about their safety training and which trees are good for which uses. One student showed me the axes he makes (he’s also a self-taught blacksmith, he told me) and the traditional Viking tools he makes and sells at different markets. The animal studies students prepared for us a snack spread with cheese, chili marmalade, bread, butter, and cider, all locally made (except the butter). Then one of the students prepared a presentation on who she is and what she does at the school. We saw the animals she works with and she told us how she helps to care for them. 

In all of my Roving, I am the one who delivers information to students. But at Stend, the students got to teach us in really intentional ways as they shared with us who they are and what they do at school. The contact teacher was beaming as students were able to practice their language skills with “real Americans,” as they kept calling us. But more than that, for me the students were also able to share their pride in themselves and their school. It was remarkable to be a witness to this. And to share it with a Roving friend. 

It was also really fun to just be a support for student workshops. David did the main workshop, and then when the portion came for students to explore NYC with the links David provided them with, I walked around to different students to ask what they like and offered suggestions for a potential trip to New York. I talked with a student about her love of animals and what she might see at the Natural History Museum. She continued telling me about her life as the animal studies students walked us to the local farmers market. I chatted with a student about the different places to hear music in New York. Another student chatted with me about encountering spirits in NYC and I shared with her stories of the ghost that lived with me and Jeremy in one of our Atlanta houses. A student asked me about fishing in NYC and I learned he knows a lot about fish! I was able to recommend to another student one of my favorite museums in NYC, the Tenement Museum. And a pair of young women talked to me about shopping in New York, but then how they might explore the rest of the US. It was cool to have two teachers: David, who’s very NYC, and me, who’s just from a completely different part of the country. Having two of us together meant more students could interact with more “real Americans” and they could get a sense of a wider variety of people than just having one Rover as an American representative. It was super cool this week to build more of that sense of community with fellow Rovers.

Fulbrighters. There are a number of Fulbrighters in Bergen! I stayed with one, who also teaches at CSU. And I spent some time in schools with another, who is serving as an English Teacher/Teaching Assistant at a secondary school and university. Then there were two other Fulbrighters conducting research at the University of Bergen, one of whom just arrived this winter. We went to dinner together one night at an awesome family style Chinese spot. We sauna’d together another night. On my last night we had an Olympics opening ceremony watch party.

There are so few people who understand the experiences of living in Norway as an American in these times, that it was nice to commiserate. We laughed about the war ration quality of Norwegian food. We relaxed in the sauna and reinvigorated ourselves by jumping into the cold ocean waters while dreaming up ways to bring sauna to the US. We cheered for the United States and got teary eyed while watching the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. It was fun to hear what others were up to, learn about how they’re navigating Norway, get their suggestions and tips on anything from shopping to travel to daily life. As someone who is the only one of me in my small town by the Swedish border, it was great to share experiences with these others who are in my life right now.

Teacher Educators. The group of teacher educators at Høgskulen på Vestlandet were the reason I came to Bergen in the first place, and I’m so glad that a Bergen Fulbrighter connected me with them. 

In my application to be a Rover, I wrote about how educational systems are reflections of cultural systems, and what this means for teacher preparation. Specifically, this has been actualized in my questions about how teachers in Norway and the US teach teachers about difference. In schools in both countries, students are not homogenous. They are all young people, yes, but they all move through the world in diverse ways and the world reads and responds to them in certain ways because of their intersectional socialized identities. So a student who presents as white is not having the same experiences in school or US or Norwegian society as a student who presents as Black. Schools are traditionally places that have valued assimilation and teach students to assimilate into a certain cultural standard. Well, what does this mean for students whose cultures and identities aren’t aligned with the cultures and identities they are being asked? told? to assimilate into? 

There have only been a handful of teachers and teacher educators in Østfold who are interested in this relationship as well. Honestly, I haven’t been quite fulfilled or positioned in Østfold to begin to investigate these questions. But there have been other teachers and teacher educators around the country who are interested in these questions. So I traveled to them this week because they requested my workshop on defining and enacting justice. They are actually the first to request this workshop and I was thrilled to offer it to them.

On Wednesday I met the teacher educators and there were even a couple teachers-in-training who came to the workshop. I introduced myself, asked them to introduce themselves and why they came to the workshop, and then we got to the work of defining justice. I was invited to do a similar presentation at TILT (The Institute for Learning and Teaching at CSU) last year, so I made some modifications to that presentation for this new setting. But I still told stories, still shared research, still asked them to write their own stories and how their experiences and research have helped them to understand the idea of justice in educational settings. We had so much fun. They were having so much fun they didn’t want to leave. We met again for coffee on Friday! We were telling stories and laughing and also doing hard work of questioning educational systems and turning inward to explore our role in systems we are perpetuating. They enjoyed the workshop so much that they want to invite me back, and they want to find the funds to do it. I left feeling like I was walking on a cloud.

The work that I am doing with teachers and teacher educators matters. On Sunday, I got an email from a teacher in the Romerike region, who was in my teacher version of the systems of oppression workshop in November and again in January. He said that he finished the YA version of Stamped and loved it. Over winter break (which is in a couple weeks), he wants to design lessons to help students understand racism. He did a test run last week with students and he said it went really well. One of his students texted him after class to tell him that their classmates continued the conversation after class and they agreed it was the best lesson of the school year. We are making a difference in the lives of children when we think about, learn about, and teach about issues that matter to them and that matter to building the kind of world we want to live in. These workshops happened because I am making connections with teachers and teacher educators across Norway. 

It is so important to me that I feel like I am a part of a community. And it’s so important to me that in my work I make and cultivate connections with others who are doing the same. It’s the only way we are going to continue the work that we do to make this world a more just place: with each other, connected in friendship, respect, and love. I felt so much of that this week and am so glad I made the decision to head out to Bergen.

Bonus: if you haven’t read Judge Biery’s decision to free Adrian Conejo Arias and his son, Liam, do so. It is incredible and moves me to tears every time I read it. It shows the promise of America’s founding documents, that there are people who are fighting for their actualization, and how we must all work to make those documents true.