Read time: approximately 08 minutes

This week

• Monday, 27 April at the request of their teacher, I observed a class of students at Halden VGS discuss James
• Tuesday, 28 April headed back to Kruseløkka Ungdomsskole for the last time. Instead of delivering content to the 10th graders, they presented to me, on a conflict after the Cold War
• Wednesday, 29 April facilitated a workshop for 4th year Masters students at the University on qualitative research methods. Then went down the hill (to Halden VGS) to conduct the final session of our four-workshop series for teachers on effective writing assessment design.
• Thursday, 30 April had a playdate with my friend, who came down from Oslo to see Halden. We hiked up to the fort, had a coffee from a new spot, lunch, explored a few shops I never get into because they’re closed by the time I get there after work (evidently I work too hard, she said), and walked around the harbor!
• Friday, 01 May celebrated May Day by heading to Oslo for a Rover picnic, then to a walk with a couple Rovers as I walked to the train station to catch my plane to London!
• Saturday, 02 May met up with a Colorado State University student in London! She introduced me to her favorite coffee shop in London, we took a walk, and caught up! 

As of today, I have no more Rover bookings. I think I’m done for the year. Which means that Wednesday was my final day. After teaching on Wednesday, I was in all the feels. It was hardest to realize that this wild year and incredible experience are coming to a close and that I will soon return home to Colorado. While I am very excited to reenter life with my husband and pets (especially the new puppy we are planning on getting!), it was also a time to reflect on how the year has gone. 

I have taught the widest age range of students I have ever taught, with 4th graders as the youngest students all the way up to teacher educators like myself, and every grade level in between. Every single grade level. I have thought a lot about my identities, especially what it means to be American and the deep pride I take in being American—despite the mess our current administration has made of the US and the world. It’s still a little surprising to be remembered and identified in school as “the American,” which happened this week in a school I’m at often. I’ve thought about how I talk and the number of students who have told me it’s so “satisfying” to hear me speak. I’ve thought about what it means to teach students from diverse cultural, ethnic, racialized, religious, gender, and geographic backgrounds, but in a Norwegian context. I’ve tried to put together the ways in which elements of culture actualize in teaching practices, like how inherent trust in systems, the desire to avoid confrontation and conflict, and the value of comfort shape what happens in classrooms, how teachers teach, and how students respond. I have read more books than I ever thought I would by Norwegian authors about Norwegian life and culture. Og jeg snakker litt norsk (And I speak a little Norwegian)! I joined a new book club. I lived abroad for the year, learning new systems and a new language. I figured out what kinds of foods to buy at the grocery store and how to navigate multiple transportation apps and systems. I developed a routine for time spent at the airport and how best to spend my time on trains. I got to know Norwegian students and teachers. The Rovers and I developed relationships and community. I have learned how to sauna and cold plunge, and have done so all over Norway, including a few times above the Arctic Circle. I am braver when I am in new towns and unfamiliar places. I have made friends and uploaded over 4000 pictures into a Norway album. I am almost done wrapping up my book for publication. I have new ideas for publications. I was invited to sit on a panel for teacher educators in Norway and in the US. A Norwegian teacher invited me to her cabin (this is a giant very big deal). I trained for and ran a half-marathon. I completed my 22nd year of teaching. 

In this last week of Roving, I also got to think about different presentations of knowledge. What knowledge can I share with students and which can they share with me? How can our knowledge work together? I work with a secondary teacher who invited me to her classroom on Monday to observe her and her students’ conversation about James, a novel I had suggested to her. The students did a great job with the discussion, and she did a great job facilitating it. It was so interesting to hear their take on the United States as presented in the book. They also had opinions about present-day US, especially as it pertained to our racialized history. I filled in some bits, but it was interesting to hear what they thought. When the CSU student and I were chatting on Saturday, she mentioned that she had taken a couple of classes about American graphic novels and American film in her British context with British professors. She noted that it was also really interesting to hear what non-Americans think about the United States, and what their impressions are. I would have loved to have been in these classes, to get a take on our culture from an outsider, which we don’t get often in the States. It reminded me of what I’m doing in Norway: I’m not just sharing information about the US, but I’m also sometimes reflecting back to them what I am learning about Norwegian culture. Sometimes, like when non-Americans miss the nuance and complexity of something American, I miss too. But in working together, we can build a better, more dynamic picture of who we are. We contain multitudes! But also, this is one of the points of the Fulbright program: cross-cultural educational exchange! We are doing it!

Another milestone I feel like I hit this week was recognizing how old I am. Lol. I had a milestone birthday in March, and this is the first birthday that I’ve felt like, wow, I’m getting on in years. But what really made me feel old this week was the 10th graders’ presentations on conflicts after the Cold War. I listened to and gave feedback on the Rwandan Genocide, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the war in Bosnia, conflicts over Kurdish lands, and the ongoing war of the US and Israel v Iran. As I was listening to the students, I had this moment where I was like, whoa, I lived through these events. I remember hearing about all of these events on the news. I remember losing my faith in the US government the moment we invaded Iraq in 2003 when I was a senior in college. These students who were giving these presentations are 16, which means they were born in 2010. That blows my mind! I wonder, are these events as far away as maybe something like the Korean War for them? For some students who are Bosnian and Kurdish, they presented on these topics because their families talk about it all the time. It’s not just something that they’re heard about, but actually happened for them and their families. When I was listening and trying to offer feedback I kept getting distracted by a flood of memories coming back about hearing about these events in real time. That’s never happened to me before. 

Seeing the CSU student this week and taking a really lovely long walk in London reminded me of the life I left behind. I’ve been meeting with a couple of advisees all year, but I’m going back to full-time teaching at CSU next year too. I have classes to prep, partnerships to set up and work on, and committees to sit on again. I’ve already started the beginnings of a new cross-concentration partnership with another concentration of English that I’ve been working on for years that I think is finally getting into motion. I’m looking forward to next year, and more to come about how I want to live in ways that acknowledge that I lived in Norway for the year. 

This year has been incredible. I never thought I would have the opportunity to live and teach abroad again, and when one of our admins at CSU sent the English Ed team the Fulbright application, I read it and said, this was written for me. I’ve had incredible support from my family and friends and colleagues to do this. This never would have happened if my husband didn’t insist that I go, or if our interim English department chair and one of the Associate Deans didn’t  champion it for me, or if the English Ed team (especially my work wife) didn’t get into action to make the schedule work without me there and push for us to hire a visiting professor. I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to do this work this year. I think about the experiences in my life like pieces of a stained glass window, each joining together to create a fragmented whole. When the light shines through, it highlights different moments of experience. I am adding Norway and my Norwegian experiences to my window. I know I will be processing it and it will shape me for a long time.