I recently read an interesting book “Europeanizing Education :  governing a new policy space.” (by Lawn and Grek)  It tries to demonstrate how the EU and all the organizations associated with it, are trying to create a sense of “being European”. They center their discussion around the impact on and by education. Very interesting.

One thing that many “invandere” immigrants have said about Norweigian is that it lacks specific words to express concepts. These people are used to other languages that are “richer” in vocabulary. Vocabulary that has a multitude of words that express different nuances for the same concept.

I have heard it said, both by Norwegians and non-norwegians, that Norwegian is a poor language. It is a fact that Norwegian has fewer words in use compared to other languages, but since it reflects the Norwegian culture – it should not be considered to be poor.

The 20th century is seen as a century of nation building here. One of the most important aspects of that movement was increased education for all. I can see more and more non-norwegian words introduced into daily conversation – probably due to the need to express more nuanced ideas into the Norwegian vocabulary.

I’m particularily interested in peer tutoring, however when I start looking for this pedagogic practice in Norway – I only find a few studies on the univerisity/higher educaition level.  It seems that there is little or no use of peer tutoring in the elementary or secondary levels.

I’m hoping to find some teachers who are willing to let me come into their classes and teach their students how to peer tutor and then to observe and evaluate the results of peer tutoring.  Personally, I think that the use of our students is one of the biggest overlooked resources that we have at our disposal.

Just like every nation, Norway has come to where it is with lots of baggage.

Even a casual reading of Norwegian education history will show that the last 150 years has been rather momentuous in terms of educational change.

I’ve only been in Norway for a little over 7 years and am still aclimatizing to the culture – both personally and as an educator.  I want to use this site to chronical my thoughts and observations.

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