Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Sweden, Days 15 & 16: Stockholm, Stockholm -- & Canada

We spent our last day in Sweden touring Stockholm. It was marvellous. We rode the public transit, spent lots of time in the Old City (Gamla Stan), watched the Stockholm marathon & even 'participated', in a way, as we sprinted with the runners for 10 seconds in order to cross a street in the marathon route. We went to the amusement park & saw Stockholm from 80 meters up, just before getting dropped in a bladder-emptying free fall ride. We visited a number of museums including one for silk & one for architecture. And we walked around Gamla Stan some more & compared the merits of Belgian & Swedish beers.

On Sunday I headed back to Canada. My flights were uneventful & the worst thing to happen during the trip was the confiscation of the reindeer paté I'd purchased. Very annoying: I'd purchased it in the secure area of Arlanda airport, for heaven's sake, but the security folks in Frankfurt weren't taking any chances.

Not much else to say... I'm back in Canada, desperately trying to catch up on the work that's accumulated since I left for Sweden, & I haven't even started to wade through the stack of papers I brought back. Later.

Sweden, Days 14 & 15: Bollnäs, Söderhamn – and more about Stockholm

It is already more than a week since I returned to Canada & my memory is fading fast. I want to jot down a few notes about our final days in Sweden before I completely forget.

On Thursday, we left Bollnäs to catch the train in Söderhamn & soon we were travelling towards Stockholm. Fast. Unlike the leisurely schedules of the Canadian trains I remember, Swedish trains move quickly. Many of them have internet facilities so that commuters can count their train time as work time.

In Stockholm, we visited a rather unique Swedish-for-Immigrants (SFI) class, a pilot project designed to fast-track foreign engineers into the Swedish work force. The dozen or so students made up a very diverse group but they all had some engineering background. Engineers are in high demand in Sweden so the government was keen to focus on them to pilot this SFI approach. The class is compulsory for the students in the morning but optional in the afternoons; nevertheless, most of them do return to class in the afternoon & they were keen to talk with us. They all LOVE the course. They appreciate the quality of instruction, the flexibility of the program, & the fact that a practicum placement (& inevitably a job in their field) is waiting for them.

It's interesting to think how -- & why – SFI is different from our ESL. Our ESL students are learning English either a) because they need it to survive in anglo-Canada, or b) so that they can return to their home country & use their knowledge of English to advance their careers. SFI students have very different reasons. Most of them are immigrants; many of those are either refugees or asylum-seekers. They cannot return home. A knowledge of Swedish offers no real professional advantage anywhere else in the world except for Sweden. And professional people, like the engineering students we were interviewing, don't even really have to learn Swedish – they would mostly be able to work in English alone (which most of them could already speak).

But one student spoke eloquently about the purpose of learning Swedish. He described it as a courtesy, a duty, and a ticket to social integration. After all, he said, Sweden has been kind enough to take you in and learning the language shows respect; a willingness to repay the favour. And unless you learn Swedish you will never really participate in fika, attend family dinners, be invited to the summer cottage BBQ, or enjoy Midsommer celebrations. If you want to be a part of your new country, you have to learn the language. It's that simple.
Later we met with Per, who is an MP for a region in Hälsingland. It was fascinating to learn a little about how the country is structured at the national level & how culture is expressed in government. We had supper & discovered similarities between the problems faced in rural Hälsingland & rural BC. The next day we got a personal tour of the Swedish parliament (Riksdag) buildings, both above & below the waterline because Stockholm is built on a bunch of little islands & tunnels connect the buildings under the canals.

Finally, we met with a man named Shawn, who works for the Swedish National Agency for Education (Skolverket). Shawn gave us a great overview of the Swedish educational system but what was even more valuable was his unique perspective. Not only is Shawn a former Canadian, he has also lived in the East Kootenay region so he understood exactly where we were coming from, literally & figuratively. He was able to identify & speak to a wide variety of issues that a Canadian visitor to Sweden would find especially interesting. He explained how the high level of 'social trust' in Sweden undergirds attitudes towards education in general; how the incredible mobility of professions throughout Europe affects apprenticeship; and how widespread acceptance of credentials doesn't necessarily translate into a trust in the quality of outside credentials.