Planning & Patience

I’m fairly certain that most of my family and friends back in Minnesota think that I am on a 10-month holiday with some school visits sprinkled throughout. However, that is far from the reality of my role as a Fulbright Roving Scholar. Yes, there are incredible cultural experiences and sightseeing opportunities, but the primary focus of my time in Norway is engagement with students and educators, serving as both a teacher and learner. The Fulbright Roving Scholar program is a part of the Fulbright program, providing cultural and educational exchanges between countries. However, Norway is the only country that offers the Roving program focusing on school visits for grades 1-13. The Rover program is funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and with support and coordination from the Foreign Language Center in Halden.

This year, there are 2 upper secondary Rovers, 1 lower secondary Rover (me), 1 Rover specific to the Øsfold region, and 1 elementary Rover. Schools view our pupil and teacher workshop descriptions on the Rover website (https://fulbright.no/subhomemenu/invite/) and invite us to their schools. The visits are free for schools as the Fulbright program pays for Rovers’ travel expenses.

Coordinating school visits requires a lot of time, and here's where planning and patience comes into play. The first few weeks in Norway, we, the Rovers, received training on reviewing and accepting school visit requests, as well as tips for effective communication between schools and planning for successful visits. Some school visits require a train ride, while others require a plane flight, two trains, a bus, and a taxi ride. While there is a travel agency that purchases our plane tickets and reserves hotel stays, we are responsible for coordinating all the smaller travel details. Sometimes the travel is simple, other times it tests your navigation skills and sanity…

My last adventure in Kristiansund really highlights the need for planning and patience as a Fulbright Roving Scholar. Before sending a hotel request to the travel agency, I always Google hotels that are ‘closest’ to the schools, for faster and easier morning commutes. I found a Thon Hotel (my preferred big-name hotel) on the island of Innlandet, ‘closest’ to the school. I didn’t realize that Kristiansund is a community comprised of four islands. The island with all the restaurants, shopping, city centrum is called Kirkelandet and the island where the school was located was Nordlandet. The Kristinsund community has the oldest continuously operated ferry boat system, Sundbåten, and they are VERY PROUD of this honor, which provides free ferry rides between the four islands.

The Sundbåten board posted at each pier.

Using two different apps, EnTur (Norway’s national app for coordinating travel routes with trains, busses, ferries) and FRAM (regional app), I planned my commute for my first day at Nordlandet ungdomsskole. My first class was at 10:30 so I decided to leave at 7:30 to get there by 8:00, to meet the coordinating teacher before the school day started. She emailed me that I could plan to leave late, however, I wanted to be sure that I knew how to navigate the ferries.

So, the apps both said that I take the 7:40 ferry from Innlandet to Nordlandet. The ferry platform was dark, and the ferry itself had no markings or indication of place or time. Ok. The apps said that I needed to debark at the first stop, so I did. I stood on the pier and Googled the walk to Nordlandet ungdomsskole. The problem was that I needed to walk across the water to get to Nordlandet since I was in Kirkelandet! Gah! That is not what the apps said.

Kirkelandet- where the city centrum restaurants, and shopping areas are located.

So, a few minutes later the ferry returned. This time, I followed our location on Google maps. However, the ferry wasn’t going to the first Nordlandet pier, it was traveling much farther north. Gah! Ok, I exited at this Nordlandet pier and used Google to type in the school’s name and map out my walking route. 20 minutes later, I end up at the first pier on Nordlandet. Google did not recognize Nordlandet ungdomsskole, only Nordlandet (the island and the ferry platform). Gah!

Nordlandet pier- where the school and airport are located.

I went on the FRAM app and used the bus route to navigate my way to the school. My knee was still giving me problems, so walking up and down hills with a heavy backpack was an added challenge. I made it to school by 10:00. Uff. The coordinating teacher said that the ferry routes change because of bla, bla, bla…but the apps apparently didn’t change.

It was a good thing that I planned for extra time and that I didn’t get worked up about this or that. The next day I needed to fly back to Oslo, so I again checked the apps to make sure that I would get to the airport (on the island of Nordlandet) on time. Remembering that the ferry didn’t go directly to Nordlandet, but back to Kirkelandet and then to Nordlandet, I planned for extra time. I boarded the ferry and watched our location on Google…and the ferry went directly to Nordlandet! What?! Just when I thought I had everything figured out. I made it to the airport on time and flew back to Oslo without any issues.

I soon returned to Kristiansund and had a better idea of the transportation system there. I landed at the airport but needed to wait for an hour to catch the bus. Transportation routes are not as frequent on Sundays. Patience. I sat at the little airport, reading a book, by myself, for an hour. I took the bus to the city center (on Kirkelandet) and waited another hour to catch the bus to Innlandet, where my hotel was located. The flight to Kristiansund from Oslo only took 50 minutes, but it took me over 3 hours to get from the Kristiansund airport to my hotel, just a few kilometers away. Patience…

Innlandet- the island where my hotel was located.

The point of this narration, is that planning for school visits as a Fulbright Rover takes a lot of time, and traveling throughout the country requires a great deal of patience- just as teaching requires planning and patience. And just like teaching, the interactions that I have with Norwegian pupils and teachers make all the little travel obstacles worth every minute that I have in Norwegian classrooms. I’ve always been a ‘planner’ but I’m learning how to plan in different ways here. I also consider myself to be a fairly patient person, but roving in Norway has really pushed me to be more flexible. As a person with anxious tendencies, I recognize the value in this.

Waiting for the bus to take me from Kirkelandet to Innlandet.

Not only are Rovers expected to teach but they are also encouraged to learn. While I’m learning so much about the Norwegian education system, I’m also learning a lot about myself as a person and as an educator. I’m confident that my teacher candidates back at Concordia College will have a professor who is a more strategic planner and a more flexible teacher when I return next fall… All due to the planning and patience required of me as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway.