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gWhat we learned about Sweden through a VCR tape, email, BBS on our homepageh
k No school uniform l When I saw the video, I was surprised that Swedish students were wearing sleeveless dresses and T-shirts inside in winter. Of course it was snowing outside. There are not school uniforms, but they are not flamboyant. Their clothes are quiet, and they look like grown-ups even junior high school students. Japanese junior high school students wear uniforms. Through not wearing school uniforms, people learn a sense of responsibility, common sense in society, by themselves early. School excursions are not school events in Sweden. So students collect cans, sell breads and cookies, hold bazaars to raise for trips. On this point, Swedish students are independent. Voting age is also 18 in Sweden. It makes us consent. klesson programl They study from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at school. It is the same with Japan. But the length of brakes and the brakefs starting times are different each day. What is more, they are different between homeroom classes. School hours are also different according to subjects. One English class is 50 minutes, domestic science and arts are 90 minutes. English, Swedish, math are everyday subject. Main subjects are studied every day in any countries, I think. kimportant subjectsl English, Swedish and Math are their emphasizing subjects. According to Swedish students, they have to emphasize those subjects. It is said that most Swedish can speak English. Actually, we exchange e-mails in English. English teaching seems to be active in Sweden. We take the classes mostly at homeroom class in Japan. One class has 48 people. I think too many people for one class. Mostly teacher speaks and students take notes of a lecture. One class is small in Sweden. The class's atmosphere seems at home. They can choose from woodwork and sewing. Most boys choose woodwork and most girls choose sewing.@They have an elective subject in a week. We have elective subjects, too. We can choose from 36 subjects. It is good because we can choose what we are interested in. kCafeterial We were interested in characteristic of their school life. First, they have a cafeteria in the school, too. It doesn't need any money as it's called gfree foodh, and most students use there for lunch. It's smorgasbord style, but there aren't so many menus. A large difference between Japanese and Swedish is it's free in Sweden. For example, Keio girls high school's cafeteria has a lot of menus, curry and rice, chinese noodles soup, and spaghetti and so on. These cost about 3or4 hundreds yen, and some dessert cost about 100yen. There are a few vending machine. Some use the cafeteria, or others bring their own lunch. kAbout club activitiesl The next topic is about club activities. they said that there are Basketball club, football club for girls, and wrestling club etc. But, we asked them whether the club activities are popular in Sweden. Then, they answered both "yes" and "no", so perhaps it isn't more popular than in Japan. In the case of Japan, we need not belong to any clubs. But, there are a lot of cultural and sports clubs in school, so most students belong to the club. |