In a cultural exchange project for Class 10, our students welcomed students from our sister school in Paris here in May. Now it was our turn to travel to Paris to learn from our new friends. The following is a journal of their experiences:
The Swedish School of Paris
After arriving at Gare du Nord, we went by bus to leave our bags at the Swedish school. It is in the same building as the Swedish church, three stories upstairs. They have about four classrooms and a combined lunch canteen, where we had lunch the second day of the trip, and a music classroom. The school also rents some classrooms from a large French school, where the GYM-students and secondary have some of their classes, which is located in the suburbs of Paris. To go there the students get metro cards from school.
Paris trip subway
The subway in Paris was big and easy to take, most of the time. You needed to change trains to reach your destination and that was a bit difficult and annoying. It’s also expensive as we bought 1 ticket for everyone every time we took the train and we took the train at least 15 times.
There were a lot of people there so it made it difficult for everyone to get in the train so when somebody wasn’t going to get in we waited for the next train to come. The last day we took the subway we had a rush and we needed to get to the train station as quickly as possible so everybody was running in the tunnels of the Paris subway which was really hard as it was so many people running the other way, but we reached our destination and everybody was there so it was all good!
Paris trip: The Eiffel Tower
Once we had arrived in Paris we bought lunch. We left for the Eiffel tower to eat lunch. We were extremely lucky as the weather was fantastic this day. There were, as usual by the Eiffel tower, a lot of people. Therefore, we did not walk up the tower. Instead, we had a cosy lunch in a park right next to it. The view was amazing and the lunch was yummy. Since we had left so early from Brussels and hadn’t been able to eat lunch until 13.00 it was well appreciated! After our lunch, we walked down the long path that stretches from the Eiffel Tower to the military school in Paris. After this we did some more sightseeing. It was very nice and fun! We took lots of pictures and even though by the end of the day, we had walked for what felt like forever, seeing the Eiffel Tower was definitely worth it! It was also the highlight of the day.
Evening Barbeque
After the trip seeing Paris, we went home to the student Alexander who hosted a barbeque. It started around 8 o’clock after the last people had arrived. We then waited and chatted for about half an hour while eating some snacks. Then, they grilled the meat and vegetables on the grill, some were a bit burnt but were still delicious. We got served chicken with peppers and onions, hamburgers, sausages, baguettes etc. We had a good time eating, drinking and chatting. Later, all of us walked his dogs and we went to a nearby football field. We stayed there for about half an hour and then we went back to the house and ate some chips, dessert and ice cream. Around 11 o’clock, we separated and most went to their host’s homes to sleep. I together with Erik and three others stayed at Alexander’s house. All of us stayed in one room and we played a video game before going to sleep.
Monmartre
Tuesday started out with the weather gods in a much fouler mood. Grey skies and rain. We went by Metro to Monmartre where we walked (or should I say climbed) the hilly streets. The view was fantastic but the weather stayed bad. We ended our Monmartre walkabout next to Sacré Coeur where we had crépes and watched the artists at work.
WAX-MUSEEUM
Tuesday afternoon we went to a wax museum called “Musée Grévin”. Not too far from Pigale and Montmartre. We stood in the entrance for a very long time and when are teachers had succeeded to buy some tickets for all of us, the visit could finally begin. But first some more waiting because there was now a long queue of Asian visitors. Before we were able to see some famous wax, there was a light show with Asian music in a small room with mirrors in which we stood while the show played. That’s when we realized why the Asians were so fascinated by this place, but it was interesting. When the show ended we walked in to the next room where the wax museum begun. There were a lot of famous people, from all around the world. Actually it reminded me a lot of “Madame Toussaud”. There was for example: Louis Armstrong, Tony Parker, Phill Collins, Asterix and Obélix , Léonardo Da Vinci, Jacky Chan and so on…The only difference there seemed to be between the two wax museums was that in Grévin, there were way more famous French people. French philosophers, actors, politicians, well many we had no idea existed. But this might seem logical, since we were in France, and it could not be the exact same as “Madame Toussaud”. If I should give my honest opinion, I would say that it was very cleverly made, but some of them didn’t really look like original. But I enjoyed the visit and it was a good activity for ending our visit with the Parisians.
-Class 10 students
The trip was evaluated and deemed a real success from both the students and the staff’s perspective!
Below you can read (in Swedish) about the learning goals achieved:
Skolutflyktens förankring i läroplanen
Från skolans värdegrund och uppdrag:
- I all undervisning är det angeläget att anlägga vissa övergripande perspektiv. Genom ett historiskt perspektiv kan eleverna utveckla en förståelse för samtiden och en beredskap inför framtiden samt utveckla sin förmåga till dynamiskt tänkande.
- Ett internationellt perspektiv är viktigt för att kunna se den egna verkligheten i ett globalt sammanhang och för att skapa internationell solidaritet samt förbereda för ett samhälle med täta kontakter över kultur-och nationsgränser. Det internationella perspektivet innebär också att utveckla förståelse för den kulturella mångfalden inom landet.
Från de allmänna kunskapsmålen:
- kan kommunicera på engelska i tal och skrift samt ges möjligheter att kommunicera på något ytterligare främmande språk på ett funktionellt sätt,
Mål i Engelska
Samtal och diskussioner samt argumentation.
• Språkliga strategier för att förstå och göra sig förstådd när språket inte räcker till, till exempel omformuleringar, frågor och förklaringar.
• Språkliga strategier för att bidra till och aktivt medverka i samtal genom att ta initiativ till interaktion, ge bekräftelse, ställa följdfrågor, ta initiativ till nya frågeställningar och ämnesområden samt för att avsluta samtalet.
Mål i Franska
använda språkliga strategier för att förstå och göra sig förstådda,
• anpassa språket efter olika syften, mottagare och sammanhang, och
• reflektera över livsvillkor, samhällsfrågor och kulturella företeelser i olika sammanhang och delar av världen där språket används.
Mål i historia
- Revolutioner och framväxten av nya idéer, samhällsklasser och politiska ideologier.
Everyone Learns Every Day 