torsdag 26 februari 2015

150226 middle aged

Inventory:
Hair at the back of your skull more see through than actual hair? Check!
Intermittent back pain? Increasing morning stiffness? (No, not that sort of morning stiffness, you naughty you)? Check and check!
Fallling madly in love with much younger woman? Sending her miserable haiku love poems? Being rejected by much younger woman (she has - unfourtunately - impeccable litterary taste)? Check, check and check!

Yes, you are middle aged and yes, you are turning fifty (I have a couple of months left in the forties)

The final insult arrived in the last few days. Being able to go to the Alps  skiing is something I wanted to do for a long time, but circumstances and luck has prevented me from going. This year, however, after a 25 year hiatus (St. Anton 1989, those were the days)  I arrived in Cervinia, Italy.

And it is everything you could wish for. Snow, blue sky and wonderful scenery. Matterhorn to the left. Monte Rosa to the right.

So - up in the morning. There is some swosh-swoshing to be done. The lifts to the top and off we go.

And there is some swoshing. Quite a lot of it. It is not, however, the sound of skis on slope, it is the sound of me trying to breathe. After a smaller slope including mediocre sking (by me - everybody else seem to be demigods and godesses on skis) I have to stop. And breathe. And breathe some more: "No, I'm - pant, pant - fine - pant".

I try another slope... maybe a little better... here is a nice steep one...

I... have... to... stop....right... now...

I see my life pass in front of my eyes. So this is it. I recall friends and family, childhood aquaintances and Raskolnikov, my cat, dead now since...  and... when did father have his first heart attack...?

And then there seems to be a little more air in the air. I'm not dead - yet.

Those who know me, know that I detest the fitness craze that permeates society of today. In my Facebook feed everyother person seems to have personal trainers, weight control programs and don't get me started on diets...

My solution to all this is that I hardly work out. At all... It has been with a certain sense of pride and joy I have watched other people train and what not, while I have indulged myself in perhaps a book, an art exhibition or perhaps the noble art of doing nothing at all (It's difficult - takes years of practice).

Is this now a thing of the past. Do I have to start excercising? It seems so... so... terribly boring.

Because that is my main argument. I can take the cold, the sweating, the fact that you look terrible (have you ever seen a happy face out in the track?) and the rest, but my God... It is just too boring.

Now, you may think this would suit me well. After all, I like doing nothing at all (see above)

But that kind of doing nothing is something completely different. What looks, from the outside, to be "nothing" is in fact "something". I plan my next blog. I provide my cat with my stomach as pillow (not the dead one - there is a replacement). I try to prove quantum mechanics fundamentaly wrong (see previous blog)(I'm in good company, Einstein hated quantum mechanics). Important stuff. 

But this is hard to do on the track (my cat would definately hate it). Do I have to give all this up?

I mention my conundrum to a couple of friends (also middle aged men, an often culturally looked down upon subsection of society) and to my surprise, they have the solution:

"You have altitude sickness!"

Turns out my well informed friends know that...
1) The altitude in Cervinia is 2050 meters above sea level (which is... eh... something else in feet)
2) I had been skiing up to a level of 3880 meters
3) One should use approximately one day to acclimatise for every extra 500 meters...

Thus...

EUREKA!

There is still no need for excersise. There is no need for the track. There is...

I look down on my belly (not a very nice sight in a typically middle aged way).

Or maybe there still is.



tisdag 17 februari 2015

150217 the quantum mechanics of me

How does a person remember? Why is there a struggle to comprehend? Why is it so difficult?

These questions are all part of my daily trade. I teach and one could even say that it is good that it is difficult to understand. If everything was easy to understand - I would be out of a job… (But the world would be wonderful… or maybe not…)

To understand the following I have to explain two things. The first is that my becoming a teacher was not a straight forward thing. Quite the contrary. After an exam in Enigeneering and some off courses in History (I know, I know…) crisis hit me at twentyfive – what do I actually want to do in life? Some meandering years later I had a degree in teaching and it’s what I have been doing ever since.

The other thing to know is that deregulation was all the rage in the early nineties. The government allowed free schools (brit: academies; am: charter schools), the curriculum of ’94 was very short (for instance: in history the main subject was ”main events of Swedish, European and world history”) and regulatory boards that checked the contents of books were abolished. Post modern theory explained that since there was no objective way to know what subject matter that was most important, the actual subject matter wasn’t important. The pupils was to learn how to learn, not actually learn – that was the key to a new breed that didn’t stuff unimportant facts ontop of eachother, but instead understood. Really understood…

So, once a teacher exam in hand, any exam, the principal or head master could hire you to do any teaching. In fact, you did not even need a teacher exam, the school could simply evaluate your ”competence” and you could have a job.

Now, these are interesting questions, because how do you become a good teacher…?

But if I was to dig into that question, the subject matter of this particular blog would have been side tracked.

Instead: During the noughties Swedish school results plummeted. If you are worried about the results of say, the UK, in PISA or TIMSS, have no fear, because a few rows further down you will find Sweden. On top of that, in the last PISA, not only was Sweden the country in ”western” Europe that had the worst results, Sweden was also the country of all in PISA (just 70 countries, so not ALL the countries in the world) which had results that had dropped the most from 2003 to 2012 in mathematics. And literacy in science. And reading.

All of this has had an… eh… invigorating effect on school debate. In the last parlimentary elections (September of 2014 for those of you who arn’t atuned to domestic Swedish politics), education was one of the main areas of debate. The debate was fierce and far from civil.

As a teacher all of this happens on a level quite far above your head – you have the classes at hand and your event horizon is sometimes down to the next few seconds.

But one of the cures to elevate both the knowledge of the subject at hand of the individual teacher (one of the consequences of deregulation had been that some teachers had not learned that subject at University – surprise) and to raise the status of teaching, was to certify them. In August of 2011 the governement required all teachers to send their examination papers and all other relevant exams for review. Everybody was to be certified according to subject and class. All was to be done by Christmas the same year.

So I sent quite a lot of copies in August of 2011. During the years there have been an extra course or two…

And then I waited…

Well, the certification process was not done by Christmas of 2011.

Turns out, some wheels and some cogs move slower than others. Not trying to dig too deep into self pity, but it turns out that my years at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology had not tought me any physics. Not really. Not the type of physics you need to be certified. Because in Sweden you need quantum mechanics. The type of physics I knew from KTH, the building engineering type of physics, well, you have to understand that this doesn’t qualify you for more than 3rd grade (=9 year olds).

Hmm… What to do? At the time I was teaching 6th form physics and mathematics at the Swedish Shool in London. And there was word from the school authorities that from June of 2015, you had to be certified to be able to teach and grade.

So I decided to move back home to Stockholm. There were many reasons for this, but one was the ability to do some courses so my certificate would cover 6th form physics and mathematics. I went back to my old job teaching lower secondary school, I did a course in Astronomy, I did a course in the theory of relativity, I did a course in quantum physics, I looked at my old exam and thought – this should be it…

An ordinary exam for teaching physics in Sweden consists of three terms full time studies (on top of that you need pedagogics and teacher training, but that, I had  covered) Each term is made up of four courses, so to become a teacher you need a total of 12 courses, typically one or two in each of the subcategories of physics, a course in electromagnetics, one in thermodynamics, two in mechanics etc.

Emphasis is however on one dominant part. There is one part of physics that is critical to the becoming teacher. One part that consists of not one or two, but three courses of the curriculae. One part that is so important that one fourth of the entire training is devoted to it.

And that is quantum mechanics.

No, my ”extra” knowledge in other parts of the spectre that is physics did not matter. The ability to actually use physics the way that it is tought at engineering institutes was not something to be encouraged or valued. Yes, you have some experience in teaching but not long enough at the right level. Since quantum mechanics is where most of the research is today, a future teacher has to be up to par. Yes, you have done one course in quantum physics, but you need two more, in quantum mechanics.

But I am of course not the only one. There are other teachers in the same situation. And for all of us there is a programme, ”Lärarlyftet”, approx. ”elevating teachers” (it had been more fun calling it ”levitating…”, had it not)

So I applied.

But these courses are only for those who actually teach at that level today. They are not open for teacher at another level, say secondary school. And so, my personal catch-22 moment dawned upon me. If I had stayed in London, these courses had been open to me, but since I moved back… And since I’m not certified for that level, my possibilities to get a job at that level now…

What avenues were open?

Well, to take the courses, day-time, together with all the regular students, at the same time trying to work.

And thus, finally, after a meandering blog, I’m back at the introduction. I see it everyday in my pupils. The difficulty in understanding. The difficulty of making a whole of parts that are also quite difficult.

To me, quantum mechanics is the most difficult subject I have ever encountered. It is difficult conceptually (I won’t start on all the Heisenberg and Schrödinger quotes). It is difficult mathematically (it is good if you really love your Fourier, it would have been good if my mathematical knowledge wasn’t 30 years old).

But on top of that, it is a really inelegant theory.

Let me explain. To understand the specific theory of relativity by Einstein, all you need is two postulates (everything is relative, the speed of light is absolute) and, if you have a good teacher, the entire theory unfolds through elegant logics. It is beautiful (if a bit strange)

Quantum mechanics is all but logical and beautiful. Special cases and logical leaps abound. Concepts like ”tunneling” and ”spin” are nonsensical and difficult to calculate. Evertything is wrong with quantum mechanics - except that the darn thing works…

So there I was last autumn. I went to a couple of classes, those that I could.  I ordered the book and I tried…

But on top of that, I knew that I would never use it as a teacher. Since it is so difficult, you can’t really teach all that much of it in 6th form physics. Some bascis are in the curriculum, but…

I did my last try during christmas vacation, but my resistance to opening the book had become almost physical and I realized: If I want to become a certified teacher in mathematics and physics in 6th form, I have to take a leave from work for approximately one year and only do that – I am not capable of doing this on the side.

So, after agonizing over this for more than three years, it all ended up in a sort of failure. But at the same I felt releaved – my own personal Schrödinger equation had not been a happy one and now I was free.

---

Three weeks later I talked with my principal. The question of certification has been a major problem for all schools. What will happen next semester? So she had had a long talk with the authorities. And the answer was: Yes you need to have a teacher certificate to teach and grade. But it may be a certificate on any level… and any subject 

Ah, well…

onsdag 11 februari 2015

150210 Light




As anyone in the civilized world would know, Stockholm is the most beautiful city in the world. Why would anyone chose not to live here? How come London is a metropolis of more than ten million, whilst Stockholm has to do with a meagre two. Well, not even that. Why?

Well, honesty is a cruel mistress and I have to confess. There may be one or two, perhaps even three caveats in living in Stockholm.

There can, for one, be the slightest of lack of light in winter.

When working in London some years ago, I worked at the Swedish School of London. The school, full of Swedish teachers, rented localities from a private university in Richmond Hill, southwest London. And each spring the locals at the university looked in amazement at the swedes when they worshipped the sun.

After a long, cold and dark winter there suddenly is sun! Sun that isn’t just a bleak copy of a sun just above the horizon, but the real thing. A big, bright blob that actually is warm.

Whenever this happens in springtime Stockholm, you can see people standing in the streets, heads turned south, tilted upwards, not really praying, but basking in the rays of the life giver.



This is not really necessary in London. If there is sun (a big IF, I know) there is always some warmth in it in south England, even in the bleakest of midwinters. But old habits die slow. I know collegues of mine in London who are oldtimers to the British capital. But I see them posting pictures of ”book in sun”, or ”bare feet in sun in February” on Facebook, thus showing their scandinavianeness. (hmmm, is that a word?)

But this year is different. It may all be because of climate change and that particular impending doom, but the last three days have been just… what is the word… ah…: Lovely.


Blue sky, yellow sun, receding snow and – since this is spring and we are in Stockholm – a lot of people who have just stopped in their tracks, turned south and lifted their head. The three month curse of utter darkness has come to an end…


tisdag 3 februari 2015

150203 vain

After two years in London, I moved back to Stockholm in 2012. Feelings were mixed. I have always loved my hometown in a somewhat ridiculous way (love is ridiculous, isn’t it, ridiculously good, but still). London had been crowded, expensive, infrastrucurally poor and anyone who had followed my blog knew what I didn’t think of the british way of insolating their buildings (don’t get me started on sash windows…)

And life went on. Work went on. Old friends still remembered me. Even my old job, the Estonian school of Stockholm, wanted me back. As if nothing had changed.

And the blog. The blog had been a way to vent my experiences in London. I had written in Swedish for my Swedish friends and since I moved back the point of the blog disappeared. I did a few tries to write on the problems of immigration once back in Sweden (one would think being a Swedish citizen would mean this was an easy task – well think again),but somehow… It all dried up.

London, however, didn’t. Visting friends a year after my moving home and I realize I miss the place.

Stupid. I use the better part of two years longing for my beloved Stockholm. I remember for example november of 2011 as a particularly gloomy, windy and rainy part of my London life, so now everything should be fine. How can I miss this, I wonder, when standing in the slow functioning Piccadilly line on my way back to Heathrow. As usual, I have to bend my head, because the tube is made for hobbits.

And yet, at that particular visit, I had visited Twickenham and walked by the Thames. The narrowboats, Eel Pie Island, the signs that warn people to not park in high tide (why did they not build the lock in Richmond just a tad higher, oh why?). How can I not love this.

Anyway. Why this sudden return to the blog?

Well, I have many weaknesses. To count them all would be a long and arduous task. Today I will just cover one of them:

I’m vain.

Sometimes I picture myself as a man’s man. A man who thrives on being alone, making decisions on his own, confident in his own judgment.

Well…

During my last visit to the island (”We are not an island! Don’t ever remind us of that…”), I met friends at a bar, when a complete stranger approached me to talk about my blog and how much he liked reading it.

Now, this had occasionally happened in Sweden. Friends had complimented my blog and I had a following of perhaps 30. Not bad. Not Nobel Prize, but, well, Sweden is small.

But they were all swedes. Since most of my friends are in Sweden and since the theme of the blog was loosely ”swede’s experience abroad”, I had written it all in Swedish. This choice may also have liberated me, feeling free to criticize one or two aspects of the British building traditions – no one in England would ever read this – they don’t speak Swedish.

So I look with skepsis at mr X: Ehhh… How..?

”Google Translate!”

It is not that I’m not aware of the big american company and its products, but here is a complete stranger saying he went through the trouble of translating it all (ok, it is two clicks away, but still) and then read the half jibberish that Google Translate often produces.

Dumbfounded I mention the episode to E who replies: ”Sure, I read it too. Of course I did. Actually, I had problems with the one with the thing with…I couldn’t really understand the translation…”

Soo…

A part of me quickly tries to remember all my blog posts. What did I write? How offended are they? Can I ever return to this country?

But the rest of me lives and prospers in the land of flattery. Whenever someone says I have done something good I respond in a manly short manner. Inside, however, there is a circus of joy and tap dance: they liked it. They LIKED it.


So, to X and E. This is a relapse that is all your fault. Whether this is a one off, that will be read by one and a half reader or the first in a series of blogs that eventually will make me rich and put me in the land of famous and owners of fast cars (I love Aston Martins)… well…