I don’t mind the fact that some of the SFI students take longer and need more care and attention in class. I understand they have great difficulty reading, given most of them are refugees from countries where women and education are valued somewhere below that of dormice. Or, probably closer to the truth, are frightened that if they educate their general population, the general population would rise up and demand a bit of freedom. For their hair, if nothing else.
No, the extra time these poor people get is fine by me. As I’ve said before, I’m more than happy to go over things on my own, in the interim. Also, they always arrive late and leave early so I get a bit of one on one time with the teacher, which is great.
The thing that is driving me mad, and would lead to me leaving SFI, are the bloody phones.
What is wrong with these people? Is education responsible for teaching students consideration for others? I know it’s not just SFI students. I have written many times about people and their glued attachment to technology but this is worse. Constant pings of text messages, the blaring music of phone calls, the loud responses from the recipient.
How is all that conducive to learning? Not for them. I don’t care about them. No, I mean for the rest of the class. Mind you, I think I’m in the minority because it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else. Maybe those people are just immune to what has become a fact of life in the 21st century.
Anyway, between the cacophony of mobile noise and the gross snorter in my class, learning is becoming quite difficult. And I see a parallel with the phones and the snorting. If no-one is going to tell the students to turn their phones off, there is no way anyone is going to tell the snorter she sounds like a pig.
Mirinda asked if I was enjoying SFI and learning Swedish. There are aspects I am enjoying, but my enjoyment is being sorely tested. I can understand how people malign SFI and the people who take it.
Each day I look forward to the break at 10am and my walk around the neighbourhood.
Away from the hustle, bustle and noise of the classroom, back at home I set to and constructed a couple of things that arrived from Amazon and which will make life a little easier for Mirinda’s knees and my back. It was most satisfying.
Then, while Mirinda took the girls for a lovely walk around Tureholm slott, I sat at my desk and recorded my Letter from Sweden for May. It’s here if anyone is interested:
The title of this post came about as a result of a discussion we had on the deck about being made to be scared of life. The way the pandemic taught people to run away and hide. Or how uneducated people are frightened of life outside the compound. I asked, “Why live your life in fear?” to which, quick as a flash, Mirinda came back with, “When you can spend your winters in Portugal.“
At first, I thought it was too long for a post title but then, I couldn’t waste such a gem. So I didn’t.
