Day 11

So, this morning, my second taught lesson, at 8.05. That _really_ is no time to start, certainly not if you wake up at 5 by the bright light hoping to sleep some more but knowing your alarm will go off in one and a half hours anyway... As you can guess, my night has not been too well, and I was tired this morning. Needless to say, this affected my lesson. Luckily, Lena was there and when I completely blacked out (I knew I _wanted_ to say something about insecticides - neonicotinoids - nervous synapses - and so on, but what was it again.. no clue), she took over for a moment and after that I was able to continue. Fine teamwork. In the end, the lesson did not go too bad, it's just that yesterday went better, oh well, another chance tomorrow (two chances actually :-)).
Then, it was 9.30, apparently on Monday's and Thursdays that means: coffee and bread with cheese in the chemistry department. The biologists over time had sneaked into joining in this tradition, and it was really nice to have a chat together. Two of the teachers over there are native English speakers, they actually liked the change (speaking English) for once :).
At 10:10, Lena taught her last-year IB class again and I observed her explaining how the placenta works, and then classification (actually quiet nice to get to hear all that very compact end-of-high school bio, it's like a week long refreshment course).
After this lesson, I had a bit of a break, time for tomorrow's lessons preparation and lunchdinner ofcourse. Unfortunately, my guest user wifi account was only up for one week, which passed yesterday afternoon, and I have not yet been able to obtain a new code. Will try again tomorrow, but for today that meant I was unable to use internet for preparing my lessons. I can do a lot with the book, but looking up nice activities is what I do online. After lunch, I sat down together with Lena to discuss my lesson plans and we were able to look up activities together online - more cutting and pasting tomorrow (a DNA model this time, in Cecilia's pre-IB class).
The rest of the afternoon I spent in the basement, where one of the math's teachers held her weekly 'math-plus' class. This is actually a walk-in afternoon of math for students that are intrinsically motivated to solve math problems. Not only from Borgar skola, but also students that are in the last two years of primary education and show specific interest in math. This teacher challenges these students with a couple of math problems each week, also the students are being prepared for (and join in) national and international math competitions. The room has 3 large whiteboards that students can use for problem solving. Tables can be put in different positions and there are even a couple of couches for hanging out. Students can walk in and out all afternoon between 2 and 6, the atmosphere is very friendly and relaxed. Also there was a nice mixture of boys and girls (3 girls and 8 boys, the teacher is a woman holding a math PhD). I was actually there to see how a lesson like that goes and to talk to the teacher, however, within half an hour students had come up to me and put me to work on solving math problems (or were they just checking my math skills...).
At four o'clock I had interviewed the teacher and had seen enough. Time to go to the apartment (well, a quick stop at Hemsköp on my way there).
Tomorrow morning my first lesson will start at 8 (that's right, even 5 minutes earlier..). As I did not feel today's lesson was well enough prepared, I decided to write out tomorrow's lesson entirely (I had already done that for the second lesson). Having done that, I will now call it a day.