Expat #2: This time will be different

This time will be different …in Sweden...another guest blogger!

Once again, I`m trying to find my way in a new culture, and almost two weeks in it`s the little things that can drive you crazy. We`ve just bought ourselves a Nordic keyboard so we can type in Swedish – and for the first sentence I spent about five minutes tracking down an apostrophe, as it isn’t where the keys suggest, because they don’t use apostrophes.

I know I could switch to an online keyboard, but that’s not doing it like the Swedes and won’t help at school when I am finally permitted computer access. The solution was simple in the end but you forget things you already know when your brain is in overload and adjusting to life in a new country, at least in my experience. Mind you, I’m sleeping well!

So why do it all again? Why spend time hunting down questions marks and dashes, not to mention shops, services, government offices, dealing with all the paperwork that moving country involves, spending hours on Google translate .… And why do it all again after settling back in the UK in 2001, putting down roots and reaching my mid-fifties?

Firstly, politics: neither of us is willing to work any longer in an education culture that is currently ‘burning out’ the younger staff, trying to fund schools with ever-reducing budgets, and not so gently ‘encouraging’ older teachers to leave the system, even though it is crying out for teachers in some subjects and needs a range of experience.

Politically, we are completely opposed to the way the system has developed in the UK and we are looking for something that is a closer fit to the way we want to teach; Scandinavia appears to fit that goal. The teacher shortage in Sweden came along while we were actively looking to leave the country.

We can’t ignore that other elephant in the room – Brexit. We both wanted to stay in Europe and to find a country where we could have dual nationality. This is a long-term plan for us, as we hope to become Swedes. This is one reason why this time will be different: we’re definitely in it for the long-haul, studying our Swedish, looking at property prices and different areas and learning all we can about the culture.

Back in 1999, when I headed off to the US, I wanted to experience a different culture and undoubtedly it changed my mindset for life. Working in another country has only ever proved hugely beneficial, even if I did lose two years of my teaching pension! But I always approached life there in holiday mode and was off on road trips whenever possible, because I never intended to stay. I didn’t intend to get married either, but that’s another story!

Life here will be different because we are so much more serious about this as a career move and we know we have to become fluent in Swedish in two years in order to continue working as teachers. This means attending classes and studying at home. Homework!

However, things also appear to be different because here they value work-life balance. That phrase is so cliched nowadays and, I would argue, meaningless in teaching in England. But here we have a contract for 45 hours a week, which includes all preparation, at school or at home, and they have been emphatic that anything not done in that time should not be done. You should see our schedules – there’s time for meetings and planning and marking, oh my! They look incomplete! It is of course early days, but vive la difference if it all proves to be as it seems.

Finally, why do it all again, if you’ve had your adventure once and then supposedly settled down? I can only speak for us when I say that we still want to be challenged and we don’t want to just tick over the last few years before drifting into part-time and semi-retirement. This has been so energising and the learning involved is proving hard.

Challenge is good, for the brain and the soul.

At least, it is for us.

Watch this space!

Berenice