Norway-Casey+Koch

= Norway ﻿By: Casey Koch =

Introduction
Norway is a country rich with culture and natural beauty. The country covers close to 136,000 km with close to 4.8 million in population. Norway is located in northern Europe bordering the Atlantic ocean and the country of Sweden. Since Norway is located so far north, they experience colder summers and winters and if you live near the coast you will experience rain year round. This weather provides for a very fun and exciting list of outdoor activities including hiking, skiing, fishing, climbing, swimming, camping and snorkling. Among all the outdoor activities, tourists can enjoy the historical places and museums like Oslo, the capital, as well as all the beautiful churches located throughout the country.

Norway is considered a constitutional monarcy and a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister that is in charge of international affairs. Norwegian is the primary language throughout Norway, but there are dialects; Sami is considered one of the most common. Among some of the more interesting facts about Norway is that it has some of the highest life expectancies with 83 for females and 78 for males.

Norway is very proud of the arts and traditions of the past. They are known for producing many world renown artists and actors. Since Norway is rich in investing in the arts, their educational system focuses on both academic areas such as math, science, english, ect. but also the learning of foreign languages and offers many schools for theatre and arts. They integrate the arts as much they can into their general compulsary education and feel it is an important part of their culture and heritage.

This is a short video slideshow of pictures of Norway. media type="youtube" key="sA_ytcSGhsI" width="425" height="350"

** Accomplished Artist: Edvard Munch **
Born in 1883 in Loten, Norway, Edvard was born to his parents Christian and Catherine. Shortly after his birth, Catherine died of Tuberculosis at the age of 30. This was the beginning of a childhood marked with tradgedy and sadness. Soon after, his sister died of Tuburculosis at the age of 15. Being such a horrible sickness to watch and experience, Edvard was plagued by the horror of death and the sadness of loss. His father was a military doctor and expected much out of his only son. Edvard began college in 1779 to study engineering. This however was not what he desired and against his father's wishes, he dropped out to pursue painting. He enters the Royal school of Art and Design and begins his painting career. Among one his first paintings is one of his most famous, "The Sick Child" (located to the left). This painting is still one of his most notable works of art and portrays his use of emotion and beauty of color to express his past experieces of sickness and loss. From his experiences in his childhood and the political anguish during the 1920's and 1930's, Munch created a portrait call "The Scream." This paiting is widely recognized as expressing the movement of Expressionist art during his time and he is known for being one of the first artists that displays anger and movement in his artwork. Throughout his career, his art continued to show emotion and color unlike many artist of his time. He is also recognized for his etching, lithography, and woodcuttings.

Edvard experienced loss, turmoil, alcoholism, and political unrest and used all these experiences to create beautiful art that depicts true emotion and heartache. Since his death in 1944, Munch is remembered by his 1,000 paintings, 15,400 prints, 4,500 drawings and watercolors and 6 sculptures in the city of Oslo.



** Arts Organization: Oslo Barnemuseum **
"The goal of the creation of Oslo Children's Museum is to give children an inspiring place of their own that will help them develop their creative thinking, self-confidence and understanding of the world."

This museum was inspired by a mother's trip to a museum outside of Norway where she felt like there was a need in Oslo for a children's museum. She listed these three reasons for why a museum was needed:
 * 1) offer enriching and fun cultural activities year-round for children
 * 2) challenge children through diverse experiences and inspire their creativity
 * 3) build bridges between children and families with different backgrounds

In 2005, they formed an organization called the "Friends of Project Oslo Children's Museum" to develop a plan and foundation for a museum in the future. They also formed a group of 25 children from different countries to express the desires and needs of all children. I found this to be very interesting and unique becaue the museum is for children and they incorporated children into their planning and organization of the museum. In 2007, Oslo Barnemuseum became a foundation as a non-profit organizationAmong some of the people hired to run the museum is Katie Coughlin who is the project leader, founder and mother who traveled and inspired this idea. Another important person involved is Trine Merete Sjolyst who is the project assistant. Trine has studied dance and theater and currently works with children teaching dance in Oslo. This is a museum in process since building hasn't started yet, but they are on their way to creating a place that promotes arts and creativity for children and the community.

The picture to the right is a sketch of what they would like the museum to look like when its finished. They want to incorporate a lot of nature and hands on activities that promote learning and creativity. They want to use a lot of color and vibrant visual designs to engage the child and enrich their senses. Overall the museum will be full of fun and engaging activities that allow children to be excited about learning.

Teacher Training Programs
The training programs for teachers in Norway consists of higher education majoring in education (preschool, primary, and secondary). They are required to take 180 credits of ECT's in Norway. These credits include the classes: Pedagogy/Educational Theory (45 ECTS), Mathematics (10 ECTS), Norwegian (15 ECTS), Drama (10 ECTS), Music (10 ECTS), Arts and Crafts (10 ECTS), Natural Science (10 ECTS), Religious Education (10 ECTS), Physical Education (10 ECTS), Social Science (10E ECTS), Special Needs Education (5 ECTS) and a Cross Disciplinary Project (5 ECTS) as well as 60 ECTS in electives courses that range from physical education to outdoor education. You are also required to do a 22 week supervised practice teaching program.

From the course load, teachers are educated in academics, social needs, and arts. They are highly trained and certified to teach with a fluency in the Norwegian language. Below is a video of a preschool outdoors. I found it interesting that Norway incorporates a lot of nature and outdoor actities into their curriculum.

media type="youtube" key="Fp4Nny_rIiw" width="425" height="350"

** Funding for Arts Education **
There ﻿is funding to promote arts in the schools. Some funding is from the government from the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs. Most of the funding is from private grants and funds that businesses and people donate to because they feel strongly about promoting the arts. Most private schools have arts in their curriculum due to funding from tuition. Art integration is not common in schools even though they provide classes in the arts. There is research being done in many European countries to try and integrate arts more into the learning of subjects and academics. Norway has a rich culture of art including music, paintings, and historical costumes and appreciates and wants norwegians to know and understand the importance of the arts. This is starting to be reflective in their educational system and how they spend their money in schools.

** Conclusion **
﻿ Since my grandfather is from Norway, I was very interested in learning more about their culture and way of life. I found it interesting that they value arts in the way they preserve their traditions and customs, but don't exactly incorporate it into their schools as much as I anticipated. Their schools seem very similar to schools in the US and the school system that I grew up in. For instance, through elementary and middle school art and music were a required class and were seperate class from the usual math, science, social studies, ect. In high school they became elective courses for those that had an interest in learning and doing more. Similarly, in Norway, the classes are also elective courses and their are special schools that emphasize the arts that you can pay tuition to attend. It seems that in both countries they want to have appreciation for the arts, but seperate arts and academics in education.

Overall, I was disapointed that a country that has such rich culture and history doesn't emphasize arts in the schools as much as they should. I was encouraged to research that many European countries are doing research on the topic or arts in schools and I hope that this research shines a light onto the importance of arts and education.

[|Visit Norway]

[|Edvard Munch]

[|Teacher training]

[|Museum]

[|Funding]

[|Pictures]