Amanda Langille (front left), Laura Patterson, Brittany Anderson, Tess Thurber, Andrea Clair, Maria MacMillan and Becky Lee. Back row are Sean Ethier, Kenny Chisholm, and Kieran Gallivan who are among several education students heading to Norway in March to participate in their teaching practicum, Missing from the photo are education students Stephen Clark and Megan Pritchard. (Debbie Johnson photo)

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A dozen St. F. X. education students are headed to Bergen, Norway next month after some active fundraising over the last two months. Laura Patterson, one of the dozen students headed to the Scandinavian country, noted that they had their first fundraiser back in October before knowing where their teaching practicum would occur.
All will be teaching at different kindergarten and elementary schools in the city. Education student Maria MacMillan noted that in Norway there is an emphasis on outdoor teaching and each of the student teachers will be teaching a different subject.
“We are teaching outdoors at some of the elementary schools, in subjects like math and science, we have checked the weather over there now and it’s warmer there than it is here,” she added.
The schools are English immersion schools and education student Becky Lee said it will be interesting to teach English to very young students in kindergarten grades who have just started to speak clearly in their own language.
Lee is helping to co-ordinate a bingo to be held at the Antigonish Legion on March 4 from 2 to 4 p.m. Her mother organized bingos at home in Timberlea and passed some of her bingo savvy onto her daughter who held a fundraiser bingo already in her community for the trip.
The students have been soliciting area business for the merchandize and are gradually getting prizes collected over the next two weeks.
One of the group’s two faculty advisors education department chair Andrew Foran has connections at the University of Bergen, noted education student Kieran Gallivan.
Foran helped arrange for the group’s practicum and it is planned that an exchange will be taking place next year with Bergen university students at St. F. X. Their other advisor Elizabeth Munroe, who teaches in the education faculty will be heading to Bergen with the group to oversee their practicum in March.
For many students teaching overseas is a reality once graduating with education degrees. Each student will individually be expected to raise $5,000 to offset the cost of the six week practicum over and above the cost of their university tuition.
Teaching in a different school system is something that the education students look forward to, noted a number of the practicum participants. Munroe added that Norway is world-renowned for early childhood education with four of the dozen teaching in that capacity.