2_0_ScanMag_70_Nov_2014_Text:Scan Magazine 1
5/11/14
16:03
Page 82
Scan Magazine | Special Theme | Education in Norway
LEFT: “I learnt so much I would never want to be without,” says Emma Traasdahl, former student at Bømlo Folkehøgskule. TOP MIDDLE: At Bømlo FHS students are taught how to work as a team. ABOVE MIDDLE: Kjetil Berger Falk, course coordinator for the school’s Peace and Solidarity in Africa programme. RIGHT: “There is so much more to Africa than one might think and we want our students to see the reality of the countries they visit,” Kjetil Berger Falk explains.
Bømlo FHS: We bring out the best in you It is the impressions you make when you are young that will come to shape your life as an adult. The people you meet, the places you go and the experiences you have will help you grow and mature into the person you are meant to be. Nowhere is that more true than at Bømlo Folkehøgskule. By Stine Wannebo | Photos: Bømlo FHS
“Students graduating after a year at this school leave with a whole new universe in their stomachs,” says teacher Kjetil Berger Falk with a smile. As the course coordinator for the school’s Peace and Solidarity in Africa programme, he knows exactly how much students’ perspectives can change in just one year. A trip to a faroff destination is an essential part of all the teaching at Bømlo, even if most of the school year is spent on a little island between the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Stavanger. Surrounded by woods and seawater, nearly a hundred students are taught a range of subjects centred on countries thousands of miles away from their own. After studying both history and politics, the 18- and 19-year-olds studying the
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Peace and Solidarity programme spend four to five weeks in Africa or in South America, experiencing everything from normal everyday life to the popular tourist destinations. “There is so much more to Africa than one might think and we want our students to see the reality of the countries they visit – it’s not all bad,” Berger Falk explains. The school offers a wide range of programmes, from Musicals and Theatre to Food with a Taste of the World. What they all have in common is their aim to broaden the students’ horizons and teach them about the culture and traditions in other parts of the world. Along the way the students are taught how to think critically, work as a team, reflect on their own experiences and to be creative – all skills that will be useful no
matter what they choose to pursue in the future. Former student Emma Traasdahl says that her year at Bømlo Folkehøgskule made her see the world in whole a different light. “It was fun, and I learnt so much I would never want to be without,” she says.
Bømlo FHS destinations 2015: Africa, Latin America, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, New York, China
For more information, please visit: www.bomlo.fhs.no