Two Homelands by Odd Lovoll

Author:Odd Lovoll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Published: 2018-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

On May 17, 1965, the graduating class made Odd an honorary member, waking him at 5:00 AM and placing the student cap on his head.

On a recent visit to Volda, in October 2016, I met a number of my students from the 1960s. The local newspaper Møre carried a story about the gathering. In its 2016 Christmas issue, the Volda journal printed an even longer piece titled “Ein historikar si reise” (An Historian’s Journey) about my time as an educator in Volda, 1961–67, and my work on this book.

One of the students I met in October 2016 was Gunnar Botn. I recall him as a young student who always placed himself in the back of the room and did not speak very much during class. As a teacher I consistently worked to involve the students as much as possible. Once, when advising this young man, I suggested that if he always placed himself farthest back, he would not get very far in life. He clearly took it to heart. As a visiting professor in 2006, I spoke at the University College in Volda, and a man sat smiling in the front row. After my lecture, he introduced his wife and himself and thanked me for the good advice I had given him those many years ago. He was my long-ago student Gunnar Botn. A letter in Møre facilitated our meeting again in 2016.

The group of students reflected on the years when I was their teacher. Gunnar described me as “a pleasant and good teacher.” But, he admitted, “I flunked his first-year English class,” and conceded that it was fully deserved, as he was more interested in motorcycles and young women than studying. He took the class a second time and did well. He had enjoyed meeting me in 2006. “And I got to show him,” Gunnar continued, “that I too can sit in the first row.” He added that his economic life had benefitted from his knowledge of English.

Spending the evening with a group of my students from a generation ago, and learning about their personal and professional lives, was a moving experience for me. As I listened to their comments, I especially appreciated hearing, “You treated us all equally and we saw that you wished the best for us.” I reflected on the Norwegian educational system of that time and my own place in it; there were great demands on the instructor, who was mainly judged by how well the students did on national exams. I listened patiently to colleagues boasting of their graduating students. This Norwegian competitive spirit surfaced in another way: when the major winter sports competitions were broadcast, instruction might be suspended so that teachers and students alike could listen to the reports with excitement and nervous anticipation.

We teachers wandered between the two institutions, the gymnas and the middle school, to meet with assigned classes. To boost my modest salary, I volunteered to teach extra classes, especially in Norwegian; these required the additional work of correcting essays and thus were not favored by my fellow instructors.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.