To Be Or Not To Be a Teacher

Yesterday I heard from an old friend that he too had left the work as a teacher. It came as a chock. How can a well educated and popular teacher like him quit before the semester is over to start working in the local grocery store, with meat?

What I know the school he worked on is quite calm compared to a lot of schools in towns. When asked he answered: “Now I will not have to work when I am free from the job, and if I work some evenings and weekends I will anyway have the same salary as before...” (great salaries for teachers in Sweden!)

What is happening in Sweden? I know my story (and you too soon), but all these good teachers leaving the school like the rats jumping from the sinking ship. I will just mention two more before my story: One music teacher became a church musician (nice change) while one who became retired started to work as a sub in her old school, saying “now I only have to do the fun part-have lessons- all the other things, the so called paperwork that took all the time from the real work is gone. This is the real work for a teacher”. I can't agree more with her!

Now my story:

I also felt that I spent more and more time doing work that was administrative and not teaching. I used to tell my friends that when I started working as a teacher I had time to sit and plan my lessons and help as a sub when somebody was sick (up to 4 lessons/week). I also got extra paid for that.

After 15 years I still had to be a sub when someone was ill, but due to new rules that the union had approved all over Sweden we were not paid for this, but forced to do it. The planing had to be done during the “home working time”! Now I also had to do other things like much more paper works to “protect the school from being accused to not follow the rules” and “check if the students had any diagnosis” and... these where the reason why my friend quit and now works at ICA superstore.

I worked anyway until one day I was threatened during a student trip in the forest were we where supposed to sleep that I should “live as this was my last day”. The trip was canceled during the evening and I made a report to the police. I was told that they can do nothing because the girl was under 15 years old (she was 14). The head master did what he could, but according to the law in Sweden the girl did not have to move to another school unless she said yes to the place he wanted to give to her (her parents said “No!”).

So I had to work in a classroom were it was a student who knew I could do nothing when she were messing and disturbing the other students.

Some weeks later she really were messing during a math test. She was playing games, with the sound on, on her cellphone! She was told by me to put it away, and I got the answer “soon”. When I came back I said “according to the law I am allowed to take your cellphone if you are disturbing others with it, so pleas put it away.”. “No”, she said. “Then I will take it now”, I replied and put my hand on the cell. What happened then was like in a dream.

She hold tightly in her cell and leaned fast forward and bit my hand. I was in shock and just looked at my hand and said loud:”You bit me”, then I walked out from the room. I do not remember what happened with the test.

Once again I called the police and the headmaster and my colleges gave me all their support. I signed of and was home psychically down. It is called “sick leave”. I did not have any strength left to work in that kind of situation. The doctor said it was no good to return. (The girl stayed in the class and the police did nothing again., and the headmaster could nothing do, more than try to insert extra resources in the class-but he lost me. He did what he could for me!)

What to do? Stay home and be “sick” approved by a doctor, although you don't feel sick or do as my former colleges above?

I did nothing of that. Instead I started to study again to become an engineer. I have great study buddies and gets a great education, but the cost is high: I need to take new student loans (the way it works in Sweden) and it costs the society too to. It is a crazy situation, but now I enjoy my life.

Will I ever come back to school as a teacher?

Good question. I love teaching, I really do!!! and I am a great teacher (according to my other students, not that girl). The problem is that even the law is against the teachers in Sweden.

Under 15, nothing happens

over 15... according to a court decision recently students are allowed to hit the teacher “a little bit”, because the teacher profession should be looked upon as the police profession according to Aftonbladet (Swe link). “!on kcuF” (invert it). They never gave me a course in self defense. I am a teacher, and as long as the students have the right to beat the teachers I will not come back.

If Sweden are supposed to be one of the best countries in the world in education the government and the opposition have to do something drastic, else there will be no teachers any more.

Poor all the wonderful children!

Priests, Women and Dogs

In todays paper Aftonbladet it is written about a priest who treated his six dogs terrible. He was fined and the dogs got a better house. The preast also lost his job as a priest because he has got a too bad reputation after this, says a church layer in the congregation in Stockholm. This could be a nice end of a terrible story. I think that the church acted correct.

Why am I then upset?
For me some dogs life is not as important as humans. I thought that the Swedish church had the same opinion. After a very fast search on google you'll easy find sex abuses in the Catholic church (I've written about it before here), but some priests in the churches in Sweden also makes that kind of things. It is the punishment that I get upset for:
Sveriges Radio wrote 2003 about a priest who beat a boy. He was fined 5 000 Skr, but were allowed to proceed to work as a priest (well, after being a teacher I might understand that you can be outrageuos in some situations, so maybe that was correct by the church)
What is more upseting is what Aftonbladet wrote in February 2012 about a priest that has been sexually abusing several teenagers during long time (known since 2009), but he has got a "time to think about it while he still is allowed to work as a priest". (for example he forced a girl to have oral sex with him in the room for Anglican devotion!) This is a scandal!

I understand Angelica Karlsson who wrote in Aftonbladet 2009 that it is dangerous that persons accused for sexual crimes are investigated in the churches own "courts". That makes it more likely that sex-criminals are still working with our children. When it is like that you will not feel safe to send your child alone there. The article is about a priest who doesn't deny that he had a sexual relation with a student, but the church did not send case to the police.

I care for the animals, but when the church seems to care more for the dogs and their priest than for their "lambs" then it is outrageuos!

Trubble among muslims in Sweden!

There is an update in the end.
****************************************************************************
Yesterday a Swedish program was broadcasted in the Swedish television about what the Imams are saying when they do not know the society are listening. It was Uppdrag Granskning (Swe link) who wanted to examine that by sending out two women in niqab, and with a hidden camera, to ask what they shall do because their husbands have taken a new wife, are beating them and forcing them to have sex. All three things are illegal in Sweden (and both of the women are true believers in Islam).
One, I repeat only One Imam told them to go to the police because you shall never beat your wife.
The rest were not so very good... (some of them said a little bit good things too)

The main mosque in Sweden, the one in the center of Stockholm, where one of the worse! "Even if your husband is beating you and has go another wife you got to have sex with him, and you shall not go to the police because then it is problems . They will put him in jail!" That means that he knew it is illegal to beat but he says she must accept it. I wonder if He, the Imam, a holy person (?) would accept to be beaten and forced to have sex. Don´t think so.. (But he is a man, or?)

In six of the ten mosques the Imams tells the woman they must have sex with their husband, according to the quran. The only times they may say "No!" is when they are ill or have got the period.

Where are the womens rights?
A friend of me said in Facebook "throw the bastards (Imams) out from the country, they have no right to treat the women in that way. I said "No". If we throw them out from Sweden we will just move the problem to another country and their women. (when he said to the moon I accepted, because as far as I know no women are living there)

According to Helena Benaouda (Swe link), the leader of  "Sveriges muslimska råd" (The Swedish muslim council) they know there "have been" a problem with some volunteer imams, but that is because some mosques do not have so much money. Hey, Helena what planet are you from? (I know you are born Swedish and this is your country) All these mosques gets money from the state or their countys (written in the link), and most of them gets money from ex Saudi Arabia. They have well educated Imams (the mosque in Stockholm has it most certenly). And you try to say they are not educated? And tries to make it sound like the government in Sweden do not give you enough money? Wake up! (try to say something to help the muslims instead, because right now people only thinks about who is your daugthers husband, Munir Awad, and thinks it is because of that you have strange opinions...)

Some muslims in Sweden says the program was not good to show because it only makes the islamophobia worse, and helps the racists. Hmm, who helps the racists here? Isn´t it the Imams living in a time that should only be remembered in One thousand ond one night's? As long as people calling themselves muslims and treat their women in this way that religion will have problems in Europe. When they live as a lot of my muslim friends it is no problem.

Finally: When I saw the look in the 12 years old girl in a suburb to Stockholm walking with her hijab looking at her former classmate, my 12 years old daugther, I felt bad. You could see in her eyes she did not have the hijab because of something between her and Allah. It was her parents forcing her to have it probably because they did not the men to look at her as a sexual object. They have not understood the words in the quran, then... (according to the Imam in the muslim school I worked at four years ago.)
****************************************************************************
The day after the program there was a debate about it in the same chanal.
According to aftonbladet (Swe link) three muslim women had a hard time during the debate. They did not get enought of time to speak, and they where interupted by the men who were rising their voices (very usual to do when you have no core in what you say... try to shut the mouth of the opponent). It ended with the three brave women leaving the studio. They told aftonbladet that "Islam is not a women suppresing religion" and "the men are bad representants for islam".
I agree with the women, but unfortunately their wholy book says a little too much about women... the men wants to read those parts to be able to be kings in their house, but it should be read as those parts in the Bible are read (in Sweden anyway, not in the christian right och catholic church): "It is history and should be so too"

According to DN (Swe link) it is usual that the women do not get any support from the imams. "Many imams gets a work (in a mosque) as family councils, and then they get power in a social work they are not educated in. Then they might answer according to their religiuos moral", a scientist working with islam says.
And I say "a so called religious moral is nothing worth when it hurts and kills people", I know that it is written in sura 4 verse 34 and 38 that the man must take care of the woman economically, and that he has the right to in the last instance beat her if she is not behaving, but that is just a book written by a man to other men to try to suppress the women (but he did it better for the women by the standards of that time). Now it is time to see that we are equal in everything-same intelligence (but in my eyes it seems that a lot of men called imams are less..), same kinds of feelings and same rights according to the only law that is just- the law of the country and not a silly religios law.

Sweden censoring on internet!

I am trying to make the Swedish government to change their censoring laws on aerial photographies. This is one of my assignments for Wikimedia Sverige.

It is an interesting law. The Swedish army must approve all photos taken from the air before they are allowed to be spread on the internet, but the law is only valid for Swedish citizens and if you didn't know about it you'll not get fined (Link to law in Swedish)! If a non-Swedish citizen put the photo on internet the law can do nothing. As you probably understands the law was made before the internet revolution, and now it is time to change it to fit the society of today.

How toothless the law is you might see by searching on the Swedish map hitta.se and compare with the non-Swedish Google maps. To avoid breaking the law I use a link to a Swedish paper, IDG, scroll down to the picture. Here you see the same spot on the map. It is the FRA-headquarter in Stockholm, the difference is clear. Someone is censoring the internet! If the strange powers are not capable to see the difference here and find the secret place, then they are not allowed to be called powers.

I think it is time for Sweden to step into the 21^th century, and change it to not let others make fun of us. According to this paper from 2009 the army itself think it is a silly law and wants to get rid of it-but as long as it is there they have to follow it.


Update: I did not my research correct. The article above is from 2009, and after that they have "cut of" the imaginary forest on the Swedish maps. Now you can see it on this place (FRA in Stockholm), but how about other places in the country...

Moneyfree banks!

It's the first of April, not.
Yesterday I had to put some money on my account in the bank. That should not be a big problem, I thought!
While I live in south of Stockholm I went to the bank in the biggest shopping mall close to mine: Skärholmen. There I entered the bank. It was full. A lot of people who wanted to do their things, and a big note telling us that "This is a cash free bank. You can not insert money here", it said. Great information given, and no info where I could do it. I left and had to go to the center of Stockholm, there I walked 10 minutes until I came to another "Sparbank". There I could insert my money, and I asked where in the south of Stockholm it would be possible. On the "red line", the metro, you can not do it anywhere all the 45 minutes long metro-line. They have closed that choise. If you want to do this bank-issue you have to go app 50 minutes, or take a buss in wrong direction.

What's wrong with Sweden when the banks are not there for their costumers?
Don't they want my money?

This is a big joke, that I did not laugh at!