We were all to be good Norwegians
“Can you imagine that I, in my first year as a stand-in teacher, refused to let my Sami pupils use the Sami language when speaking to me in school. They had to speak Norwegian to get a response. When I think about it today, I feel absolutely terrible. I thought that it was true that the Sami language was inferior.
As a Sami speaking child I had experienced many injustices during my school years. We were forced to speak Norwegian, and if we didn’t understand we were made fun of or put in the corner. By the time I was 14-15 I had already decided that if I were to have children, I would only teach them Norwegian.
My children, who grew up in the 60s and 70s, blame me for not teaching them Sami when they were small., and I know that not being able to speak the language has caused great sadness for some of them.”
Kaia Kalstad, for many years a teacher in the Sami village of Musken, 2010
Raising the flag outside Musken School.
Somali girls, Oslo 2007
Photo:Hilde Lillejord
“Can you imagine that I, in my first year as a stand-in teacher, refused to let my Sami pupils use the Sami language when speaking to me in school. They had to speak Norwegian to get a response. When I think about it today, I feel absolutely terrible. I thought that it was true that the Sami language was inferior.
As a Sami speaking child I had experienced many injustices during my school years. We were forced to speak Norwegian, and if we didn’t understand we were made fun of or put in the corner. By the time I was 14-15 I had already decided that if I were to have children, I would only teach them Norwegian.
My children, who grew up in the 60s and 70s, blame me for not teaching them Sami when they were small., and I know that not being able to speak the language has caused great sadness for some of them.”
Kaia Kalstad, for many years a teacher in the Sami village of Musken, 2010
Raising the flag outside Musken School.
Somali girls, Oslo 2007
Photo:Hilde Lillejord