A year in an American high school--What a Swedish student learned

Aurora Sentinel

Some of the questions that Jonathan Lindberg fields from his peers at Smoky Hill High School [in Colorado] make sense; they’re reasonable inquiries about life in another country.

What’s the biggest difference between life in Aurora and life in Lindberg’s home town of Stockholm, Sweden? How do teens in Lindberg’s country relax? What kind of sports are popular in northern Europe? Lindberg, who traveled to the United States last year as a part of a foreign exchange program, has quick responses for such simple demands.

Other questions, however, have given the 18-year-old pause since he started taking classes at Smoky Hill last September.

“I’ve had questions like, ‘Did you take the boat here?’ ‘Do you have airplanes?’ ‘Do you have computers?’” Lindberg recalled, smiling slightly. “The biggest one I’ve got that I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me, was the question if we have any sex in Sweden whatsoever. I said, ‘How do you think I exist?’”

However surreal, such cultural exchanges continue to be a big driver behind foreign exchange programs in Aurora schools, initiatives that have evolved over the past few decades with global politics and the uncertain national economy. High schools in both the Aurora Public Schools and Cherry Creek School districts continue the tradition of hosting students like Lindberg, teenagers who come from countries across the globe to hone their English and learn cultural lessons from their American counterparts.