At this final stage of my education, I have had the great opportunity to observe the often-vaunted Finnish education system. I have self-placed myself in Helsinki, Finland for UBC’s Community Field Experience. I have great admiration for the Finnish system and I find the emphasis they place upon meeting the individual needs of their students is far higher than in BC. I hope to gain a set of useful tools and skills I can apply in my own teaching career to the greater success of my students and myself as a teacher.
I am fortunate enough to have family living outside of Helsinki in the town of Vantaa who I am able to stay with while I observe several schools in the Helsinki area such as Helsinge Gymnasium, Kyrkoby Skola, and Dickursby Skola.
Helsinge Gymnasium
Helsinge Gymnasium is a high school for the Swedish-speaking Finnish community in Helsinki. It is actually split into 2 schools within one building: the “high school” which is for Grades 7 to 9 and the “gymnasium” (not a gym…) which is the school for the seniors in Year 1 to 3 (Grade 10 to 12). It is fed by 4 feeder elementary schools which are also set up for the Swedish-speaking community in Helsinki which makes up approximately 3% of the population. I currently have 2 second cousins attending this school.
Kyrkoby Skola
Kyrkoby Skola, founded in 1837, is the oldest school in all of Finland. It has two buildings on site where they split the students Grades 3-6 and Grades 1-2. I have a first cousin, once removed, and a second cousin who work at this school who have helped enormously in getting me set up here and plugged into the schools in the area.
Dickursby Skola
Dickursby Skola is a newly-renovated school that houses a kindergarten and preschool. Unlike in Canada, the order of education in Finland begins with kindergarten and then proceeds to preschool (It does make logical sense, to call the transitioning period into school “preschool”). There is no pedagogical shift with this setup but merely switching the names from our Canadian setup. Finnish children enter the kindergarten between ages 1-5 (which would be daycare/preschool in Canada) and proceed to preschool at ages 5-6 before they begin Grade 1. This school had recently been renovated and expanded and I was extremely impressed with the renovation done and the resources that have been allocated to this school. Each room was equipped with a Smart Board (yes even the teachers of the 1-5 year olds have Smart Boards!), there was lots of space in each classroom, frequent stools and bean bag chairs in the hallways for student-focused areas, and an amazing amount of natural light in each space.
These are just some of the schools I will be observing during my visit and constitute the majority of my first week.