April 25th
I’ve finally arrived in Helsinki after a grueling 16 hours of flying and layovers – no sleep has been had for 28 hours thanks to a variety of shrieking children somehow all placed around me during each flight. Once off the plane however in Vantaa, I was able to grab my bag quickly and as I walked into Arrivals, I ran into my uncle and cousins who had just arrived.
Upon reaching my family’s house, we began going over the upcoming 3 weeks and it seems like I am going to be one busy Teacher Candidate. As my aunt is a teacher in one of the primary schools, she is well-connected to the Helsinki education world and I may observing upwards of four schools! I will get a chance to be involved with community sports days in the middle schools, musical productions in the junior high school, and classes for students with special needs.
April 27th
Visited the Helsinge school today and the highlight was definitely watching the junior grade production of Romeo and Juliet. It was a very interesting experience to observe the musical adaptation as it was performed in Swedish and Finnish. Unable to fully comprehend the language, I was able to focus more on the physical performances and notice so many similarities to every musical I was involved with during my own time in school (Dragon Tale, the Mikado, High School Musical, and more). It is always a refreshing reminder to see how kids are just kids across the world and how I will have to continually remind myself that the language barrier does not make these students necessarily radically different from the students I taught in my long practicum.
After the performance I was given a tour of the school and met several of the faculty, scheduling visits to different classes throughout the week. My schedule will become more finalized tonight with my host principals. When the tour completed, I walked over to Kyrkoby Skola and was able to observe and participate in some of the after-school activities in the school. I was shocked to see that some of the students were collecting Pokemon cards which I used to collect over 15 years ago.
I can’t believe these are STILL popular!
I was shown one of the classrooms that the higher grades use in the elementary school and I was attracted to the layout of the classroom where the students’ desks were arranged into groups where they were researching bird species. The layout encouraged collaboration and greater peer involvement in the learning process which does seem to be a priority in the school. I finished off my day by playing soccer with several of the students and trying to communicate with them in English. I was amazed by their vocabularies at such a young age – a bit humbling when I think of the struggle that French is in our BC schools and that is an official language of our country – as well as their desire to learn and improve their language skills. Extra-curricular and community involvement seems to be an important aspect of the education and I will be participating in a program of afterschool ‘floor ball’ beginning tomorrow night.
April 28th
I was primarily observing one of the English teachers at Helsinge today with his Grades 8 and 7’s. I was able to introduce myself to the classes as a teacher candidate from Vancouver (interesting note: teachers are referred to by first name in Finland!) and told them about my CFE opportunity to observe Finnish schools for 3 weeks before opening up the floor to answer any questions they had. On the whole, the classes were a bit shy to practice their English in front of a native speaker but once the ice had been broken by the first question I was able to discuss with them fairly well about similarities between Canada and Finland, Canadian and Finnish students, and life in Canada. They have been studying Scotland and I was actually able to explain the goals of the caber toss event to them (points based on straightness rather than height or distance). We then went through quizzes and a crossword in the different classes. I was also able to speak to the teacher during his spare blocks regarding the changing role education is taking in Finland and how they seem to have very similar goals to the changing BC education culture (facilitating learning, building socio-cognitive skills, and learning to meet individual needs). He had spent a bit of time on a sabbatical last year after feeling a bit burnt out last year and he hadn’t been satisfied with the quality of teaching he was delivering. It was interesting to hear about his experience as I feel this is an area that gets hushed up or avoided in BC. The culture here accepts the fact that teachers are human, prone to weakness or issues, and supports teachers who need help. I’m very certain that there are support systems like this in BC but I would say there seems to be a bit of shame associated with the idea that a teacher couldn’t “take” it. At the end of the day in the high school, I once again moved over to the elementary school to help the teachers there with their afterschool program for 4 hours.
April 29th
Today I was able to observe the shop teacher in the technical shops at the high school. He had Grade 9’s in the morning creating either handmade RC planes or working on creating some new cabinet doors for the shop storage. I was particularly envious of his small class size – for safety reasons, it is limited to 16 maximum! He tells me that the shop teachers in Finland think that 16 is too large a size so I told him of the illegal actions taken by the BC government when they abolished class size limits and ignoring two separate court decisions to reverse the action. I am incredibly thankful I did my practicum in Surrey with the district-limited size of 24 students. His shop is laid out to provide for all subject areas except for specific automotive procedures. He has a small set of welding booths, metal shop, wood shop, work space for projects, electronics, etc.
The RC Plane setup
Some of the projects they’ve worked on
He doesn’t have a large amount of machines and seems to have limited materials but I believe I perceive it that way due to my mentally accounting for a much larger class. In the afternoon I observed and aided him with his younger class where Grade 7 students from the nearby elementary school come in each Wednesday for some shop time. They were all involved in various self-directed projects and I helped students clean adhesive off acrylic box inlays, bend steel mesh on a metal brake for a firewood carrier, help fasten a salmon grilling board together, and whittle down some greenwood for a sling shot. I’ve come to really appreciate teaching younger grades – I’ve always thought that I would want to focus on teaching senior students – but ever since the practicum and teaching grade 8’s, I’ve enjoyed the younger students more and more. There is more excitement and enthusiasm from them as well as typically more respect for authority.
April 30th
Today I was able to observe and participate in a pre-May Day celebration at the school where the student council organized a school-wide team-building event. Each grade entered the gym during the day to participate in activities and the winning teams from each grade then competed against each other at lunch in front of the student body. These activities ranged from relay races, three-legged races, team carries, obstacle courses, etc.
Gym in Helsinge Skola
I was impressed at the level of buy-in from the students. The participants were enthusiastic, rather than some of the unengaged students I’ve seen in BC schools. Even the student spectators were encouraging and supportive, cheering on their teams and taking victory and defeat gracefully. I’ve also been impressed by the level of maturity I’ve seen in the Finnish students which I believe comes due to the culture of the country!