THURSDAY, APRIL THE 21ST: MERITORIN KOULU SCHOOL; ESPOO; LEARNING MORE AND MORE.

Hello to all of you another day more. I am very happy to see that the blog is well received. Every time more and more people from Finland and other countries that are making the course with me ask for it and want to read it, and it is partly thanks to... our mascot... When I go to the schools, children and teachers ask me for him and want to take pictures with him. They ask me for his name, and as I tell them that my students are deciding it, they put a nice smile on their faces... Thank you for your participation, before the weekend arrives, we will put him a name; since that moment, please continue sending more ideas; many of my colleagues in Helsinki’s course have fantastic names for him, but this is something concerning only our school.   

Our mascot with one of the cooks of the school I've visited today, Meritorin Koulu.

Today we went to a very cool school, MERITORIN KOULU SCHOOL; a school located in ESPOO, a beautiful wooded place with a great Lake nearby. I let you some photos of the school seen from outside:

This is its main façade and in the image on the right side you’ve got the bikes parking area, since many children come alone by bicycle or bus. That is one thing at I was amazed, because very few parents bring their children to school; even more they use the public means of transport such as the bus by themselves... Partly because nobody would do more harm than good to those who are the future of the nation. There begins their education and one of the differences between them and us is the students’ autonomy, which begins at home and continues at the school as here as I'm telling you, they have a lot of freedom ranging from Shoeless to sit on a huge ball of plastic instead of on a Chair...

I asked the teacher, in my perfect English-Finnish, and she has told me that in their 4th B class, there are balls of this type for children who are more nervous and cannot be seated correctly all the time in the Chair so they can move more, without problems and after one or two weeks, another classmate sits in this funny chair. They have got five or six for the entire classroom.

Certainly, our friend wanted to try it... and he didn’t give any peace until he managed it... At the bottom of the photo you can see the teacher, so kind, who allows her students to do the same as the rest but adapting to their characteristics... Do you think it would be a good idea or on the other hand you wouldn’t be constantly concentrated playing with the ball?

I do not imagine some of you with a ball in the class, although again it would be again a nice change if we can come to an agreement with you... I will try to convince the other teachers in my return!

But this is one of the many things that are different at this school, because they do a lot of interesting projects; I took good note of them to explain my colleagues as soon as I’m back.

Emotional work and bullying are one of the things they emphasize. Of course, they follow close on the heels the KIVA Project, and I have had the occasion to observe their work.

They dramatize situations that can actually occur at school, as for example, that somebody laugh at you or the fact that a colleague sees how somebody is offensive to you. From that scene they think about, with the teacher’s help, how to solve it and children have the possibility to make questions of things they don’t understand; in this wise, if something similar happens in their school, they know how to deal with it and help the harassed colleague. Here you have a small example: (I think that there are problems to see this video, so when I’m back to school I will show you as it is interesting)

Also I have been able to attend a class where all the children worked with Ipad. In this case they must organize an imaginary holiday to one of the countries they liked most. He had to organize everything, from buying the flight tickets till booking the hotel and organizing everything they wanted to visit in the destination city. They spent two hours per week to this project and the kids were delighted thinking about the things they would do in those countries and working with their tablets... A child had chosen Madrid as his favorite city; this had made me so excited!

As you can see, everyone here uses the latest technologies, and all subsidized by the State; of course, they are responsible for taking care of it so that won’t break. Children must be autonomous and responsible for the better and for the worse.  Do you look after the school facilities and the material properly?

Well done!

We have also been in an English class, since I was interested to see how they work this area in Finland. We, at our school CEIP Tierno Galván, we teach CLIL and we’ve got a bilingual project with advanced level so I wanted to see if they know some good tricks to  bring back with me to Molina de Segura... And I have to say that they don’t do it as different as our English teachers; mind you, they say that they write as little as possible in class as they do it at home because at school they prefer to do speaking and listening tasks.

Well, that is something more different than in Spain.

Another thing they do differently is to work with students who come to school without knowing the language. In Murcia, as in most of Spain, students entering school without knowing Spanish enter directly into a classroom with other colleagues who know already the language, and even if they receive some support, they spend much time with their partners according to their age.

In Finland is not so. If you are immigrant and you don't know Finnish or know so very little, you enter into a classroom for a whole year and there they teach you only their language. The sooner you speak it, write it and understand it, the sooner you enter the regular group; mind you, some subjects such as physical education and music they made with their Finnish colleagues and in the case that the teacher observes that someone strives too much and learn fast, he/she mustn’t to be the whole year in this type of classroom. What do you think about this? You can leave comments on this Blog.

A last thing of this fascinating school: let me show you what they do in the crafts workshops and how complete is the classroom.

                                                            

   

 

  

Certainly, this school has everything; even they made us a special meal.  THANK YOU VERY MUCH MERITORIN KOULU!!! You are very charming. I would have paid for eating in a so incredible dinning room they have. 

Finally, I could tell you much more but I don't have much time, as always I promise you to tell your more and more on my return...

In the afternoon our friend persisted to take me to SUOMENLINNA, one of the islands of the Finnish archipelago near to the Helsinki’s coast. This island has served both as naval fortress and as prison camp. When Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden, was Swedish; when it formed part of the Russian territory, it was Russian, and now, after the civil war, when it's independent, Finland belong to the Finnish and is declared World Heritage.

It is a marvel, but it was so cold...

                                                                              

I have tried to find Russians or Swedish, but there was either Finns; it's so cold that anybody attacks it... better so, in peace... because the wars never had been good and fights at recess either. 

And I say goodbye with a contest, because although I know that you don’t know Finnish... In which container would you recycle paper and in which one cardboard? The fifth has advantage that I taught them the Christmas Carol and they understand something. I think that I'm starting to learn their language...

Option A: 

     

Option B: 

"The one, who reads a lot and walk much, sees a lot and knows much"

Until tomorrow’s entry.