Takaisin Kotiin - Back Home

So, it is now Thursday, April 7th. I am back home, back at work, and *very* jet-lagged! However, I have not yet finished my blog! I have several more schools and libraries that I visited and will write about. But I think I need to recover a little bit first - catch up on some sleep!

Basically, the purpose of this post is to tell you to STAY TUNED! There is more coming!

Vierailevat Espoo - Visiting Espoo

On Thursday it was back to school for me. I spent the morning at Koulumestari School in Espoo. 

I'm going to steal directly from their English language website: 

Koulumestari school is a primary school of 320 students. The name "Koulumestari" means a schoolmaster in Finnish.  

The school was established in 2007. Our pedagogy, teaching and other structures of the school are actively developed in order to answer the needs of today's and future society.  

Braveness, creativity and innovation are considered as the main principles of Koulumestari School. Our aim is to make our school an encouraging community, ready to wonder and explore the entire surrounding society through the creation of new and innovative solutions. Following of the principles of creative problem solving and technology education has helped us to make this sort of pedagogy one of our core strengths as a school.

We also wish to be a safe school that aims to provide the students with good basic knowledge and skills, realistic self-image and strong social skills. At Koulumestari School regular teaching and teaching of the students with special needs are carried out with a strong emphasis in co-teaching and integration. The special education classes and regular classes co-operate closely. Julkaistu 23.1.2012 klo 10.08 , päivitetty 9.3.2016 klo 8.42

What struck me about Koulumestari: the teachers there were very focused on collaboration, integration and co-teaching. 

The entire 5th grade (to Americans, 6th grade) was completely co-taught. The two teachers combined their classes - so instead of two classes of 20-something students, there was one large class of 47. There were two regular teachers and one teacher more focused on special education that floated around the class. The combination allowed the teachers to break the kids up into different groups and do different activities with different teachers leading the charge. They said that they basically never lectured to the entire group. The teacher I spoke to said that she was skeptical at first, but now she would never go back to teaching alone. It took some organizing and figuring out of logistics at first, but now it is better than it ever was teaching alone. 

Teachers at Koulumestari stay with their same group of students for the entire time they are there. So if a teacher starts with children in the 1st year (7 years old) they could stay with them until they are in the 6th year (12 year old). This way they really get to know the students and their strengths and weaknesses. One drawback of this system is that the kids get the same teacher, with the same personality for a long time - co-teaching helps mix it up a little for the kids (and the teachers too!). 

The teachers were also very dedicated to letting the students figure out what kind of learners they were. In fact, in the first few minutes I was in a class (6th grade/7th grade in US) the teacher asked the kids if they wanted to take some time off of studying math. The class decided that they'd take a two week vacation from math and work more on other subjects during that time. Also, the students seating chart was rearranged. The teacher had asked the students where in the room they thought they would learn best. Over half the kids said, "next to the window" so she let the kids know that she saw that, but it was impossible to please everyone. 

I was asked to present a little bit about myself and my school. I spoke in English and the kids seemed to mostly understand - but the teacher jumped in to translate a little too. I showed the video from my school website to the students. They recognized it as sort of an ad for the school. They were *very* interested in how tuition and scholarships worked. In Finland there are only public schools (with very, very few exceptions), so the idea was completely foreign to them. Besides that, they had just returned from a day long engineering and entrepreneurship activity. In the activity they had discussed funding and running a business and so they concluded that my school was like a company. 

Koulumestari students watching a video about my school

The teachers at Koulumestari have also decided to have "X" time built into their days - this was instead of having "science" a specific subject. From what I could figure out, I think this is cross disciplinary studies. The day I was there it was physics, more specifically, electricity. But this is often where their more technical lessons fall - how to use PowerPoint, how to find good information, etc. 

Saaren Elämää - Island Life

After our tour of Helsinki libraries, we stopped at Stockmann's for some lunch. This is a department store like the old fashioned department stores of days gone by. Places to eat, clothing, home goods, etc. It had been recommended that I go see Suomenlinna Fortress, so that was the plan for the afternoon.

I have had my fair share of delicious Finnish food... especially pastries. So I should mention here that on this day I walked almost 9 miles and took over 18,000 steps and scaled 29 (? or close to that) flights of stairs. This is according to the health app on my phone.

On the boat to Suomenlinna we saw several other tiny islands with just one house on them. 

Maija (my aunt and tour guide) and I on the road near the ferry.

I noticed on this sign that there was a library! (Kirjasto)

Visiting the library

This was the most adorable, tiny library. Bright and airy with old wooden shelves painted light blue.

I loved the triangular book display stands in the middle. 

I sat down to read a little.

A cool door on one of the houses on the island - it is a fortress, but it is also a town. People live here, there is a library, a school, apartment buildings, etc. 

A view atop the fortress walls. 

Suomenlinna actually spans several islands - this is looking over the fortress walls to one of the other islands. 

My mom and I on top of the wall

Lisää Kirjastot - More Libraries

Disclaimer: I have just been using Google Translate to make up the Finnish titles of these posts... I have no idea if I am making terrible mistakes with them. If I am, blame Google, not me. Like I said before, I only know about five words in Finnish. Kiitos.

On Wednesday I didn't have any appointments scheduled, and I wanted to see some of the libraries in Helsinki. We left Salo on Tuesday afternoon and spent the night in Helsinki. We got up in the morning and had the most delicioius breakfast ever at Karl Fazer Cafe. It was the best breakfast ever. Can it even get better than a breakfast buffet that includes cheesecake and chocolate mousse? Here is my breakfast (at least the first round):

After a filling breakfast we headed to the old Helsinki Main Library. Now, I had wanted to see the Helsinki City Library. I have definitely read about it and their innovative programs such as being able to check out a person or a guitar... however, I didn't do my research properly (bad librarian!). This is where I thought I was going: http://keskustakirjasto.fi/en/ Notice the date... Notice that the people in the pictures are fake... I did not. So, anyway, we did not go to the un-built Central Library.

We went to the old Central Library. It was a nice old building that reminded me of the Enoch Pratt Central Library where I once worked. However it was smaller, and didn't have any particularly innovative programs that I saw. But here are some pictures anyway:

After we visited this library and figured out it was not the right one, we went to the Helsinki University Library. This was an AMAZING space. Only two years old. Definitely built with flexibility and technology in mind. This was the epitome of a "new" library breaking from the ties of the old library model. Wide open spaces, lots of flexible study areas that could be either quiet or group work areas. If I could build a new library tomorrow, I would basically steal all their ideas. The architect worked very closely with library staff, and library users were repeatedly asked what they thought as plans were made. Now I'll let the pictures do the talking: 

Wide open study areas with comfortable seating and natural light dominated the building. The couches on the left side of the picture are built with a variety of seating heights and depths to fit different sizes of people. 

Around the open central atrium area there were desks on most levels. The librarian told me that they had initially put the chairs fairly far apart (in the "Finnish style" - staying away from other people) but students started dragging in chairs from everywhere else to work more closely together. So they bought more chairs! 

Natural light and nice rocking chairs. You can also see here that the inside of the building is very modern, but the outside is brick, to match the surrounding, older buildings. 

Another study area. What you can't see to the left is that there is also a kitchenette so that students can bring and prepare their own lunches. 

Looking down from the top through the stairwell. 

The entryway looks directly up through all the levels of the library.

From the outside - you can see how many windows have been incorporated into the building.

Okay, so two libraries and a delicious breakfast down, now it was time to go check out the train station. I learned that while the credit for the design of the train station goes to Eliel Saarinen, the iconic statues on the front of the station were designed by Emil Wikstrom, the cousin of my great grandfather. No idea what that makes him to me besides a very distant cousin of some sort.  [NB: in Finnish, W and V are pronounced the same. In Emil's day the family still used a W, but at some point at least some of the family decided to change to V.]

It just so happened that the librarian at one of the libraries I visited mentioned some of the spaces at Helsinki City Library 10 - and I realized that was probably the one I had read about. It was right across from the train station in an old postal building. In Library 10 there is a "living room", many listening stations, and you can even check out a guitar! I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the living room because it was full of people, and I wasn't sure I could interrupt them to ask for a picture.

The tiny little children's area

View from the back of the library to the front. It was not a very big space, but it was packed with materials. I think the shelves you can see are either music or videos. 

These chairs had listening stations built into them. 

Check out a guitar!

These small, movable, walls made flexible meeting spaces for study groups. 

We visited one more library on this day, but it was part of a trip to Suomenlinna - which I'll put in a separate post. 

Salon Kaupunginkirjasto - Salo City Library

Before the library, we had to refresh ourselves with a doughnut and coffee in the Salo market square. Donuts and coffee are universally delicious.

After spending the morning at the high school, I went to the Salo public library to see what they had there. I walked around and first, found some interesting books.

Salo Public Library

 The library was fairly large, slightly larger than the Sammamish Public Library - the library closest to my house and school. It is well used by the community. They have a fairly large circulation rate (didn't get the numbers exactly, but I was impressed by them) and it seems to be valued by the community. They have school children visit them frequently. Elementary school students sometimes visit the library - but they also have a bookmobile that travels to elementary schools and stays there for a day at a time. They said that this was for safety - so the kids don't have to walk through the street. They also have a fairly extensive collection of local materials. Including some art work.

One thing that surprised me was that they used a different cataloging system that we use. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it! They said that universities use Dewey Decimal, but in the public library they use this classification system that is similar to Dewey, but only goes from 0-99 instead of 0-900s. The 10s didn't seem to correlate exactly with Dewey either.

Back to the art work in the library. There was a ceramic advent calendar that the librarian showed me and said that it was very popular with people. When I mentioned this to Maija, my mom's sister-in-law who was showing us around, she decided to call the artist and we went to his house!

The advent calendar in the library

The artists' chapel

Artwork by the artists in their home above and below

Englannintunnit - English Classes

My previous post focused on the building and spaces in the Salon Lukio. I did also see the courses and teaching there. I spent time in two English classes, one grammar class and one oral English class.

It is astounding how fluent these students are in English. It was explained to me that in such a small country with a language that no one else in the world speaks, it is necessary for students to learn other languages. Swedish is also compulsory for students in Finland. In addition, many students choose to take a third language! Americans are typically barely bi-lingual. In Finland it is the norm to be quadrilingual!

In the grammar class, 2nd grade (11th grade) students were learning about prepositions. In Finnish there are no prepositions! All prepositional information is conveyed by different endings on the nouns (don't quote me on that... I can only speak about 5 Finish words and don't know any grammar).

All the students had a laptop. I was told it was a "Bee-odd" school. No, that does not mean that students are encouraged to be strange. :) That is how the Finns pronounce BYOD or Bring Your Own Device. However a cart of computers was also wheeled into the room for students who did not bring their computers or just wanted to use a school one. It was clear that the school ones took a little longer to power up and log on.

They began by listening to a YouTube video about prepositions. Then they talked a little bit about them. Everyone then went to a site called Opinaika. Students not only take quizzes using this site, but also do other online lessons. They are assigned, in general, to complete a certain number of points on Opinaika - which can include interactive lessons, quizzes, etc. Also, if a student is absent and misses participation points, they can make up for it on Opinaika. From what I can tell Opinaika is a publisher of content for English classes (and a few other subjects). The teachers cannot customize the lessons, but they can pick and choose which units/lessons students see and do. It also keeps track of student statistics on these lessons for the teacher. In addition it compares the students to students in other schools. The teacher said they also use Quizlet and Kahoot in similar ways.

In this class there were 26 kids - but the room had room for up to 35. I was told this was a middle sized classroom. The students were on task and basically stayed on the right site when they used the computers. This might have been partially because the assistant principal and I were at the back of the classroom.

The next class I went to was an oral English class and it was in the "new" classroom - the one I posted pictures of in my previous post. In this class I got to participate in the group work. The students were debating in groups. The text had a list of questions and each group went through and debated as many as they could. I was in a group of three boys. I'm including a picture of the questions below. I was able to participate in some surprising ways. First, and less surprising, I gave input on the statement "It is difficult to be Iranian in the US" - saying that I agreed. Then, there was a statement about how the Finns helped the Karelian refugees after the Second World War. I, surprisingly, was the only one who knew that the government granted farm land to the refugees. The boys said that they were embarrassed that I knew that they they didn't. :) I had only just learned about it in passing the day before. I didn't say that to them though. A German exchange student said, "I am from Germany, but even I am embarrassed!"

Oral English classes tend to be smaller than typical classes. It is an optional course, not mandatory like many of the other English courses. This course was taught in the "new" classroom, the one I posted pictures of in my previous post. It was very well suited to having discussions and doing group work.