Week 12: 22nd March – 28th March

Personal and Cultural Development

I have come to the conclusion that the winter in Finland never ends, and the snow will stay forever. I reached this conclusion as I took the role of a tourist and took in the sights of three Finnish cities in three days – Turku, Tampere and Helsinki – all of which still have snow. It has been fascinating to see how this country copes with what would only be described back home as ‘adverse weather conditions’. Although, I believe after Easter there is some sort of requirement by law that every driver must change the winter tyres back to normal tyres in order to maintain the roads as much as possible. It will be interesting to see how this works out considering the snow is still here and still falling.

I have been in Turku for 12 weeks, and only for the first time this week did I embrace my role as a tourist. It has felt like my home town the whole time, so I decided to save the sightseeing until I had another friend over to visit when we could be tourists together. The opportunity arose this weekend, and we decided to travel by train to explore Tampere and Helsinki in the process. Having passed the cathedral in Turku many, many times, I was surprised that all that time inside that beautiful exterior was a magnificent interior. Turku castle was equally as impressive.

Tampere is often considered the rival city to Turku, and I must admit, after visiting Tampere, I still prefer Turku. However, Tampere did have plenty to offer. We took in the Lenin Museum, from which I learned a lot, and some fun-filled activities including a dolphinarium, planetarium and aquarium. It was quite an experience viewing a dolphin show in Finland; something I definitely did not expect to see!

After seeing the inside of Turku cathedral, I was all the more eager to see inside the churches in Helsinki. I had been told there was a church in the rocks that was worth seeing, so we took the tram to it, but initially it looked disappointing. After going inside, I was awe-struck. It is probably the most amazing church I’ve ever seen. Despite not being a religious person myself, I could appreciate that that church would be the perfect place to worship.

The final highlight of the week was my turn to cook. I hosted a little dinner party by inviting some friends to my apartment where I offered them carrot, celery sticks and peppers to dip into homemade sauce for starter, cottage pie for main, and caramelised bananas with ice cream and chocolate sauce for dessert. I actually felt quite nervous, as if I was entertaining strangers on Come Dine with Me, but that was my perfectionist side coming out. I have learned from watching that show to enjoy the experience, because if the host is enjoying the evening then most likely the guests will too! Overall, it was a lovely evening, everything ran smoothly and I did enjoy myself!

Professional Development

My school experience continued this week, as well as normal classes and lectures. I’m getting more and more used to this set up of mixed learning, rather than the block practice, and so far I have found it a lot more manageable. I returned to the mixed Grade 5 and 6 class (P7 & Year 8) to see the continuation of their Ethics lesson from last week. They were learning and discussing about the afterlife, what different religions suggest, ghosts, and premonitions. Once again, I was excited to see the children so engaged in discussion of such a deep concept. They shared some emotional stories but in a mature and sensitive way. One girl told her story of the famous Tsunami in 2004, because she was there at the time. I was fascinated by her story, her bravery and her maturity.

I took the time this week to observe some CLIL classes, where I could see bilingual education in practice, in Finnish and English. I was in the Teacher Training School of Turku, so some of the lessons were being taught by Finnish student teachers. It was interesting to note that they all train at one school, so one class may have four or five different student teachers teaching them per day, and the trainees may have other students observing their lesson. This, to me not being used to it, would feel so strange. One lesson I observed, I was one of about twenty other students observing, but the trainee didn’t look fazed. It also occurred to me that for those classes that are taught by the student teachers, there is a lack of stability, but it’s not clear as to how much of an issue this could potentially be. Time may tell.