Miracle of learning

The Finnish education system has been the center of the attention for the past few years thanks to the success in the international PISA student assessments. Many educators from different countries have visited our country in hope of learning the secret of the Finnish education system.

The education system here in Finland is remarkably different from other countries. In Finland, education does not cost a penny for the student and the school offers lunch for free too. There are study trips to other cities and sometimes even to other countries. Also there´s an exchange system between schools from different countries which makes it possible to experience how another school system outside Finland works.

School days are short but effective. In high school, you can make your own timetable. I think it is one of the best things in high school. You have so much control over your own school work, but it´s highly suggested that you should stick to your timetable as well. 

The teachers are required to have higher academic degree that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. In the past 10 years I´ve meet all kinds of teachers. The one thing I especially like like in teacher are that they are all individual and that they bring their own personality into their classes too, which makes the learning so much more comfortable.

I watched an interesting and inspiring video of the many faces of education in Finland. The video includes three people: a sing-language hiphop rapper Signmark who´s also the ambassador of Sign Language, world-class figure skater Laura Lepistö and Finland´s Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb. Signmark really inspired me – he has made so much out of the life and he hadn´t let the fact that he´s deaf to let himself down. Alexander Stubb told us in the video that the most important thing about Finland´s education system is to be equal about everything. Every student haves equal opportunity to success in school. I think this may be the best way to describe the Finnish education system.

In the article named “Learning from Finland” lists some things what United States could learn from Finland. First, reconsider those policies that advocate choice and competition as the key drivers of educational improvement. Second, provide teachers with government-paid university education and move professional support in their work, and make teaching a respected profession. Finally,  with the fourth PISA study again showing that the US education system is lagging those in many other countries, Americans should admit that there is much to learn from these systems. Briefly, the article tells how the United States should change their education system before it´s too late. I think the Finland education system part of the article, also the environment part were true. We do have wonderful education environment here. 

The learning itself, in my opinion, is all about yourself. No one´s there to force you to study or telling you that you should quit. There will be people trying to help you with school if you don´t understand something. The grades come how you´ve been studying and how you´ve been showing your learning through classes. I

I think the best combo to Finnish education system is short days and effective learning during classes. Short days makes it possible to do other things than just studying and the teaching will be more effective too. The teachers and we students have our own lives too. If our lives focus on school, the teaching and the studying will become numb. We need to have time to get school out of our minds for while and to do what we enjoy more than studying. If we have rested well, the learning in classes will increase, but if we´re stressed and numb of learning, it won´t work.

So where´s the miracle of learning? I would answer this by saying there´s no miracle. The education environment is like a perfectly painted painting- it´s juts how people see this painting as well as how people use this education system for themselves.

1st year of high school

I still remember the first day when I came to Kaarina´s High School. I was so excited, yet a little bit scared to start a new school without any of my old friends. Actually the biggest fear of starting high school was the fear of being alone, without any friends.  Luckily it turned out that there were quite many of my old friends and acquaintances. Quickly we formed a dense group of friends. I think I´m so lucky to have these people in my life. 

When the fear of being friendless passed, I found a bunch of other fears. Fears like how my studies will go, how I can manage to wake up early in the morning so I wouldn´t be late for school. I don´t live in Kaarina so I have to be out of the house when it´s 7am and really, it´s not easy. By the time passed I found a suitable timetable for my morning activities and I also learned how to eat breakfast super fast and at the same time choosing what to wear for school. 

New subjects were a long waited thing – philosophy and psychology. I remember when I was at the elementary school and they were some older students there telling use about high school and about these two subjects. I think they were really fascinating.

In summary, my first year of high school couldn´t be better; I got to meet awesome people and I finally got to study philosophy and psychology. Also I gained some interest in theater, which I never really thought would be that interesting.

 

 

 

weekly school post; air conditioning

I always complain about how cold it is in the school. The reason of this miserable coldness is the air conditioning. When I first started in this school, the air conditioning wasn´t even working. It was suffocating and hot. I complained about the hotness. But now when the air conditioning is working, it´s cold. And I complain about the cold. 

But really, it´s so cold here.

til@

Our school has this one area which includes sofas, a big TV and books among other things. It´s an area where we can go to study when it´s not about ordinary classroom study. It´a really nice area actually. I´ve had my math, religion, psychology and English and drama classes there. Usually we do projects and writing there. I think drama classes are perfect to be held in the area, since it´s pretty spacious and the sofas are really nice.

Blogging about school

I´m just going to tell a little bit about my new schedule.

This is my first time when I have a free period 3 times in a week. In this 75minutes plus our lunch break, I usually go around this small little town with my friend. Or we just hang around the school The free periods are okay but the fact that this school is in the middle of nowhere. It´s quite boring. There´s nothing to do.

You are what you know

I think the ” you are what you know ” statement is true.

It´s true based on the fact that small kids, for example, know less and they act like that. They´re innocent and curious unlike the adults who have more knowledge and so they act more mature.

People lie about themselves and about the things that they know. This confirms that people are what they know and they lie about things what they know because there´s something they need to hide or what they can´t tell. It really depends on people how they react on incidents when they need to tell the truth or they can lie.

I think people´s minds are based on the things they know. Someone can know more than another and someone could have had more experiences in life so they know how to react when difficult things come up. But people learn things too so their knowledge just increases and increases.

” The more you know the more you suffer ” is true, too. Sometimes it´s better not to know everything, every detail of things that you don´t really want to know. These things are usually about something bad.

So to shorten the thing: yes, people are what they know.

hate-love relationship

I think everyone already knows what my hobby is – playing the violin. I have a really complicated love-hate relationship with said instrument and even now I don´t know why I started to play it or why am I continuing to play it.

The whole story starts back in 2001 when I had just come home from school. I was a first grader back then, just taken my entrance examinations for learning piano or violin. I´ve been a student of Conservatory since I was 3 years old, starting from some kind of music-play school. I don´t remember the system there anymore but then again, I´ve never understood the system in there, not that a small 6 years old me really cared. I was just so happy by the fact that I got the learn how to play the violin. Yes, I failed the examination of piano, but I didn´t really care what instrument I was going to play.

My first violin lessons were full of excitement and I really tried hard to develop in my skills. This lasted 2 years and before I realized it, I had started to hate playing the violin. I always thought that it wasn´t fair that all my friends were outside playing together while I was in home playing some stupid violin. Then the famous 7^th grade came and I started to skip my violin classes. During that time I also joined an orchestra in Conservatory, only to skip them too. The 7^th and 8^th grades were time when I was being rebellious towards almost everything. I remember mum telling me to just quit playing the violin, since it isn´t a very cheap hobby to do. She actually still tells this to me.

Then the 9^th grade took its place and I had changed 360degrees from before. The first violin lesson on that term really confused my violin teacher. I remember her telling me that she´s happy to see me grown up a little and I couldn´t agree with her more.

But no more about the past, now back to the present. I have been playing violin 10 years now. I love it even though I don´t always have time to practise ( read: I occasionally forget that the whole instrument exists. Oh I´m horrible sometimes ) Mum still keeps telling me to quit it already because the reasons on the last sentence. I also started to play the piano on last term. So far it´s fun and I like it but it´s same with the violin – I still forget to practise.

I don´t see my future depending on my violin skills. I´ve never wanted to be a professional violist or be in an orchestra ( the orchestra thing really wasn´t my thing ). But I just enjoy playing it.

The song I´m practising right now.

pictures are from tumblr, song is from youtube

Something odd

I´ve travelled a lot in my life and go to many wonderful places.  The most memorable trip was on last summer, when we went to China with my mum and my friend Heidi. The trip was memorable because of I had my friend with me and it had been two years when I last time was at China.

 

This time the trip wasn´t like before: sure the trips to China were always fun and some way memorable but this time it was totally different. I remember when I was 14 years old and we went to China. Back then I had pretty short hair and I had a boyish style. When we went to shopping, people usually gave us discounts because they admired my style and often thought I was a boy.

 

 

Anyway, this summer people weren´t thinking I was a boy. This time they actually didn´t know I was Asian at all. On the first week of our 4 weeks trip we went to Starbuck with just me and Heidi. When it was time to tell our orders, the waiter started to babble something in English.  He was just going to ask help from his co-worker when I opened my mouth and told him our orders. Poor guy was so confused when he realized that I was pure a Chinese.

 

First I just thought that it was just the Starbucks guy who thought I was a foreigner but after one week, every now and then people in stores would look at me and whisper something behind their hands. Some people asked my mum if I was adopted or was my dad European. My mum found this amusing and she just laughed when people asked her these things.

 

Things went even stranger when we took a trip to Beking. We went to see all these tourist places since Heidi was with us and mum had this urge to show every tiny piece of China to her. Not that she or I had anything against it, it was fun to see the Forbidden Palaces and the Great Wall. We just didn´t know that in the middle of the tourist centre, some people would come up to me and ask for a photo together. It was odd and it wasn´t just one time. People thought that I was a model or something fancy like that since I was so tall and unlike most of Asians, I had a blond long hair and I didn´t look like a 16 years old teenager usually looks in China.

 

The oddest thing happened in a shopping mall. There was a photographer, looking around and asking girls if he could take a picture of them. Then he handed over a business card and talked about something. Soon we realized that he was from a modelling agency, looking for new models. After shopping for a while, the photographer came to talk to me and asked for a picture. Immediately my mum said no, since she had been traumatised by the Beking trip when people wanted to have a picture of me. The photographer tried to explain why he wanted to take a picture but mum just simply said no and dragged me and my friend to another store.

 

It was yet unbelievable and a little bit comical how much attention I gained when we were in China. I´m pretty sure that it was partly my friend´s fault too since there aren´t so many Europeans in Asia.

Being youth nowadays isn´t as easy as it may look like. We are so individual that sometimes we can´t just understand everyone. Stereotypes. I think stereotypes is the one thing which makes living as a teenager difficult. People like different things than others and they want to express themselves. I think it´s great that we have this opportunity to show the world what we really are. Too bad some people just don´t appreciate that.

We had some Singaporean students in our school  some days ago. They´re really nice. I didn´t really have time to get to know them better but what I got to know was something great. They´re really nice people, such a shame that time went so quickly.

In the English class I talked with a girl called Jocelyn. She was a really nice girl, outgoing and we had a really interesting conversation about being young in Singapore and Finland.  I already knew that in Asia, school and education are the most important things ever and I can´t be happier to be getting my education in Finland. I wouldn´t have survived in an Asian school with all that competition going on between students and parents. I wouldn´t stand the pressure of it.

I envy everything else in Singapore but not that education-part. All the shopping malls and the things they´re offering you to spend your money on are so much nicer than they´re offering here in Finland. But that´s just my opinion. And the piercings in Singapore – I´m a huge fan of piercings – they are so much cheaper than in Finland. It´s not fair!

Beyond all this I still think that being young in Finland or in SG isn´t that different. In the end we´re all still human beings with thoughts. We all have dreams and goals in life. We´re all searching for ourselves in this life and if we´re lucky enough we might find it.

ps. a photo coming later , since I have to ask Jocelyn if I can use the photo of us !

Vocabulary

Pledge =  When someone makes a pledge, they make a serious promise, that they will do something.

• The meeting ended up with a pledge that they will do something about it.

Veracity = The quality of being true or the habit of telling the truth.

• We believe in the veracity of your research.