Week 8 21/02/11-28/02/11

Unfortunatly I was in Stockholm this weekend so my blog entry is a bit late (but more on Stockholm next week). 

The sun has arrived in Finland.  January and the start of February have been mostly overcast with short daylight hours.  However everything has changed over this week and some of last week.  It is so bright due to the sun being reflected by the snow.  Because of the geography of Finland it makes it easy to travel to neighbouring countries relatively cheaply.  Many students have travelled to either Sweden or Estonia with a few even travelling to Hungary because it is so cheap to do so.  Because Turku is a harbour town there are many ferries travelling to Sweden.  Because of the good relationship between the two counties many families travel for the holidays.  This week is the schools half term holiday and as a result Moominland became populated by the Moomins.  Based on a set of books by Swedish speaking Finn Tove Jansson, the characters became a popular children’s TV series and book series.  The Moomins are hugely popular with their images on mugs, bed sheets and many other products.

This week I finished my Finnish language course and we discussed the exam conditions.  In Finland you can take an exam up to three times.  However this is the only class in which I have an exam, every other class requires an assignment, usually an essay.  In one class we have discussed the methods of assessment in other countries.  In Finland assessment usually is an essay of approximately eight pages in length and not so many exams.  However one student in my class who comes from Turkey explained that it is not uncommon to have oral exams, especially in philosophy classes.  This was also true of Serbia however the Finnish tutor only explained the only oral exam in Finland is a singing exam.  Another interesting about the Serbian education system is that Religious Studies was only made a subject in 2003/4 as more of an information class on the Orthodox Church rather than any spiritual development or world religions being taught.