Week 10 7/03/11-13/03/11

This week was the start of Lent and as a result on Sunday everybody went sledging, it was sledging day in Finland and thousands go sledging.  Also on Shrove Tuesday, during a school visit, I experience a traditional meal.  There was a pea soup with minced meat, which tasted really good, but the main piece of food was a shrove bun or Laskiaispullat.  The shrove bun is the Finnish equivalent of our pancake on Shrove Tuesday.  The pastry had wiped cream and a raspberry jam spread in between it and it was very tasty. 

On Tuesday we had a school visit to a Finnish high school.  There was an opportunity to observe a few lessons and chat to the teachers.  The most striking thing I noticed was the equipment that the school had.  Every room had a data projector and at least two computers.  The school provides all the equipment which was phenomenal as the music department had electric drum kits, bass guitars, microphones, amplifiers and a number of other equipment.  But the technology department wowed me the most.  There was more equipment in that department than I have ever seen; gas and mig welders, ban saws, drilling equipment and other tools I have never seen before, all with automated vacuums to minimise dust.  When entering the computer programming suit (which included a computer guided laser cutter!) the teacher told us that they felt they needed more equipment as their current equipment was 4 years out of date.  It was the same throughout all the school departments, they all had a lot more equipment and a lot more sophisticated technology than any school I had visited in my entire life!  The school does benefit from the governments focus on good education and it would be great if Northern Ireland had even half of the amount of equipment.

Within many observations it struck me that pupils have a lot of freedom.  They talk to their classmates constantly as well as on occasion listen to their MP3 players and even answer their mobile phones!  Pupils would walk in and out of the class with ease and the teacher would not make any thing of this.  The relaxed setting and freedom of the pupils gives the impression that in a class which lasts 45 minutes not a lot of work gets completed, however Finland is third in the world for educational success so these methods must be working.

Picture: the Laskiaispullat