A Truly International Week

This week has proven to be another busy - but very exciting - one. After all, lukio has been hosting visitors from Sweden, Iceland and Latvia as part of the Nordplus Project that some of our wonderful students are involved in. This is an opportunity for the students to travel to these different countries, form new friendships, and complete a project independently.

On Monday, it was all about the group getting to know each other. Ice-breakers (games) were of course the answer! After learning each other's names, the students were split into groups and tasked to create marshmallow and spaghetti towers...

They also played some Spoon Assassin. The aim of this game is simple: chase your competitors and tap them with your spoon in order to "assassinate" them and take their spoon. The winner is the person who finishes with all of the spoons. Rules like "you're immune from being "assassinated" for 5 seconds if you take off your shoe and wave it in the air" make the game all the more ridiculous!

Afterwards they attempted to make a container that would keep an egg safe from breaking if we dropped it from a high place. Three out four of the groups managed to keep their eggs safe which is a massive success if you ask me!

After all of these crazy challenges, on Monday evening, our Finnish students and Nordplus visitors provided and tasted popular food from each country. There were some seriously delicious offerings...

Aside from this incredible week of project work, the International Studies lessons have continued as usual. On Wednesday, we carried on with our topic of "Freedom". For starters, the class was split into four groups and given the task of role-playing: a democracy, a communist state, a dictatorship and a monarchy in order to grow more familiar with these key terms and systems. For example, the "communist" group was tasked with announcing to the class that all must hand in their pencil cases in order for the equal distribution of standard pens for everyone.

The activity was an interesting one, making these terms more memorable. Nonetheless, the tone of our lesson changed as we explored the sometimes harsh realities of this world, paying attention to the situation in North Korea. One student summarised their feelings with honesty: "These things can be overwhelming if you think about them and so sometimes it is easier not to think about them."  However, we all realised the importance of awareness and the platform that our class gives for this.

Certainly, these past few days in particular have provided the students the chance to be open to and discover more about the world around them and that is simply invaluable.

Who Are You?

This week has been absolutely packed to say the least.

For starters, the IS2 class got to send off their DNA samples to be tested. Big stuff! Through doing this, we're hoping to break stereotypes and discover what it really means to be "Finnish". It's not everyday that you get to address the question of who you are. To be continued...

Elsewhere, in Wednesday's IS1 class we began another topic. This is one concerns "freedom". To begin with we examined human rights. In groups, the class decided which five human rights (from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) they would establish on a new planet - because you never know when you might find yourself in charge of a civilisation far, far away of course. After also role-playing a court case concerning freedom of speech, they categorised certain situations (such as "killing is wrong") in terms of whether they should apply all the of the time, most of the time, some of the time, or never. This garnered some seriously interesting conversation.

Beyond this, Merenjoan koulu experienced its own tea party on Friday. We had roughly 100 brownies on offer as well as some jam cake (these naturally disappeared within about five minutes). The students also tried their hand at some croquet and bowling with some very impressive results.

The only not-so-great part of the past couple of weeks was that I experienced my first slip on Finnish ice. If I'm honest though, I was sadder about dropping my sandwich than landing on my back. So, I guess, here's to a week of not slipping (hopefully)...

Here's to the New Year!

Hello, 2017! Following two taxi rides, three buses, three trains and one (delayed) flight, I’m now in Kalajoki...

The journey home for Christmas was pretty adventurous too. I took the train to Helsinki where I spent the night, marvelling at all of the beautiful Christmas lights and decorations. My travel companion, Ahren, decided that we should also be vikings for the night in a nearby restaurant because who wouldn’t want to wear such glorious helmets while eating dinner...

This was the calm before the storm. After a 5am start on the Thursday, our flight was delayed by almost two hours due to fog around Gatwick Airport (typical British weather). This meant that I missed my train from London to Leicester and so I ended up waiting in England’s capital for a few hours in order to catch a bus home.

Nonetheless, it was all worth it in the end as I got to catch up with family and friends. We enjoyed a traditional Christmas dinner, some crackers, and lots of Finnish chocolate that I’d brought back with me. I even got my siblings to try Salmiakki which they liked! I was in utter disbelief...how could this be?!

(These are Christmas crackers, a British tradition. Two people pull on either end of the cracker and whoever wins the largest part gets a paper crown, a small toy and a very bad joke!)

Soon, it was time to return to Kalajoki and thus began the long journey back to Finland. After three days of travelling from one place to another, it’s safe to say that I’ll be happy not to see any form of public transportation for quite some time.

Today marks the first day back at school this year and our International Studies started off with a bang. Monday’s class explored the school and town in order to realise the extent to which Kalajoki is a multicultural place. They also created a display on three multicultural cities: London, New York, and Sydney...

What a fun start to the year!