First time seeing
Vanhat was a beautiful accident. It happened when I was visiting Pateniemi
Koulu. At some point during that day, everyone came and gathered in front of the
gym hall and some teacher told me that upper secondary school students were
going to dance for us. Indeed, it was an eye-opening performance. My mouth was
opening the whole time as well! (I am from Aisa and I didn’t even familiar with
the very popular American Prom culture.) I got to know that: this dance is a
celebration of when the second-year students become the seniors of the school.
The third-year students just left school the day before, on the “penkkarit”
day.
Overall, that vanhat
thing left an interesting impression on me. Soon after that, I left Finland and
didn’t think further about it.
Nevertheless, vanhat
became one of the most frequently mentioned topics from the very beginning of
our spring semester. I thought that all second-year students learned the dance
during their PE lessons when I first watched the vanhat one year ago. After working
here, I got a peek into this very sophisticated thing. What do I mean by
“sophisticated”?
Reason 1: Principal
asked me to leave the vanhat dress advertisements on the school board, but we
cleaned many other ads last September. She said students would need those. That
surprised me.
Reason 2: Some
students won’t participate because the dress is expensive and vanhat is the
only situation where you wear it, specifically for girls.
Reason 3: Students
plan to find the partner when their upper secondary school day starts. Vanhat
is the Princess’s Day to many girls and it is not easy for every one of them to
find the Prince.
Reason 4: Students
feel “stressed” with the dancing practice and hairdressing before the ball
happens, because they want everything to be perfect on that day.
Reason 5: There are
some students deciding not to take part in this Princess’s Day.
Here you can also
listen to two of our second-year students discussing about how the preparation
of vanhat added stress to their life.
With all these
“sophisticated” pre-judgement, I came to watch this year’s vanhat. I didn’t
enjoy as much as someone who sat next me and have watched vanhat many years and
still feels hyper-exciting. (It's William, of course!) I know there must be
something wrong with me or my such biased information that I couldn’t focus on
the moment. I was thinking too much about those who didn’t take part in the
ball.
I decided to watch it
again! The last dance of today was meant for participants’ families and
friends. The atmosphere of the audience area was already different. When the
dance started, I found so many happy faces on the stage. Those Finnish students
were smiling! Some of them smiled so hard that I even smiled. They were also
interacting with each other! Of course, they would be interacting with or even
“falling in love with” their partners because the ball created a special moment
where they see the best of their partners. It’s a fairy tale moment and it’s
surreal. But life is so monotonous that we need that kind of moment, don’t we?
If not here, there must be somewhere else. And those students who didn’t take
part in this, they will certainly find that moment somewhere else.
I looked at the happy
dancers, suddenly I realized how amazing this whole education system is. I was
very much bothered when I first entered one classroom, or later most classrooms
in upper secondary schools, that girls and boys were sitting away from each
other. I tried to mingle them. How ridiculous I was when I think back now. This
system already has the opportunity for their students to mingle with each
other: the very elegant dancing party. The moment students decide to attend
vanhat, they started “playing the game” with the whole group already. It’s a
long-term game. When you finish this game, you are mature enough to be the
seniors in school. In Finnish, they called it “kypsä”. “Kypsä” also suits for
students who made the decision not to attend the ball; students who made their
choices to be a Princess or Prince and the students who I have neglected due to
my ignorance.
The highlight of the
ball was the last part when participants’ families and friends were invited to
dance on the stage. A celebration for all!
To sum up: these two
days are very special and extremely important for me to understand Finnish
culture, which is embedded in our school life as well. Kalajoki and the people
living here, win my heart. Cheers! May your life never end with celebrations!
Hilarious or elegant.
I said to my
colleagues in the staff room that I wish I was 5 years old so that I could
experience the awesome education system. How beautiful it would be. :)
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