Back to High School

In our attempt to learn as much about Finnish culture as possible, we might have let it slip to our Finnish moms that we might be interested in seeing a school. Being former teachers, our Finnish moms pounced on the idea. Little did we know that, rather than observing high school, we would be reliving it all over again.

First of all, we forgot how ungodly early we had to wake up to get to high school. To meet Marja-Leena and Pirjo outside one of the university buildings by 8:15 AM, we had to wake up around 7. Then, we walked across the street to the Normaalikoulu, or "Normal School," which is attended by kids ages 12-18. A super-nice English teacher whose name we don't really know had agreed to show us around for the day - and by day, we mean entire school day. And by show around, we mean participate.

They did tell us ahead of time that we'd been asked to give a short presentation to one class... but what we didn't realize is that this actually meant giving three 40-minute, class-long presentations. We created a PowerPoint of a bunch of photos from NC and around the US, and then at the end the students asked us questions (or didn't, in the case of one class!)

The school looked a lot like an American private school, and was notably well-supplied. It was also huge, being four stories tall in its main section. Our first class was Spanish. We pretty much just sat in the back and listened as the Finnish students took a vocabulary quiz. We were glad we didn't have to participate in this! After Spanish, we took a short walk (approximately fifteen minutes) to the University pool, where we put little shower-cap-like blue booties over our shoes and walked down to watch the 8th grade P.E. swimming unit... and numerous men in Speedos. Jacob: we saw a red Speedo, and this is as close to your large Scandinavian man in a red thong that we intend to get. We could go into an in-depth analysis of the bathing suit fashions, but we don't want to put y'all through that.

Following swim class, we took another short walk back to the school, where we had a very Finnish lunch of "mashed" (potatoes), sausage (giant hot dogs), vegetable patties, and cabbage salad. Then we went to English class, where we gave our first presentation. The kids in this class were 8th graders, and after a little hesitation, were very eager to ask questions about the States, especially about cultural differences. They found it very entertaining that we are so talkative and tend to get odd looks when we smile at people.

Then we went to a more advanced English class, where we gave our presentation again, to a friendly but slightly less eager audience of older students. They wanted to know our opinions on Finnish music, movies, and what Americans know about Finland. Unfortunately, the answer to most of these questions was not much. Then we went to music class, which was being led by a young teacher-in-training college student. The class was pretty amazing, because not only did it have a ton of music equipment (around 15 acoustic guitars on the wall, a drum set, electric guitar, electric bass, keyboard, and microphones), but the students also started off by singing an impressively good version of an American pop song. At the end, it was like some kind of crazy version of School of Rock, because a bunch of students just grabbed their instruments and started rocking out, while the teacher stood at the board and pointed out chords.

We gave our presentation to one more English class, but they were pretty uninterested. Actually, the teacher spent the entire time asking us questions. We were super, super tired at this point, having stayed up late to make our presentation, but we had one last class to attend. We visited a Visual Arts class, where students were beginning a project trying to emulate the "spirit" of the architecture of the school using 3-D materials. Ready to collapse, we finally thanked our Finnish moms for the day and made our way home. At 4:30.

It's a good thing we're not in high school any more.