A visit to Northern Finland

The week of February 27 through March 5th Nat and I traveled up to Northern Finland to visit schools in this part of the country.  It was a fantastic experience.  Northern Finland, or "Lapland" as it is called, comprises the largest municipality of Finland and for the most part lies above the Arctic Circle.  The region is heavily forested and is covered in deep snow for a good part of the year. Reindeer farming is big here, and it is quite common to see reindeer meat on the menu in restaurants.  It is also the home of the indigenous Sami people who live in the Northern regions of Scandinavia.

The week was split into two locations, Oulu for the first half of the week and then Rovaniemi 2 hours north by train for the remainder of our time.  We visited two comprehensive schools in each of these towns.  In general, the schools we visited were larger than other schools we've been seeing in the Capitol area, and two of the schools were new or nearly new.  We observed many classrooms, and gave talks on American education and I continued to conduct my focus groups talking to the kids about their thoughts on environmental concerns and sustainability.

Particularly in the newly built schools, you could see evidence of thoughtful planning for the more collaborative, multi-age, flexible learning strategies expected by the newly developed standards for Finnish education.  The buildings had "shared spaces", with movable walls, curtained areas, and lots of soft furniture that could be moved about to create small group learning experiences.  Particularly impressive were the craft/technical education areas which were over the top in terms of state-of-the-art equipment.  I didn't know what half of the machines did but it felt like you could make just about anything in there necessary to build another space station!  The students and teachers were clearly proud of their schools.  Here are some photos of the schools we visited:

Ounasrinteen comprehensive school, Rovaniemi

Metsokangas comprehensive school, Oulu

Students from Ounsavaara Jr. High school (Rovaniemi) acting out a skit dealing with water conservation (I think they are trying to make a washing machine??!)

Huge new gym!

It is common for kids to bike to school even in the winter months.  There must be 500 bikes in this area!  Most of the bikes have studded tires to grip onto the ice.

These students are setting the table to serve a blueberry cobbler they made in home economics class.

Just one of the many rooms of equipment used in their crafts/technical education courses

Our student tour guides for a school in Rovaniemi

One example of "soft" flexible-learning spaces found in these new schools.

Students in this Oulu school painted old chairs and re-purposed them into their new building.

Working on our projects between school visits

Nat and I giving talks on our schools and US education to a group of kids in Oulu.

Some examples of wood-working projects done by middle school kids.  Eat your heart out, Ikea!

Oulu and Rovaniemi were both really nice towns to visit as well.  It was beautiful to see all the fresh white snow (Helsinki can be more grey and rainy).  Oulu is the most populated city in Northern Finland and had a "small city" feel to it.  Rovaniemi is much smaller, and considered a tourist destination for Lapland adventures such as visiting reindeer farms, ski and snowmobile vacations, and is reputed to be the "official" home of Santa Claus.  My wife and daughter joined me for the weekend after we were done with our school visits in Rovaniemi and we spent two days skiing and visiting the tourist sites.

View of Oulu city street

Heading out in Rovaniemi at night

The one in the middle is reindeer sushi, seared but essentially served raw (sorry Rudolph).

The fam flew up for the weekend.

We were in a cafe in Rovaniemi and heard all this commotion outside.  Went out to check and found this gay pride parade!

An afternoon skiing in Rovaniemi

Visited (did not stay) in an Ice Hotel and restaurant.  The whole thing is made from ice!

Eating a meal in the ice restaurant (local favorites... salmon soup and reindeer with potatoes).  You had to eat fast because it got cold quickly.!

"Santa's village":  A tourist destination in Rovaniemi adjacent to the ice hotel/restaurant where you can take reindeer sleigh rides (didn't do), go ice tobogganing (did do...fun!), and buy all sorts of touristy souvenirs and things made of reindeer antlers.  A bit kitschy for my tastes but fun to explore.