Last couple of weeks in Finland!

It is with mixed emotions that I am leaving Finland in just a few days, a "win win" feeling overall.  I am excited to be getting home, seeing friends and family,  walking the dog, sleeping in my own bed, reconnecting with my students and colleagues at Meadowdale, and all that.  At the same time, I am really going to miss Finland.  Compared to the USA, it is a noticeably relaxed place where people take time to invest in their personal relationships over long coffee chats and take leisurely strolls along the Baltic after work.  People seem less hurried, more in the present here.  I hope that I can retain some of that "Finnishness" with me when I return home to the hustle and bustle of my "regular" life.

These last two weeks have been busy ones, with lots of time spent in the public library listening to "nature sounds" on Spotify while I try to collect my thoughts on all I've learned here and synthesize it into something resembling an Inquiry Project to submit to the Fulbright team back in D.C.  I got that done and turned in a few days ago and feel pretty good about it overall.  That gave me the remaining week to relax and do a few final things around the Helsinki area.  Between this writing and my early morning Sunday flight, its mostly packing and cleaning up the apartment and a few last goodbyes to some of the friends I've made here.

I hope to come back to Finland someday; Janet and Emma and I all wish we could stay longer.  Emma's school friends have been busy taking her out after school and doing fun things with her.

See you all back in the States!

Pussy willows staring to bloom as winter releases its grip on Helsinki

A Helsinki Cathedral on a sunny spring day

I loved this "mirror" I saw in a bathroom at a restaurant!  I think we should put one of these in the girl's bathroom at my school!

One final school visit in Porkkola, outside of Helsinki area.

Porkkola students made a nice meal for me to share with them in their cooking class!

Dessert included

Nature area near Porkkola.  Looks like Maine!

Sharing a meal with a Finnish family whom I met on a school visit.

Janet's friend Serena and her son over to our place for burgers, chips, and chocolate sundaes!

Some last minute souvenir shopping in Helsinki

We took a short ferry ride out to Suomenlinna Island near the Helsinki harbor.  

Janet's friend Laura came for a visit from Seattle and she and I took a two hour train ride out to Turku in the southwest corner of Finland.  Here are some pictures of Turku:

A view down the main town corridor

Daffodils along a bridge

Turku castle, one of the oldest structures in Finland, built in the 1300's when Finland was ruled by Sweden. 

Laura near the Turku town center

Funny sculpture!

The "lake district"- school visits, Fulbright Forum, and a day in Tampere

I spent a week in mid March in south central Finland, an area that is called "the lake district".  Finland has over 60,000 lakes, and this area of Finland contains a very large number of them.  Many Finns have summer cabins here, and come during the summer months to relax, take sauna, fish, paddle, and sleep in.  My reason for coming to this area included some school visits and to give a talk at a Fulbright Forum in Jyvaskyla.

Men ice fishing at a Jyvasjarvi Lake in Jyvaskyla.  You can see the ice augers they use to drill a hole, then they jig with a small lure and catch dozens of small herring-sized fish.  Notice in the back the ice skating track that goes all around the lake.

My school visits were in the small "village" of Hankasalmi, about an hour by bus from the city of Jyvaskyla.  The first day there I arrived too late to see the school, so spent the day exploring Revontuli where my hotel was.  Revontuli is actually a resort, with golf course and cabin rentals during the summer months, but during the winter it is more like a sleepy hotel and pretty much the only place to stay in the area.  Being right on a lake, though, it made for a pleasant and relaxing stay.  I took a long walk out on the still frozen lake.  We (fellow Fulbrighter Nat Woodruff and myself) stayed two days there, and on the second day we were given the chance to take a sauna near the lake and do the famous Finnish Ice Swimming!  I was very excited to do this, since it has been on my Finland "to do list" since the beginning, so I knew I could not pass up the chance.  It was, in a word, awesome!!  I started out in the sauna and got really hot internally, and then walked quickly to the lake where a hole in the ice was cut out and maintained.  The water was about 4deg C, just above freezing, by far the coldest water I have ever swam in (including the Arctic ocean near Barrow Alaska), and intensely biting when you get in.  After about 5-10 seconds I had all I could take and climbed the ladder out.  The crazy thing was, about 20 seconds after getting out, I felt this rapid flush of internal heat rise to the surface of my skin, and it lasted for some time ( I did not feel the need to dash back into the sauna right away).  Both Nat and I did 3 cycles of sauna and lake swim until we both felt pretty much relaxed to the point of being a jellyfish.  I've asked many Finns about the ice swimming, and the majority of people I talk to (not all, some say they have no interest in such a thing) say they enjoy this and consider it a way of maintaining health in body and spirit.  As for me, I see the attraction and would definitely do it again if given the chance.

Out on a frozen lake near Revontouli

Rather poor quality image, but yes this is me swimming in an ice hole.

The sauna near the lake

My school visit the next day was great.  I was hosted by Heli Ikonen and her team of 1-3rd graders and teachers.  They were doing a collaborative unit on water, and the kids (all three grades together) rotated through a series of 5 or 6 classroom "stations" where they did activities related to water cycle, buoyancy, snow sculptures, water cohesion, and an art project related to rain.  We started the day with the whole group getting together to talk over the process and they sang a "water song".  They were adorable, and really enjoyed the activities.  We had a lunch together and played many tag games outside during their recess time.  They were particularly interested rock-paper-scissors and were quick to challenge me at every opportunity.  It was great fun.

Students being prepared for the day's water activities

Working with kids on water cohesion.  How many drops can they get to fill the size of the blue dot?

Another round of rock-paper-scissors!

By the middle of the week it was time to head into Jyvaskyla, where all the Fulbrighters met to share our projects (at this point) at a conference.  It was great to get all 8 of us together, and we were joined by about 20 other Fulbright scholars and students all doing various research projects on topics ranging from the environment to music, criminal law, photography, genetics, and more.  The conference was two days of sharing our work and fielding questions and exchanging ideas.  It was a bit sad at the end since I will be leaving soon and this will be my last time to see the other 6 US Fulbright teachers (Nat excluded, since he and I both live in Helsinki).  Janet joined me at the end of the conference and she and I spent one day enjoying Jyvaskyla and a second day in Tampere an hour to the south by train.  Emma, for her part, decided that she would rather stay in Helsinki so she arranged to stay with a school friend and enjoyed her time doing that.

All the US Fulbright grantee presenters.  Some students, some teachers, some professors and mid-career professionals.

The Fulbright Forum in Jyvaskyla

My turn at the podium!

Sharing a meal together with the US Fulbright teachers and their families in Jyvaskyla

View of Jyvaskyla from the top of the hill

Our hotel in Tampere.  An old historic building, very elegant!

Janet in front of the historic Finlayson factory in Tampere.  Notice the lack of snow on the ground!  Spring is on its way to Finland!

A weekend in Berlin and Pottsdam

We took a long weekend to Berlin and Pottsdam to visit some friends there.  In Pottsdam we stayed with Janet's family friends the Pommers.  Janet's mom and Vera Pommer have been friends since their college years, and we stayed with Vera's daughter Elizabeth and her family there.  Elizabeth's husband Uli gave us a nice tour of Pottsdam and pointed out some of the history of the place.

Getting a tour of a castle in Pottsdam on a chilly day!

A section of the old Wall that used to divide East and West Germany

Having a nice lunch with Vera in Pottsdam

Emma and I took a train into Berlin one day to see her friend Frida and Frida's mom Anna.  Frida and her family lived in Seattle and played on Emma's soccer team, and moved back to Berlin a year ago.  We enjoyed exploring Berlin together and seeing the sights.

At the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin

Wandering through the Holocaust Memorial...it was a very eerie experience that captures the mood of feeling lost and not knowing what was just around the next corner.  Powerful.

Eating some very elegant ice cream!

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.