Primary school visit

School visit

Due to I study education in Switzerland, I was very happy to finally visit a school. I was curious about the system and the way how children are being taught. Finland gets everytime very good results in the PISA studies, so I think that something has to be very special.

We met on 13^th of February in front of the Luostarivuori School in Turku. The responsible teacher was extremely nice and welcomed us warmly. After a short visit through the campus we found ourselves in a classroom where English was taught.

As soon as we entered the room from the fifth graders the kids stood up and greeted us with a “good morning”. They totally spoke together like a choir. I was surprised because I am not used to that in Switzerland.

The lesson seemed very structured. First the kids had the opportunity to ask us some questions in English about ourselves and then the lesson started. They repeated some words after the teacher, worked in pairs and wrote some sentences down. The children were very focussed on their work, it was very impressive. After 45 minutes we left the classroom to observe another lesson.

That lesson was quite different. It was an international class in 8^th degree. Surprisingly also these students stood up to greet the teacher. Due to many ill students the teacher had to improvise, because for her original plan she needed all students. The students got the task to play a little sketch about over politeness or rudeness. That’s what they were working for the last view weeks, as the teacher said so.

Of course, some of the students got some strange topics, which were related with sex. But I think that is normal in this age, I mean they are about 15 years old, what else is more interesting than the “forbidden” sex theme?!

Both of the teachers offered us to teach some lessons. Of course we agreed right away. We now have the task to tell something about Switzerland, the culture, the food, the landscape etc. I am looking forward to it!

To come back to the original question, what is the difference between the Finish and the Swiss school system? – I couldn’t find severe differences. In Finland the kids start in the third degree with English and in the 5^th with Swedish. We have the same, the kids in our school have to start with learning English as well in the 3th degree and with French in the fifth.

Of course, after these two visits I can not tell about many things because I have rarely seen some lessons. It is just too bad that we don’t study education here =(.