Going to school

Porolahti School in winter, image from Wikimedia

 One of the things we've most anticipated during our trip is IT going to a Finnish school. It has been more than three decades since I've gone to a Finnish school and the system has obviously changed in that time. We were curious about food, about the treatment of kids with ADHD, about the classes and about how the schools of Finland (and Helsinki in particular) is dealing with immigrants. And many other things besides. 

IT's school is called "Porolahden peruskoulu". "Porolahti" means 'reindeer bay', and it's the name of the bay and area just south from us. Google translates "peruskoulu" to Grammar school, which probably says nothing to Americans. It is, in Finland, the first nine years of schooling, and kids go to these schools from age seven to sixteen, or thereabouts. At that stage, they apply for secondary schools, either the more academic "lukio", a three year program (although it can be longer or shorter) that prepares for university studies, or a vocational school, which is about the same length and prepares kids for a specific profession. You can change between these and there are ways to switch from a vocational route to an academic one. 

IT, at the age of fifteen, was placed on ninth grade, which is the last grade of the Grammar School. His school building houses only the three highest grades, so it is nowhere near as large as Ithaca High School, where he came from. As we live in Eastern Helsinki, there are many immigrants from all over the world. IT mentioned that some of his classes have a kid from Iraq and another from Texas. There are probably kids from everywhere else between those two places, but he doesn't know them yet. 

The children at the last grade are busy trying to figure out what and where they will study next year. One of the things IT has to do is to find a two-week Introduction to working life placement. The kids try to find a place to work for these two weeks. IT is struggling, of course, shy person as he is, but he has been trying hard nevertheless. I remember these weeks of Introduction to working life from my own youth. It can be great, if you find a nice placement, which I did, but it can also be very boring in a bad place. 

One thing that's different in a Finnish school compared to an American one is the work schedule. An American school tends to have two schedules that switch every other day - IT had A-days and B-days. In Finnish schools, there are five different schedules, one for each day of the week. So, for instance, IT studies Math on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he has Biology only on Mondays and Swedish only on Wednesdays. This allows the schedule to fit more subjects. 

We had some trouble with electives. Many electives were full since the electives are actually chosen at the end of seventh grade. IT chose an excellent Science class, but the second elective he chose between only bad options, and so ended up with a Next Level English class. However, we managed to get him into a History class meant for immigrant children who haven't studied History in Finland, and IT was allowed to drop the Next Level English so his schedule would not get too full. 

The other class meant for immigrants is the Swedish class. The Finnish kids have already studied Swedish for two years, so IT was very confused in his class. Fortunately the school offered a beginner's Swedish. Finnish schools offer many more languages than American schools. In the ninth grade, children have an obligatory foreign language (often English), obligatory Swedish class (as this is the second official language of Finland) and they might also have an elective language class. Unfortunately, Porolahti could only form a Spanish class, since there needs to be a certain number of children in the class. I wanted IT to continue with his French, but too few children wanted it when the electives were chosen. 

IT is not getting a Finnish class for immigrants. His class has "second language" in its title, but it is a Finnish language and literature class and IT claims it's exactly the same as the class for native Finnish speakers. My guess is that his grading might be different. There are also classes for immigrant kids who have just arrived to the country. They will only join normal classes after they have learned a sufficient amount of Finnish.  

One of my favorite things that has happened with IT's school was last week's meeting with some teachers. PW and I both went, and IT was also present. From the school, the principal, vice principal, special education teacher, counselor and IT's Homeroom Teacher were all present. The special education teacher was in charge and asked IT about how the school is going and what questions we had. We were able to solve a lot of little problems and riddles. This meeting was organized by the Special Education teacher, who reached out to me. After this, the teachers responded to their assignments very quickly. IT's academical counselor sent me a message this week asking how IT was doing about his Introduction to working life placement. I don't know if teachers are always this proactive about their students in Finland. My experience in Ithaca is much less helpful! 

IT's favorite thing about his school so far seems to be the food. He gets a hot meal for free every day, and there is always a hot vegetarian option. Porolahti has a special advantage: they prepare the food at the school, so it is fresher and often better quality than the food in places where it is brought from large commercial kitchens. 

So far we will give a high grade to the school and the teachers. Obviously this is just one family's experience, and the things we value others don't.  

Spinach pancakes, a Finnish favorite