Once upon a time there was a group of pupils and teachers from the Giebichenstein Gymnasium Thomas Müntzer (GTM) who worked on a project called: Comenius. It is part of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union. The programme provides partnerships between schools from different countries and gives the opportunity to work and live together.

There is a strong partnership between the Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg and the GTM. The school is one of our partners (“Prime Gymnasium”) in the field of early education and pupil development. Due to this reliable relationship I got the chance to take part in their team trip to Finland.

As I had never been there before, I wanted to prepare myself a little bit for the trip so I did some research on the internet. I found a lot of funny Finland facts. Now I know that the first Miss Universe was from Finland, the English word “sauna” comes from Finnish language and I discovered that Finland is the least corrupt nation in the world. The Finns also seem very competitive to me because there are a lot of amazing events such as:

1. Wife Carrying World Championships

2. Mosquito Swatting Championships

3. Finnish Sauna World Championships.

On the 12^th of April I got to know the German pupils and teachers. We took the plane to Riga and then to Kuopio, where we landed in the middle of the night. A bus took us to Iisamli, the place of the Finnish partner school. The city has about 20.000 inhabitants and it has the charm of a seaside city. Iisalmi is located in the heart of Finland and in the Finnish lake district. With more than 40.000 lakes it is the biggest area of inland lakes in Europe. But enough of Wikipedia knowledge. All I want to say is that it is worth seeing it yourself and feeling Finnish nature for a while. When we arrived in Iisalmi the pupils met their hosts and the teachers checked in their hotel.

I stayed at a teacher’s place during the project week. Jari, a humorous and helpful man, allowed me to live at his home for some time and taught me about Finnish lifestyle. I attended one of his lessons in Health Education and got an idea of education made in Finland. A very necessary subject meets interested pupils who have a well equipped area of learning. 

Furthermore, I discovered that in every country classrooms are structured in the same way. The. In the front (close to the teacher) you find the nerds who seem to know everything, in the middle you have the average pupil and in the back row you always have two who are trying to get more attention than teachers. These pupils have obviously not much interest in what you are saying and they are probably more challenged by their own process of growing up than by homework. When we visited a factory that produces school materials Jari and me took a picture of what guys in the last row in the classroom should look like. But it is not fair to criticize the youth and it is wrong to say that children of today are tyrants. Unlike Socrates who already complained more than 2000 years ago, Joe Cocker was right when he sang that every generation has its way. Actually, I can remember some subjects where I preferred sitting in the last rows of the classroom and where I was trying to get some sleep as well. But there are moments in life where you regret those days and you wish you would know more. About music for example. I couldn´t remember a good German folk-song when the Slovenian teachers wanted to know some lyrics (not Nena and 99 Luftballons!) and when we played the Finnish version of “who wants to be a millionaire” I had to ask for help to answer the easy 1.000 Euro question. So here is my tip for the cool guys in the back: stop tilting on your chairs and start thinking twice about your future. Jari took me to a training of the local ice hockey team and we had a bowling competition. Looking back, I think I was very brave to compete against a P.E. teacher who has his own Keilapallo (Engl. bowling ball). It was brave but without a break.

Read more: Part 2

Dieser Eintrag wurde am 17.05.10 erstellt.