The first day of this adventure started with an early flight of four hours from Barcelona. We arrived at Helsinki at 1 pm, and just a couple of hours before had begun to snow. We were told that it was the first snowfall of the season! ❄️ Later on, we head on to Merikarvia, and we had a six-hour drive in the middle of a snow storm. Luckily, but quite late in the afternoon, we made to Merikarvia safe and sound!

Our third day in Finland was pretty interesting since we learned more about the Finnish educational system. We talked with some teachers about how they organize their schedules and about their work conditions, which are quite different to ours. 

Moreover, we had the chance to visit some high school lessons, in which they are preparing for their final exams. These couple of weeks, high school students have a final exam period, so their schedule is readjusted so they have a three-hour digital exam for each subject and some review lessons for the next day's exams. We visited the 3rd year advanced math lesson, in which they were revising continuity and derivability of functions. Contents in mathematics are mainly the same, but they do not work with matrices and linear algebra, which is quite an important content block in our curriculum. 

The coordinator also explained in detail how the digital exams work. It is quite a complex system that allows students to do exams completely online through a blocked software which does not permit them to connect to other internet webpages. However, they do have access to other useful tools like Geogebra or a CAS calculator. This system is provided by the government and it is the same which is being used in the final national exams (which are six hours long!!), so the students can get used to it. 

The weekend in Merikarvia was quite relaxing. On Saturday we had planned to go to Pori, the capital city in the region of Satakunta, the region where we are staying. However, we woke up and it was snowing a lot and there were a warning alert on the road, so we decided to stay in town and visit the surroundings. 

In midday, the sun came out and we could have a really nice walk by the sea, in the Krooka area. We ate in a bar with some incredible views and we took really nice pictures in the Bothnian Sea National Park. ☀️⛄🌲

Monday means going back to school. The day started with the snow melting, so the views changed a lot. The landscape is not so pretty, but is easier to live without the snow. 

Once in school, we had an appointment with the headmistress and she explained to us at length how she manages the school. She does not have a management team, she does it all! They have several programs that allow them to manage the students' academic record, teachers' schedules and absences, invoice management, etc. Just like we have, but much more different! 

After that, we visited several lessons like History in high school, in which they grouped a couple of groups to revise for the exam and the students had to write an essay and hand it through Classroom. In that class there were also some international students, so some instructions were given in Finnish and English. 

We also visited a biology class with some nine graders (our 4t d'ESO) and a technology and manufacturer course.  Student's behavior is quite similar to ours, nonetheless, they have between 8 and 12 students per class, so everything is much easier with that ratio!

On Tuesday, the snow was almost gone, and it was raining the most of the day. In November, the sun rises at 9am and sets at 4pm, so on cloudy days like this, the day is practically in semi-darkness and we hardly saw the sun. 

However, that day we were lucky and could visit the Home Economics lesson. Home Economics is a subject in which they learn several contents such as personal and family finances, housing design and nutrition and food preparation.  Some courses, depending on the grade the students are, are mandatory, and some others are voluntary. And they even have the chance to take some courses in high school. We really believe that it is a very good idea that could be included in our curriculum.

The class we attended was with ninth grade (the same group we had met the previous day, but now they were only 7 students) and there were cooking gingerbread houses (it seems to be a really popular activity on Finnish Christmas 🎄🍪). They had already prepared and baked the dough in the previous sessions, so in this one they were decorating the house. After every group finished their house, they built a gingerbread houses village they installed to decorate the school's hall. It looked really nice!

In the same lesson (here they are 75 minutes long) the students also made progress in a work on the decoration of Finnish kitchens from the 40s to the present day.