Tuesday, 26 April
DAY 3

School visit 1

Today we are visiting a school that does not look very new.

However, we are welcomed in the teachers’ room, where a whole banquet has been prepared for us. Apparently, it was not done only for us; if I am right, teachers have breakfast here.

At the entrance the usual rack to leave coats and shoes. Students should wear school shoes, but in the end they all wear just socks. Teachers wear shoes.

We are met by a boy and a girl. Their English is fluent. They are not shy to speak to a bunch of teachers, and foreign ones for that matter.

They sound happy for what they are being offered, but not boasting.

The part we visit first is the one for years 1-5, corresponding to primary education.

Lots of works made by students are displayed on the walls. Staircases are transformed into multiplication tables and series of prime numbers.

The classes don’t have many children. They are curious of us when we intrude in their daily routine, but again they are not shy, and they are happy to answer our questions. 

Some classes have teachers for special needs.

It is easy to understand what classes are focusing on at the moment.

The students of one class sport a brand new hoodie, with Denmark written on it. Tomorrow they are leaving for Denmark on a school exchange.

In another class we can see dinosaurs and books on dinosaurs displayed everywhere. Studying dinosaurs means approaching them as directly as possible.

Then we visit the workshops. The first one is for wood-working. Lots of tools hang on the walls: screwdrivers, saws, hammers. We all look at each other, quite puzzled. Would that be acceptable in our countries?

Our guides put a lot on emphasis on manual work.

They tell us they stay at school till 3 pm, with the exception of one day when they leave school at 12.

They get homework to do, which normally takes them around 2 hours.

They have all the subjects we could imagine, but they don’t have religious studies.

Then we visit the part of elder students, aged 11-16.

Here students don’t stay all day in one room, but they change according to the subjects.

The science rooms has rockets to explain the gravity force, microscopes for observations, other materials to help teach, and even more to help understand things.

Students wear caps, beanies and headphones. Teachers don’t seem to care. When we ask, they say there is nothing wrong with that, as long as they do their job.

 Again, students are quite easy going about our presence. Occasionally they try to attract our attention, but they never avoid contact.

They seem at ease in their environment.

One room is reserved to students with special needs. This is where they can go to relax and have some time for individual work when they feel like it.

The centre of the school is the library, which has a full-time librarian.

The last room we visit is the English room. They are in year 9 (14-15 years old), and they are studying the regular form of the past tense. They have slides projected onto the wall, with sentences contrasting Icelandic and English, and guiding them to the rules.

The teacher is happy to speak to us, and shows us the books they use and read, and the films they watch. She has a full range of games to use to help oral production.

She has only a vague idea of what European Certifications might be, but students probably don’t need to show how good at English they are.

Finn colleagues point out that the system is not much unlike theirs.

The thing that strikes me more is the students’ confidence. They do not hesitate before us. They don’t brag and they don’t shy away from us.

They apparently don’t concentrate much on specific subjects, but they use school to deal with everyday needs and problems. Workshops teach them what they will need in their future life, from fixing a hole in the socks to repairing house furniture, and on walls we have seen their works about “the text neck”, the consequence on spending too much time looking at their mobile phones.

As Johanna pointed out yesterday, the mission of the school is the well-being of students. 


REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Learn by doing at school: labs for cooking, sewing, wood-work. Hands on in National Museum. Students don’t wear shoes. Teachers do.

Students tolerated with headphone and caps. No special embarrassment to talk to us- education to freedom, independence and self-assuredness?