Issue#1.5 Ounasvaaran Lukio (My School)

I had a meeting with the school councilor Monday morning. As soon as I met him, I knew that I would like him. His thinning hair was a mess and he smiled and joked with the students. His English was good but heavily accented. He took my host dad and me into his office where there were already a few students waiting. One girl who had graduated but was there for the day, and then a boy who was the president of the school council (or the Finnish equivalent of something along those lines) Last year he hosted a German exchange student who had come to our school. ( this was defiantly not the first time I would hear about him)
It was then that I learned that Ounasvaaran Lukio was a sports oriented school! Uh oh! The last ‘sport I had played at school was capture the football in 6th grade. I talked about a few classes that I wanted to take, but at first the councilor only had me signed up for about 3 classes. We talked for a while about my school in America and school here, and all sorts of other things not related. (my councilor gets distracted sometimes) Then we went out, and I received a full tour of the facilities. It is about the size of just the 2nd floor of DSA plus a cafeteria and gym.
I was feeling pretty good about the school after my little tour. The few students I had met seamed friendly enough. I wasn’t happy with my 3 classes so the next day I went it in the morning and talked Aari my councilor into giving me a full schedule, even though I knew that I wouldn’t really learn much in them. My classes were English9, Geography, Psychology (mental development), Chemistry, Music (like history of Finnish music by decades) and a basic gym class (Aari talked me into taking that one) All my classes are taught in Finnish.

Now it is time for me to tell you a little about the Finnish school system. Mandatory education starts at age 7 at . At age they Finnish with that and move on to or ‘middle school’ which goes up to age 15. After that education is NO LONGER mandatory!! So the Lukio,‘High School’ that I am going to is only for students who actually want to learn and continue their education up to the university level. Ages at my school range from 16 through 20. It usually takes about 3 years to graduate from Lukio, but some student spread their lessons over 5 years to accommodate their sports career.
Another big difference is the scheduling, and how they divide up the year. In America you will typically take the same classes for the whole year, except for the occasional semester long class. In Finland, the school year is split into 5 periods or Jakso s. Each Jakso you take completely new classes! After each Jakso there is a test week where each day you have a test in a different subject. This system works really well for me because I can change my classes as my Finnish gets better. Each week you will have each subject 3 times. Each class lasts an hour and 15 minutes with 15 breaks between them, and a 45 minute lunch break. Lunch is free by law in Finland, and also by lay it has to contain 1/3 of your daily nutritional value. The food is reaaaly good! Especially considering lunch food in America.
The rest of my school week went ok. I found out rather quickly that Finns are supper shy! Everyone was staring at me, but hardly anyone dared to come up and introduce themselves to me. A few brave girls would come up to me in groups, but hardly ever by themselves. Boys were worse, besides the president of the school council, only about 5 boys said anything to me that first week. My shyness didn’t help me at all either. Finnish kids are really intimidating! At least half of the kids in my school are tall, blond, blue eyed, athletic, and well….attractive! They just seem so unapproachable.
I got a chance to introduce myself to everyone in all my classes. I tried to do it in finish, but I went back to English after saying my name and where I was from. After class some more people would come up and ask me things. The most common questions I got were; ‘When did you get here?’, ‘How long will you be here?’, ‘How do you like it so far?’, ‘Do you have your driver’s license in America?’, ‘Is that your real hair color?’, ‘How old are you?’(they all expected me to be like 18), ‘did you know we had a German exchange student last year?’, and the most common one of all…”Why the hell did you come to Finland?” I tried to answer them as well as I could.
Of the people who introduced themselves to me, there was a group that was particularly promising. There were two girls who had been exchange students in the US and they were not afraid to use their perfect English. I also met Viivi my AFS contact student. She had spent the last year in South Africa. They told me that everyone was really curious about me, but to afraid to make a mistake when speaking to me. There was even a rumor in Viivi’s gym class that I was from Detroit!
At first the classes were really cool, but they got boring really fast! Subjects like psychology can be boring in English, well imagine sitting through an hour lecture on that subject, in Finnish, and having absolutely no clue what was being said. Its made harder by the fact that my teachers only know very little English, so they can only give me the faintest idea of what’s going on. When I ask some of the kids I sit next to what’s going on they’ll say, ‘I don’t know what it is in English’. Its frustrating. So you just sit there and doodle, or maybe write down some notes in Finnish to take them home and try to translate them. The only classes where I can do anything in are English and chemistry.