Once in Helsinki Finland it was early December and nearing Christmas time. The short daylight hours were bitingly chilly. I made a habit of spending time in warm cafes savoring coffee and pastries folded with cinnamon, cardamom, or saffron.
I had made appointments to observe two international schools, one funded by the city and one independently funded. I spent my last day in Finland at a public elementary school.
My first experience in a Finnish school was at Ressu Comprehensive School. Ressu is an elementary school funded by the city with a ratio of 41 students: 2 teachers. The curriculum combines the National Finnish curriculum with International Baccalaureate curriculum. Both curricula were described to me as inquiry-based.
In 2015, Finnish curriculum changed- academic and emotional skills became prioritized over content. In 2016, those changes were implemented in schools.
At Ressu Comprehensive School classes are taught in both Finnish and English, respectively. I attended Arlene’s first grade class taught in English.
As I walked down the hallway to Arlene’s class I noticed child-sized outlines of bodies labeled by bodily system. The wall label read:
Children worked in groups and researched different parts of the human body.
At the start of class Arlene began to read her students’ letters out loud. The children had exchanged letters with their pen pals living in New York City. Many students eagerly volunteered to share their letters with the class. In her interactions with students Arlene addressed and responded in ways that suggested that she was genuinely interested in their inner lives. She asked about students’ emotional responses to what went on in the classroom. For instance: “Alexander, how did you feel as I was reading your letter aloud?” and “How did you guys like writing letters to your friends?” She also framed comments and requests in positive terms. She said: “Hey and excellent job remembering capitals at the start of a sentence.” “I love learning more about you!!”, and “I love quiet hands.”
As the children became increasingly excited Arlene told them to “please respect each other.” When they called out she said, “I don’t hear people who call out.” At one point she asked an off- task student: “Eli, is everything ok?”
As relevant questions came up she used technology to assist. One child had written in her letter that there were more people in New York City than in all of Finland. Arlene googled the population of NYC. Laughing, she told her students, “Just be grateful you have so much room!”
After she’d read quite a few letters aloud Arlene declared: “Let’s write a letter to the class.” She prepared to write on the board and asked the class for suggestions. The letter began:
Dear class,
We like the idea that you wrote us.
A student said: “Wait- wasn’t it our idea?”
Arlene asked him to corroborate before responding, “Um, I’m not that into ownership. It’s collaborative.”
The child volunteered: “It made us happy that you wrote to us.”
After Arlene elicited content and recorded a rough letter on the board, she asked the children for the rules of punctuation. Students asserted “Put capital letters at the start of sentences!” and “Put spaces before sentences!”
After the letter was complete and signed “Love, IB” the class edited an ongoing collaborative creative project with the sixth graders. Arlene’s first grade class had created a story and drawn illustrations pertaining to the story they created. They exchanged just the drawings with a class of sixth graders. The sixth graders used the wordless drawing they were given to extrapolate their own story, which they used to caption the illustrations. Finally, the pictures and accompanying stories were pieced together. To end the class period Arlene called on her students to read this final product- one student read each line. The class worked together to edit the writing.
The living learning experience 