First school visits

The last few weeks have been full of interesting school visits, studying, and learning about the American culture and society in many ways. I have got the chance to visit six different schools so far, some regular public schools, project based magnet schools and one charter school. The variety of different types of schools has been something that has totally surprised me. Coming from Finland where basically everyone goes to a public school and all schools are therefore very similar, I have found it very interesting to see so many differences between schools here. Since I work at a typical Finnish public school myself, at this point I will share some observations I have made at a few general public middle and high schools. 

Seeing dozens and dozens of yellow school busses every morning and after school is something very normal to an American, but something very exotic to a Finn. Here all students are picked up basically at their very own doorstep and brought to school by bus every morning. At the end of the school day students board the busses again and are brought home. Many people here have been really surprised to hear that we don’t have a similar school bus system in Finland, but children mostly walk, bike, or use local transportation to get to school. In general Finnish children learn to become very independent at an early age and they have more freedom. The busses they use here provide security as the distances can often be very long in each town and city. The school districts provide the bus service for their students, which is a great thing.

In all the schools I’ve visited so far, the school day is the same length for every student every day. It starts at around 7:30 a.m. and ends at around 3 p.m. Depending on the school, the length of a class varies from 45 to 90 minutes, just like in Finland, but the breaks are very short here mostly only 5 minutes. Students rush to their lockers to get books for their next class while teachers often spend the breaks supervising the hallways. The lunch break in the middle of the day lasts about 30 minutes. Many students bring their own lunches, some buy food at the school cafeterias. Visiting schools abroad always reminds me to appreciate the free healthy warm meal every Finnish school provides for all their students every day. It is so easy to forget that and take it for granted.

  

The schools here seem to be quite big with mostly over 1000 students. This also means that the schools like to have a good control of their students. Every student and teacher patiently waits for the school bell to ring before leaving the classrooms even if everyone is ready with their work a few minutes earlier. If a student needs to go to the bathroom during class, he or she kindly asks for a hall pass, which is a card or a piece of paper from the teacher allowing them to enter the hallway. The school doors are locked at least in most schools during the school day and some schools even have security guards in the hallways. Although we have rules at Finnish schools too, we seem to trust our students quite a lot and give them more freedom. Our students are allowed to exit the school building freely during breaks or their free periods, for example. I value the freedom our students have, but at the same time we often talk about discipline problems and the difficulty of keeping certain limits in the classrooms. Finding a balance between control and freedom is often quite challenging.

Besides certain compulsory classes, like English and Math, high school students also choose various elective classes here. For example at one high school that I have visited a few times, students can study anything between jewelry making and child care to firefighting. I think it’s wonderful for students to have all these different options under the same roof. I have heard that the elective classes that are offered vary a lot from school to school, though. Some schools have more resources than others. As all students go to high school in the U.S., some elective classes can be helpful especially for those students who might be interested in more vocational careers later. In Finland the system is a little different since besides the more academic "lukio" high schools, we also have a lot of different vocational schools students can go to.

Many high schools here also offer different extracurricular activities, such as music, academic clubs and sports after school. In Finland young people join different clubs in their communities, whereas here they can also do a lot of different things at school after their regular classes. It seems to be quite common for a school to have, not just a general sports field, but also their own swimming hall, football stadium, baseball field, tennis courts, etc., which I find quite amazing. I went to see one high school (American) footgall game a few days ago as everyone kept telling me how important those games were. Besides the players, also cheerleaders and a huge marching band played an important role in the whole event. It was wonderful to see so many students participating and working together.