I can successfully buy things like food, coffee, clothes, train tickets, I can count and greet people in Soumea (Finnish for Finnish). The class consisted of only eight students and the teacher created an informal learning environment. There was no pressure to learn and no rigidity of being exactly precise. I never felt uncomfortable asking a question.
Johanna, was the teacher and she was fantastic. She was very kind and understanding. Johanna was an excellent Finnish and English teacher. If there were an option to take more classes taught by her I would not hesitate to sign up. I took a few creeper photos of her before class started in the mornings so you could see what the classroom looked like and what she looked like too.
Johanna, my Finnish Language and Culture teacher
Although my pronunciation is terrible I can read and understand some things. I can figure out enough to survive. I also have the luxury of the Finnish education system. They do not start school until they are seven years old. When they are about nine years old they start learning English in school. So by the time they are my age or older they are quite fluent in English. Luckily, if I ever get super lost or need help buying things, they can switch to English. What a convenience?
This has made me reflect upon the U.S. education system and the issue of learning foreign languages. Most europeans know another language besides their own and they have traveled to other nations within Europe. To me, they seem so much more worldly than Americans. However, I then think to myself, geographically they have the luxury of proximity. To travel by car from the north of Germany to the south of Germany it takes about eight hours they said. It takes eight hours if not more to just get across the one state of Wyoming. Americans may travel just as much going from state to state but they stay with in the U.S. No language barriers, no major cultural differences and no new countries. For Europeans they travel perhaps the same distance but they enter into new languages, cultures and countries in similar mileage. They become versed in other languages because they are closer to those other languages and have more applicable use for them than we do.
If you are going to travel to Europe it makes sense to learn French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portgugese. Dutch, Czech, Estonian, Polish and Russian in school. If you are going to stay in the U.S. it makes no sense. It would be a waste of precious time to study things that are not applicable. So is Spanish the solution? Mexico is our border but how often are we going to use it? I would love, love, love to learn more languages, I think they are incredible. I regret that I did not take the time to learn more when I was younger in school. So on one hand, yes I support learning languages in school, especially elementary school. I would push and promote it. My practical, useful tendencies though say what is the point if there is no one using those languages near by? If a student has no opportunity or reason to learn Dutch, why fill their minds with that when it could be filled with something else? I like for things to reach their maximum potential so you can't fill a bucket with sand if it is meant to be filled with water. So on the other hand I would promote and push not studying a foreign language. Such contradictions.
Anyway, class is over. Class was good. I learned a lot. Maybe the grades don't say it, but I'm an academic. I like learning. I like being with people who also like to learn. It was so refreshing to be in a class where everyone wanted to be there. No one was there because they had to be there.
School is wonderful and great and I'm loving it. BUT I also am tremendously enjoying the social, extra-cirricular activities. ;) It is a lot of fun to interact with people from all over the world. I mostly hang out with international students. Even though I'm in Finland I haven't interacted much with Finnish people. So far these are my friends:
We played a game of memory for fun
Teresea, Robia and Jia
Sebastian
Teresea, Sebastian and Jia
Robia and Sebastian from the Netherlands
The Dutch are bicycle fanatics, they bike everywhere and they are crazy fearless bikers.
Some of the social activities that I have done are making mac and cheese dinner with Becca and Teresea (sp?) Monday evening, playing memory with most everyone night, the BBQ Tuesday night, eating reindeer at a viking restaurant Wednesday night, watching a Finnish movie, attending a Finnish soccer/football (played with the feet) game and going to an open mic night Thursday night. Those are the main ones but of course I spend time with people when walking and biking to and from class, walking/shopping/browsing the city center, eating lunch, coffee breaks and such.
So far it has been a wonderful experience. I am glad to be here and thank you again.
Moimoi,
Bye bye,
McCall
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