Karinthy School from Budapest on an Erasmus+ study visit in Finland with EW
Budapest’s Frigyes Karinthy High School participated in a week-long educational program in Jyväskylä, facilitated by Experience Workshop. 8 students and 10 teachers were brave enough to come in the most unfriendly time of the year – that is mid-November – with its minus degrees, dim lights, 17 hours daily darkness but also – first snow!
Students have enjoyed the hospitality of the Schildt High School, thanks to Lassi Pyykkö, Chemistry teacher and LUMA-coordinator. LUMA equals to STEM, which is the acronym of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, but it also indicates the country-wide network of science education centers in Finland. Karinthy’s students had the chance to visit a variety of LUMA-classes during their stay. Since both Karinthy and Schildt are bilingual schools, students understood each other swiftly.
While students were attending classes held either in Finnish or English, teachers participated in the training entitled “STEAM in secondary school education” provided by Experience Workshop’s staff members Kristóf Fenyvesi, Eszter Kovács and Orsolya Tuba in the co-working space Crazy Town.
Both students and teachers were creatively solving problems with the help of STEAM-toolkits – more concretely, building and controlling Mechatronics robots in a workshop held by Kristóf.
So, how do you survive Finnish November in the end? By drinking coffee of course, being indoors, visiting museums… but why not try the sauna, too? That’s what we did!
Feedback by students:
I noticed how helpful people are to each other and how proud they are to be Finnish.
No matter how different Finland is, Finnish and Hungarian students are the same, we think the same.
I realised how separate subjects are related to each other, such as grammar and maths are based on a similar logic.
I’d never heard of the term STEAM before this programme, so I’ve gained a lot of new information in this area.
I brought a coffee mug home with me, because Finns drink coffee all the time, and during this one week this habit has been passed on to me, so I wanted to have a permanent object that reminds me of Finnish culture and travel.
Feedback by teachers:
I got a lot of ideas regarding lesson planning, group work, competence-based education and of course the STEAM method.
I could learn about the possibilities of community spaces, different educational tools and their use and the advantages of the Finnish education system.
The training helped me identify links between different disciplines, to design project-based teaching processes and to learn about other teaching structures.
My personal experience is the easy-going way, the relaxed pace here, and the fact that you always have to take a coffee, whatever you’re doing.
Photo credits: Kristóf Fenyvesi, Eszter Kovács, András Kuzma, Nóra Somlyódy, Orsolya Tuba
The mobility programme was realized in the frameworks of the Erasmus+ KA121 programme.
Would you like to participate in a similar educational program?
info@experienceworkshop.org
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