Finland has a few “tendencies” with regards to random things I’ve noticed thus far. What I mean is no matter the food group for example, there’s always a licorice flavor. I’m not kidding, if you looked hard enough, you could probably find a bag of chips with licorice seasoning. Licorice is addicting, and that’s why it’s everywhere; ask my family- we have all succumbed to its temptations.
When we first got here, we would see flyers and hear people saying that such and such happens in the spring… However, we had lost hope in there ever actually being spring by the time May worked around and the snow was still a couple of feet high and snow boots were still in use. It’s more exciting than you can imagine to say that – I hope I don’t jinx it – Spring has Sprung. Coming from California, we have finally gotten back into our routine of putting on shorts (not snow pants) and leaving our jackets behind.
Liam and I are officially done with school. Our typical school day was work work work in the morning and then have the afternoons to go outside and do what we wanted (whether it was go to dance, or swim, etc.). But now that we have our mornings free it’s been fun to see what Finland is like on a spring day. I think one of the most words used by my family when we go outside is “wow” because it is truly beautiful outside with all the trees and flowers blossoming. Finland has transformed from being rather barren to full of life and color.
My family out at the university (we need sunglasses all the time now!)
A few weeks ago I could walk on water. Actually, it was ice covering a lake near my house, but tomato tomoto. The past few days it has been very hot here in Finland, almost rivailling our normal Southern California weather. My family had an amazing idea to check out the lake that was frozen over just over a month ago. We walked down expecting to see maybe one or two people sunbathing in the unusual 70 degree weather, but we soon discovered nearly 40 people either lying in the sand or splashing in the just above freezing water at their feet. We laid out a blanket and took off our shoes to test the water and experience the cold temperature. It was surprisingly similar to the ocean at home although a little colder. I worked up the courage to go out waist deep to find that the depth of the lake didn’t go any deeper for at least another 20 yards. I kept going out deeper and deeper until it got to the middle of my chest then promptly ran back out to shore. I laid in the sun after repeating that a few times, and after about another 20 min of sunbathing we started to pack up. As we walked back I thought about home and the ocean. All in all it was a fantastic evening at the beach. Oh, did I mention that it gets dark around 11 o’clock at night now? That is taking a lot of getting used to.
Every educator is impacted by their students, they brighten our lives teaching us as we teach them. And often we have a special student that stays with us even after teacher and student have moved on.
For me I often think of her as sunshine, smiling while she looks straight at you, telling you everything she wants you to know. A meeting of the minds, you just have to know to understand her, she is communicating and sharing, you just have to look beyond traditional conventions of communication. Not only can she brighten one’s day with her infectious smile she has even captured the heart of some of the toughest kids. While it pains me that not everyone gets her, those that do reap the benefits of the light she brings despite the incredible challenges placed upon her.
While lecturing throughout Finland at times it’s been challenging to share about my research. However, I am driven to share my passion so that people understand the importance of inclusive education for students with moderate and severe disabilities. I assume that people aren’t interested because they aren’t able to connect or relate. Maybe it’s because they never met someone like her before.
When I spoke recently at a University I was incredibly nervous as I knew that my audience wouldn’t “hear” me unless they felt the passion behind my work with such amazing children. Before I stood in front of so many I took a moment to visualize the sunshine she has brought to my life. This moment of reflection ensured that no matter what I said, I knew I wore my heart on my sleeve, and hoped that the participants would better understand how to best support our students.
I am advocating for my kiddos because it’s what I love to do. I wish others wanted this too but I like to think that with her sunshine I am strong enough.
We were all very excited for our mom’s birthday. Of course, we are in Finland so naturally this makes it all the more unique. In being so far up North, we had to prepare for two separate circumstances that comes along with the high probability of having cold weather in a spring month. One idea consisted of warm weather activities such as hiking, a picnic, and just generally having a lovely day outside. Whereas if it snowed, we planned for a day of fun, such as boardgames, strolling through an art museum, and a family movie- based upon mom’s preference of course.
It worked out well that the latter occurred because having a warm gooey cake that we had worked on, suited the mood of a cozy winter indoors. Miraculously, she was out all day the day before, so we didn’t have to sneak around to buy ingredients and bake the cake.
And while our mom is most certainly not one for material possessions- she prefers experiences -it is good to treat her, because she deserves it so very much. Our more private thoughts and feelings went into her birthday cards, but we wanted to share that yes, all of our efforts paid off and ended up with a truly special May/winter birthday!
From Finnish Nightmares, a quirky and very popular comic strip highlighting things that bother Finns by Karoliina Korhonen
This past week was notable for several reasons. Firstly, another Fulbright grantee, Keith Thompson, visited Jyväskylä from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His project is centered around helping groups and individuals discuss and resolve conflict, which obviously has been a big part of daily life in areas such as Belfast which continues to move slowly forward years after the peace accord ended the ‘troubles’. It was interesting for me to view Keith’s presentation to college students as N. Ireland was on the news almost daily it seemed as I was growing up. My uncle and a few good friends were stationed there at different times when they were in the British Army. I could also relate to the concept that inequality brings friction. I’d like to think that this is lessening over time, yet I know this is not the case as there still remains a big divide between the have’s and have-nots in the world. It was a good visit, and Keith even got to see some of the Vappu celebrations, and, of course, sauna.
Vappu is the first of May celebration in Finland, which if you imagine that winter started somewhere around October and has been lingering ever since, is a source of joy for the population. Besides, it marks the official start of ice cream season beloved by all here (the Finns eat an average of 12.5 litres per capita). To celebrate, many Finns go out to party the night before. We saw hundreds of college students gathered at the local church park all decked out in their various brightly colored overalls that indicate what area of study they are enrolled. For example, Biology students have a green overall. All students wear them tied down at the waist, and they are typically covered in patches indicating various places or events they’ve been to. I suspect that beer is involved in most events, yet all were celebrating quietly. Also worn are white caps with a black band and visor that resemble jaunty captain hats favored by yachtsmen. These indicate that the wearer graduated from high school. Even individuals who graduated 30 years ago wear them on Vappu. This is a cause of some contention apparently, as not all Finns graduate from a typical high school. In fact, many attend vocational and technical schools and so do not have caps. There can be divisions and problems when many people get together as it can ostracize some, although everyone seemed happy to us. We particularly enjoyed picnicking at Harju Park the next day which is when literally the entire town congregates to enjoy the warmer weather.
Robyn’s birthday was on Friday, and she celebrated bundled back up in winter clothes as the snow had returned. Robyn had fun with it as there’s been no time in her life that she celebrated her spring birthday in the snow. Our family is now convinced that Finland has only one season- winter. It breaks down like this: first there is winter, winter; then there is late winter (spring to us); very late winter (early summer); pre winter (summer); early winter (fall); and finally, winter (winter.) You get the idea…We enjoyed her day visiting art galleries and eating sushi along with a homemade cake and breakfast made by the kids. Thanks for making it possible to be here, Robyn!
The birthday girl “enjoying” the return of snow
Robyn and Meg strolling through the quiet Vappu celebrations
Taking a moment to appreciate what is important in life (the kids thought we meant ice cream…)
The start of Vappu: good-natured party in the park. Note the colored overalls and grad. Caps (the green stuff is grass and is nice to see again)
Recently I was fortunate to attend the International Seminar on Inclusive Education in Tampere, Finland. This multicultural conference focused on inclusive education through the lens of four participating countries: Norway, Finland, Belgium, and the U.K. These educators have been pursuing innovative strategies to strengthen the competence of their specialized centers that support inclusive education. The project had been created due to the increasing need to share multidisciplinary information on best practices and how to support inclusive education for students with intensive needs. In addition, they created flexible models for the training of staff at expertise centers (segregated sites) and mainstreamed schools, yet also provide services for supporting the implementation of inclusive education.
Initially, when asked to attend this conference, I was intrigued as it was a conference on inclusion, but produced by organizations that oversee segregated sites. Fascinated by the irony of this I knew I had to go. Sure enough, like everything else on this Fulbright journey the learning occurred in several unexpected ways.
Major Takeaways:
The organizations that I considered segregated sites are indeed segregated sites. However, these 4 countries perceive these sites as the experts in the field of all things special education. This means they are responsible for trainings and disseminating best practices to each of the schools throughout their country.
The term Inclusion in Europe vs. the term Inclusion in the United States are absolutely defined differently (stay tuned as this will definitely be a future post)
Prezi is an awesome presentation tool and I can’t wait to use it! https://prezi.com/
Everyone throughout the world is trying their best to make inclusion happen for all students. However, the drastic differences in cultures, funding, resources, and knowledge has created variances among how and when it is utilized.
Our Goleta USD teams need to be very proud at how well we are implementing evidence-based practices in the least restrictive environment.
For me, the list of new knowledge and to do’s continues to grow
The 22nd movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a 3 hour long film that finally shows the defeat of the Titan, Thanos. In my opinion the movie was amazing and it was nice to see everyone that got ‘snapped’ come back. Anyways it was sad throughout the film to see some of the most iconic characters die. Such as beloved Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff. I thought that the movie had many sad moments, but the directors also managed quite a few jokes and funny moments. All in all it was a good final ending for the the Avengers…for now. It is a must see for anyone from a huge fan to someone who has never seen a Marvel film. Another warning: Some may cry as it is a very rough movie as superhero films go.
On another note me and my family went to Tampere this week. My mom had a conference so we got to explore the city. We walked to this building that had many different museums in it which was a lot of fun. I also went and had a picnic near the river. There was a museum building near us where they had a video game museum, a dracula one and a natural history wing.
The video game room was a lot of fun they had a bunch of retro games such as space invaders and pacman. We stayed in there for about 30 minutes then we made our way to the dracula exhibit. I learned where the person dracula was based on lived and the Western Europe’s ideas about Eastern Europe. The whole trip to Tampere was a lot of fun and it was a nice change of scenery.
This past weekend we went to Tempere, and while the real reason as to why we went was so mom could take-part in conferences; of course, the rest of us turned it into a bit of a vacation.
We discovered right when we arrived that we had two choices for what we should do for dinner. We could go to a nice sunny restaurant by the water, or we could go walk a few minutes to a grocery store, pick out a couple of foods, and go find a patch of grass to sit on right above the river. If you have ever met my family or have even read any of our blogs, you would already have guessed that we chose the latter. And it isn’t just because we travel cheap- we’ve just come to understand that having a humble little picnic is much more our speed than being catered to in a fancy restaurant. Which isn’t to say that we don’t love the occasional night out- but when it comes to choosing between the two turning dinner into an adventure is much more memorable.
The next day, the three of us went for a walk hike up what we thought was going to be a mountain. Last time we went to Tampere, the weather was very severe with howling wind and driving snow- so when we visited the park on the hill it looked like some huge treacherous mountain. It turns out that when there’s no howling wind and shin-deep snow, it only takes a few minutes to reach the top. Since the weather turned out to be so mild, it was a great opportunity to take some photos of the wildlife that was making its first appearance in months.
Taking photos while you’re wandering through a new city is such a great way to remember the details. Not to mention it’s super fun!
A calmer stretch of the Sarapiqui River-photo courtesy of keywordteam.net
We saw lovely countryside as we wove this way and that along the serpentine 2-lane roads (thankfully paved). It was great to see the difference in the towns and landscape we passed through which became markedly more tropical as we came down from the mountains. There were also smaller villages interspersed with small fields of crops or the occasional grazing horse. We eventually arrived at the delightful Malibu Cabanas Bed and Breakfast in Chilamate just outside Sarapique. The owners spoke very little English which gave me yet more opportunity to mangle Spanish. There was a local soda nearby on the main road that they recommended for al muerzo, and as we were all famished, we decided to take their advice. So glad we did-the food was exceptional and so much of it! We agreed that in future, we would only order two meals to feed us if we splurged at one of these roadside cafes that are universally called Typical Soda.
After eating, we drove a few kilometers to the Sarapique Outdoor Center to check and see if the recommendation made by our B&B host was another hit. When we walked in, the guy behind the counter said, “Stu?” I was surprised for a moment until I realized that our our kind host had called ahead and set up a river rafting tour for us in case we liked the place. We got the basic details from a guy by the name of Miguel who was manning the desk. He offered to show us the Sarapique Rio itself which was a short walk across the tributary out back. It’s a great looking river, the kind that just makes you want to jump in a raft or canoe and start exploring. Miguel pointed to his blue shirt shirt and asked if we wanted to see. I guessed he either wanted to show us the actual blue and red poison arrow frog pictured on his shirt or sell us a shirt. Turns out the frogs live all around, so we started looking. Robyn was the first to locate one. Super cute little guy about an inch long with a bright red top half and blue legs. Miguel pointed and said, “Blue jean frog.” very apt, I thought. As they were poisonous, we had to remind Meg not to touch as she was already maneuvering to pick it up…We agreed to a trip, and then left to go to the supermercado (what a treat: they had lots of choices of food in a real supermarket) to get provisions for the next day of what we hoped would be fun on the river.
Our guide on the Sarapiqui Rio the next day was a guy by the name of Roberto. He was extremely knowledgeable about the abundant local plants and wildlife having grown up the area. He’d traveled abroad, but could not face being away from the jungle. He lives with his brother and travels to work on foot on forest paths having decided to live a more traditional way of life in the jungle. The river was flowing fast enough (class II-III) to give an adrenaline boost down the occasional lively rapids, where we almost lost Liam overboard, yet the stately river had very benevolent feel to it as it flowed calmly through the jungle. There were massive trees overhanging the water at times offering shade and secretive little harbors and inlets begging to be explored. Monkeys, toucans, and diving kingfishers kept us company as our little group floated along. Stopping to jump from a 10 foot bank into a deep eddy was a great diversion for the adventurous, and a confidence boost for the unsure, and our guide gave us the opportunity ahead of a larger group that appeared around the last bend we’d passed a few minutes before. We tried fresh picked monkey guava (you suck the custard like stuff off the hazelnut-like seeds); slimy vanilla-tasting cacao which is nothing like the chocolate you know from the stores; fresh ginger root (the smell of the flower that grows on the edge of the river was intoxicating and resembled a pretty orchid); and sucked a seemingly endless supply of delicious sugar water from fresh sugar cane. All so good!
Our trip proved to be no mere adrenaline fix, rather it was more a journey to the heart and soul of the jungle. Robyn had tears in her eyes with the spiritual essence of the place which was almost tangible in its power. As we regretfully left the river and rode the 4×4 back to the outdoor center, I decided that this was a river I would love to come back and explore over the course of a multi-day trip deeper into the forest as even our brief excursion resembled a trip back to the prehistoric essence of our human beginnings.
Sarapique Outdoor Center is contactable via their website or on tripadvisor. Give them a look see…
https://costaricaraft.com/
Kayaks are popular ways to travel the Sarapiqui River-Photo courtesy of www.oregonkayaking.net
