Osmo: The first lesson on Thursday. The class was divided in two groups. Some did their exercises in maths individually, while the others were gathered round the teacher´s table in order to study elemets of David Hume´s philosophy together with their teacher. It´s pretty challenging, because the pupils are only some 16 years old, but everything was ok.

The next lesson was in the class where the teacher was suddenly sent. The atmosphere was a bit noisy, but the pupils were keen and really interested in Finnish schools, our language and Finland in common. The next lesson; some of the pupils took a test. One detail that aroused my attention was the fact that many pupils had no books with them. Maybe due to really heavy school bags?

At the end of the last day in school I would realize that the real teacher is an eternal pupil himself (an old Chinese proverb).

Taina: My first lesson of the day was an English class based on Cambridge English materials on Ghost towns. The teacher had a video projector available and he was using online materials whereas the students had paper textbooks. Most students read some text and answered questions individually in turns, which actually makes the major difference from our style of making everybody read and talk during the lessons.

I kept on following several lessons in different subjects during the day - one of them in Italian but with students acting as skillful interpreters- and my conclusion was that they all were very keen on learning new things and finding out things about different cultures such as Finland. In CLIL classes the subject was taught in English and the students were taking a lot of notes. I wonder if they also use online reading materials?

Harri: Job shadowing goes on. On the basis of the experiences I have got in job shadowing, I would like to make a few changes: students and teachers should have short breaks between their lessons, i.e. enough time for lunch (the younger the students are the greater the need), and everybody needs to go to the toilet every now and then; this way the teaching and learning process could get a good start and enhance the concentration needed in classroom work. Besides it is not very effective if the students with their teachers have to wait for the iron-gates to open every morning before they can enter their classrooms and start their everyday schoolwork.
Since you have computer connection in each classroom, thus enabling computer-based material - I think- you have to find ways to support both teachers and students to benefit from this possibility better.
Furthermore, the students retaking their exams should be gathered into a separate classroom(s) with a supervisor so they can have a proper chance to do well in their effort.
As for the methods, teachers could have larger variety of student-friendly activities, and offer all the students experiences in learning. I enjoyed most of the lessons taught by many dedicated and personally committed teachers.

After the school day the administration and the teachers had their meeting and we shadows went our ways to visit a site with Roman antiquity, the amphitheater of Santa Maria Capua di Vetere, called Campania Amphitheater. When walking the underground tunnels and visiting the gladiator museum at site we caught a glimpse of the past Roman Empire. For the students and teachers of Liceo A. Manzoni it is a commonplace but for us at Forssan yhteislyseo something we study in history lessons.

In the evening Emma and the other host teachers take us to a farewell dinner with real Italian pizza at a restaurant close to school. Italian ice cream to top it all! The hospitality of the teachers at A. Manzoni touches us deeply.