Finnish group´s BLOG
Finnish group´s TRAVEL-BLOG
Travelling to home 29.10.2016
What was the normal lessons like???
Some of our students got the chance to see the normal lessons: German-, latin-, music-, mathematic- and biologhgy lessons.
Even though the school system is different than in finland the classes were a lot like. For example some of the teachers were a lot stricter and some not. For example we had to turn off our phones, when we went in the classroom. The classrooms seemed quite ancient, for example there was chalkboards in many classes.
What thoughts do you have about German history after this week???
* You can see the influence and the ”touch” of Soviet Union´s time in the buildings.
* The Judische memorial area in Berlin was a really remarkable and touching place. It really made you feel how awful that period was to all individuals.
* Hitler was not the only bad person in Germany, there were others too.
* Propagadaposters were in front of the Reichtag -building in Berlin, some nationalist thoughts are still alive.
The fifth Workshop Day - Friday 28.10.2016
On Friday we went to visit the Neuenburg castle. It was buildt in 1129 and the tower is called ”Fat Willy”, because the walls were so thick and maybe also because the owner was so fat.
Everyone thought is was a cool and clean place.
Past times the enemies attacked the last bastion of the town´s folk, was the biggest tower called Fat Willy. In Fat Willy there was every comfort the people needed for example the fireplace, strorage rooms filled with beer and toilets made of stone. In the castle area the ancient buildings are as a museum, we visited that too. There were old furniture, paintings and knight´s armour.
We had a busy schedule so we were always in a hurry... :)
The best thing about this trip was the bus trips, because then the feeling was high amongst all the students.
Naumburg cathedral was really impressive and amazing place. It was huge!
Then we had free time in the centre Naumburg town. Some of us went to eat sandwiches, woffels, and they took lots of photos. The sandwiches with the bratwurst inside were really good!
The fourth Workshop Day - Thursday 27.10.2016
In the morning we had lessons about debating skills. First we were told theory behind it, we heard what is a convincing argument and we had little ”warm-ups” by thinking how to use toothbrush in many ways. The German students showed us a ”show-debate” so that we would have an example how to do it. After that we had ”micro-debates” with 5 group members.
Some thoughts of our students about the Debate -morning...
- It would really good excercise if everyone had the same level with English skills.
- It was sad that only a few of the German students participateds
- It was fun to debate
- First it was hard to think what to say, but after you got started it was fun.
- Debating skills are very important skills in our lives
- This excercise was a good practice for our debating skills.
- It was great fun, but very difficult because I can´t debate.
After a nice school lunch we took the train to Lutherstadt-Wittenberg. There is another Europaschule, same kind of Europe-school as Walther-Rathenau, that we visited. After that tour around the school we walked to the Wittenberg´s castle´s church were Luther started the reformation. Then we went to the church where we had worked.
Here are some thoughts of our students about that....
- The school looked very peculiar out: garden in the roof, trees growing out of the windows...
- It was interesting to visit the church were Luther had worked.
- The whole trip was very boring
- The church was magnificient
The third Workshop Day - Wednesday 26.10.2016
There was also a special ICT-workshop for 20 students. Those who were interested in the components of computer could learn how to build up a computer.
After school lunch:
we went by train to Leipzig! We tried not to fill up the whole train.....
The Bitterfeld´s station was quite grouded with our Horizon students, and that´s why the Finnish took a little space between each others... :)
In Leipzig we had a guided tour in two groups. We walked around the old city with the guide and saw many historical and beautiful places and buildings. Whilts walking around, we had also time to talk with new friends.
The second workshop day - Tuesday 25.10.2016
On Tuesday we continued with the presentation skills. We discussed about things which are important when you are presenting something in front of the audience and how to make a good power point or pzeri presentations. Then we had to practise it in a small groups, every group choce their own topic (pandas, pencil, umbrella..) and they made the presentation of it to all others.
Comments from the Finnish students about the morning`s lesson:
-important theme, because someone might have fear towards the big audience
-it was great to get to know other students too
-fun to work together
-it was interesting to notice how differently different cultures understand the same issues
-it was to good to be the only Finnish in the group, because you really had to speak English!
-it is challenging when the level of English speaking skills are so different in the groups → it takes time to make everyone understand the theme and you must use very basic words.
-Cariem´s lesson was excellent! His presentation skills are very good and so it was easy to follow his lesson and learn of it.
-it was great fun to do the posters together
After Cariem´s workshop we heard a presentation of the German students´ council system. Every school made a little presentation of their students´council and we got lots of information about systems in others countries!