Sunday, December 14, 2014

19 Days and Counting

It is hard to believe that a year ago I had just finished my first quarter in the masters program. I had my sites set on student teaching in St. Lucia in the Southern Caribbean and I was about to get into two and half weeks of full time work at the office during Winter Break. A year later and I am working one more week at my job here in Bellingham and getting ready for the adventure of a lifetime. I still have lots of little things to take care of- credit cards, figuring out what I am going to pack, printing too much paperwork, etc but that is not what I want to concentrate on. Yesterday my fellow children's ministry volunteers threw me a little going away party and one of my good friends asked me what I was most excited about and what I was most nervous or anxious about. It's those things- the experiences I am anticipating that I want to concentrate on now.

I am excited to meet people from different places. My host family is from Spain. My hosts for a couple days when I arrive are from Italy. The students/teachers will be mostly from Finland and the college students I will be working alongside as well are from all over Europe. I look forward to talking to them about educating and what they think is important and worthy of study. I am curious to to learn what they think of Americans and what I can learn from them. I also look forward to being able to share some of my knowledge with them.

I am excited to be a teacher with students and colleagues who support me.

I am excited to stay with a family who understands the blending and interactions between different cultures and to experience life with them.

I am excited to see a real winter even though it is going to be so cold!

I am excited to learn some Swedish and Finnish.

I am excited to try reindeer! It will happen!

I am also a little nervous. People, smart people, educated people, are going to put me in charge of a classroom. Ahh! Don't they know I am still learning myself? I know, it is time for me to put faith in my Lord and in all of the skills and knowledge I have acquired and have confidence. I promise to do my best.

I am nervous to be traveling so far away by myself but I am a little thrilled by the adventure of it all.

I am nervous about the language barrier but if my middle and high school ESL students can do this everyday so can I.

I am nervous about jumping into the ice-broken ocean every week with my host family (yeah this is something they do even when it is iced over!) but if they can do it.... yeah no great response here. I am just terrified of this one. But I will do it (this is for you roommates and Explorer's League volunteers)!

Most of all, I am excited to be opening up the next chapter in my life, the second to last chapter in my graduate career, and the first chapter in my life as a real teacher in charge of a real classroom.

Thank you for all of your support. If you would like to see me before I leave I will be in Bellingham until Dec. 20th and then in Kent from Dec. 21-Jan. 2.

Jutellaan myöhemmin! (Finnish for "talk to you later")

Monday, November 17, 2014

What's next?

Hello all!

I decided to try this whole blog thing for at least my time student teaching because if I can keep up with it, blogging is a great way to keep lots of people connected to the work I do. For those of you who don't know yet. I am going in the second year of my Masters in Teaching program at Woodring College of Education- Western Washington University. I am studying to be a secondary education teacher (6th-12th grade) in social studies/history and English Language Learners. At this time, I want to teach high school level social studies classes and eventually be a vice-principal or principal. I will be graduating in June 2015.

In more interesting news, in less than two months I will start my student teaching internship at a secondary school in Vaasa, Finland (or Vasa if you speak Swedish). I will be there from the first week of January through the very end of March 2015. I wanted to take this post to explain the back story of why I am student teaching in Finland as many people are curious about my reasoning.

When I started my masters program in Fall 2013 I wanted to student teach in St. Lucia which is in the Caribbean. My undergraduate history research work and final thesis-like paper was on colonial Caribbean history and I thought it would be amazing to get to teach and live in the area I had spent so much time learning about and St. Lucia was the one place in the Caribbean my university could send me. That was the plan until January 2014. In January however I went to the annual MLK Human Rights Conference at Whatcom Community College and attended a breakout session run by a teacher at Kulshan Middle School. He showed a video of a talk given by Amanda Ripley, in which she talked about her work on Finnish education and her research into just why Finnish education was better than anywhere else. This video raised so many questions for me and I made it my personal goal to learn more about Finnish education.

Thus started a quarter long personal research project. I used my research class that quarter to get credit for my personal research and it eventually took me down a completely unexpected path. I soon discovered that one of my professors was also interested in Finnish education and starting to do her own research. We decided to team up and she even invited me to join her work with the Bellingham Sister Cities Association (BSCA) on an Education Project she wanted to start with one of Bellingham's sister cities- Vaasa, Finland. One thing led to another and I found myself completing a large scale survey project of Bellingham and Vaasa teachers and professors, applying and being accepted as the first Student Representative on the Bellingham Sister Cities Association Advisory Board and giving talks at the university, a public high school in Bellingham, and in front of the whole BSCA membership on my research work into comparing and contrasting education systems and teacher training programs in Finland and the United States.

By the time March rolled around I started to realize that maybe God was pushing me in a different direction then St. Lucia. I couldn't believe it at first (apparently all of the signs in the last two paragraphs weren't enough). I was supposed to go to St. Lucia and spend the cold, dreary winter in hot and sunny St. Lucia. That was the plan right?! Well, it is times like this that God sends a two by four to hit you in the head. This professor I was partnering with, my fellow masters students, and my friends and family started to suggest that I actually apply to student teach in Finland. Then, my professor and I got connected to a university in Vaasa that not only is well known for training teachers but also has a lab school (public elementary through high school program) and they often have foreign students in their program. Things just fell into place from there. God has blessed me with a great job at Western that has allowed me to save money these last few years and I realized that I could still afford to pay for grad school independently without loans and still go to Finland. When God has a plan in mind he makes sure that doors are opened and people are there to support you. 

After completing way too many applications and filling out a lot of forms my dream is finally becoming a reality. I have been placed at the school in Finland and will spend 75% of my time there working in the high school in IB (international baccalaureate) history classes and the remaining 25% in a 6th grade classroom helping with their English as a Foreign Language lessons. My airfare is booked. My housing with a family from the 6th grade class is pretty much confirmed. And I am starting to get really excited.

I will endeavor to keep this blog updated as I prepare and eventually leave for Finland. While I will be pretty busy while I am in Finland, lesson planning, teaching, and the like I am sure I will be able to find the time to post blogs and pictures of my adventures. Please feel free to contact me at ms.andreaantrim@gmail.com if you have any questions. Also if you would like to learn more about the work I have been doing on a Bellingham-Vaasa teacher collaboration program please check out our website- Bellingham - Vaasa Education Project.

I would like to thank my family (Martin, Diana, and Heidi), my extended family, Professor Lauren McClanahan, Heimo Oksanen, my friends and all of my fellow Western MiT co-hort mates for their support. Also thank you to anyone who had the patience to read this whole thing. I promise the rest of my posts will not be anywhere near this long.

Thank you,

Andrea Antrim