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
