This morning I had the pleasure of going on my first school visit to Valteri School Onerva. It was an adventure to get there, but so worth the freezing cold walk. I met my fellow Fulbrighter, Annie, at her apartment at 8:30 and she assured me she knew the bus to take and where to get on and off. After cooing at her adorable six month old for a few minutes we bundled up and braced for the -20 degree (Fahrenheit) walk to the bus. We assured Jason that together we had multiple advanced degrees and were awarded Fulbrights - we could find the place. We were hoping to take the 15K and get off in front of the hospital. Unfortunately, the sign where we were waiting indicated that the 15K was no longer running at that time, but Annie knew the 27 bus was an alternate route. So after a chilly ten minute wait we hopped on the 27. This happened to be the bus that Adam, Tea and Talia were on so as they got off at the stop I hopped on, gave a quick hug to Talia who simply refused to move off the bus until I acknowledged her, and set out towards Valteri School Onerva. Annie knew we had to get off at the hospital and as the bus turned left we saw a big red cross, the universal sign for hospital. So we rang the bell for the bus to stop, hopped off and started walking. It was pretty clear within 50 feet of starting our walk we had no idea where we were. We were pretty certain we had gotten off the bus at the hospital and our intuition led us in one direction but we called Jason, Annie’s husband, just to be sure. Jason told us we were pretty far from our final destination and couldn’t offer us too much more help by phone so we stopped and asked a woman. She told us to walk over a hill ahead and that we were on the right track. We stopped a few minutes later to be assured we were heading in the right direction and a very kind woman gave us excellent directions...in Finnish. Neither Annie nor I had the sense to tell her we had no clue what she was saying. At this point we were both beyond freezing, were losing feeling in our toes, and were already quite late for our 9:00 meeting. Clearly our brains were not functioning properly. We continued on and then saw a gas station. We went inside and were relieved for some warmth, even if it would just be to get some directions. Annie bravely asked the cashier who helpfully pulled out a map, told us we were less than 1 km (about .6 miles) from our final destination and we had been walking the correct way. Phew! Just as we were about to leave the director of the Niilo Maki Institute called Annie to see if we were close by. We gave him our location and he said he would come and get us. Juha-Mati was our hero!! So, by about 9:30 we finally arrived at our destination, seemed to have avoided frostbite and were ready to visit the school.
Valterri School Onerva is in a brand new €29 million (about $32 million) building. They moved in just two weeks ago and we were the first foreign visitors to the school (but definitely not the last). Annie and I were invited to tour with 2 men from Japan that are visiting the Niilo Maki Institute today and we were grateful for this opportunity. Our guide, Cristina, works at the school as a consulting teacher. There are about 20 consulting teachers that work at the school; they provide professional development for teachers and specialists and also visit schools to observe students and help develop individual plans for them. This is just one part of the school mission. The school currently serves 137 students (a bit too many students at the moment for the amount of services they can provide given their staffing, but they make it work). The students are all in first through ninth grade so this school covers the compulsory education years. The ideal situation is that a student is only at the school for a few years and is able to return back to their municipal school district, although that is not the case for all students. This particular Valterri (as there are 6 in the country) specializes in working with students that are sign language users, blind and low vision, and/or have language and communication disorders. The students from Onerva will continue on to either special vocational schools, gymnasiums (academic high schools) or perhaps to a sheltered home if the student is severely impaired. The school aims to integrate the services within the academics and there are several speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and psychologists on the staff. Each student at Valteri has an individualized education plan (IEP) so some follow the national curriculum, some follow an adjusted curriculum and some others follow a curriculum in activity areas such as motor skills, language and communication or daily living skills.
I was first struck by how open the school building was. The main entrance opens into a large amphitheater with many rows of seats facing a small stage. At the opposite side from the entrance was the school restaurant (Restaurant Omppu (Finnish for apple)) where students and teachers eat their mid-day meal. The many tables and chairs can also be used as meeting spaces. Off to the right of the large amphitheater are three floors of instructional space and residential space. To the left are the administrative offices, work space for the teachers, and other functional spaces such as the gym. The school was built with accessibility in mind, with special considerations for the many students that have low vision and/or hearing impairments. Bright, contrasting colors decorate the walls to aid the students with visual impairments and carpets cover the floors to help optimize the acoustics for the students with hearing impairments.
We started our tour by checking out the educational spaces. I have not yet used the word “classroom” because the school does not use that word. The school wanted to have many areas for students and teachers to work and a variety of environments to optimize learning. Following Julianna Nevari’s concept of using the environment to shape instruction there are three different working areas: the park, the fountain and the den. The open working areas on each floor are called the parks.
The space is flexible so students and teachers can move desks and chairs, or even pillows and cushions, to create space for instruction. Surrounding the park are what would typically be described as “classrooms” but what they call “fountains”. The fountains, even though they look as close to a traditional classroom as anything you would find at Onerva, also allowed for a lot of flexibility. Desks could easily be moved, students had choices of the types of seats they used, and a variety of technology was employed. There would never be more than 8 students in one of these classrooms as per the ratio of students to teachers. Finally, in each park were several dens. These small enclosed spaces were like little tents or teepees where students and teachers, or just individuals, could go inside and work in a very quiet space. One small window was in each den so that students could look out (and teachers could look in) but overall they were very cozy and would be very quiet and distraction free for work. I think some of my students would love the small, enclosed, comfortable space to take tests. However, my first thought as a high school teacher at a boarding school was that things we don’t want happening in our school building would definitely happen in those comfy, cozy, quiet enclosed spaces! As we walked up the stairs to see a different group of students working, Cristina pointed out that the building designers wanted to make even non-traditional places part of the education so the stairs are not only labeled by 1’s but also by 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s so students can practice counting by those sets of numbers. How simple yet how effective. I can only imagine how great it would be to label sets of stairs in an elementary school by different skip counts. Imagine the possibilities if as students walked up different flights of stairs they skip counted by those numbers. How easy it would be to memorize multiplication facts in fourth grade?!
We left the learning space environment and went to the residential area of the school. It is also connected to the school building, but down a different corridor. This school is not a traditional boarding school as we have in New England, but a small group of students (about 30-40) do reside on the campus as they live too far from the school for daily commuting. The residential students arrive Monday mornings around 10 and leave Friday afternoons so they only stay four nights a week. Each student has his or her own dorm room. The rooms were pretty sparsely decorated, but were quite spacious. The rooms were not much smaller than a typical Marvelwood dorm room where two students live. A large common room was at the end of the hallway and a kitchen area for breakfast and evening snack was off the common room. Residential staff are different from the teaching staff and they are not permanent residents of the campus. The residential staff work overnight to ensure that the students have their breakfast together and are ready for school and then at night help prepare an evening snack and put everyone to bed. Students eat their lunch and dinner in the large restaurant in the main school building area. The residential component plays an important role in the education of the students as they are able to practice daily living skills.
Our tour continued back through the open foyer and to the other side of the building where we found some of my favorite areas. We first visited the school pool. I started to immediately think back to the absolute torture of having to swim for an entire quarter of freshman and sophomore year of high school. The smell of the pool hit us right as you turned the corner, but luckily this was nothing like a WPHS mandatory swimming class. The young children were happily splashing about, jumping off the sides and playing games in different parts of the pool. It was evident that the kids were having fun but that the teachers were also having them practice skills like throwing and catching and jumping with their hands in different positions. The squeals of delight indicated that the pool was one of the favorite places for the students (not the one of dread for my self-conscious teenage self). We then walked over to the art rooms. Textiles, mechanics and crafts are all part of the Finnish national curriculum and we heard a few students mention that crafts or textiles was their favorite class. In one craft room baskets that were only partially woven sat on the tables. In an adjacent room, two large looms were being used to create two different small rugs. Directly across the hall were two rooms for woodworking and mechanics (technical work). Students have to take classes in both textiles and technology fields until a certain age (around 4th grade) and then they choose to do only one area. We also visited a large home economics classroom. All seventh graders take a home economics class and in this particular room there were several sinks, counters and ovens. The students were making a ham and potato meal and a rolled cake dessert. It certainly smelled good!
We concluded our tour with a visit to the teacher work space. Interestingly, teachers do not have their own office space. Each teacher has a large rolling cabinet where she can keep all of her books, supplies, laptop, etc and roll it to whichever work station she chooses for the day. Just like in the academic area, there are fountains for individual or collaborative work, an open space with many desktops and even a den for a private, quiet workspace. The dens are also used for private chats between colleagues or to make phone calls. The desks are all height adjustable with the touch of a button and many people prefer standing to work. I loved this open work area and philosophy for teachers! Balance boards, yoga balls, leaning stools, and adjustable chairs are available for people to choose their own working environment. People can choose a different workspace throughout the day depending on their task or mood. At the Niilo Maki Institute, where I work, there are a wide array of seating and standing options as there were at Onerva. And just like at NMI there were a lot of glass walls and it gives such a feeling of transparency and openness and trust to the environment.
We ended our tour with a presentation from our guide about the history of the school and the services and information as to how students are placed at Valteri Onerva. This is an absolutely top-notch service provider for students with disabilities, so how does a kid get lucky enough to be here? In the United States I could only imagine a place this beautiful school being privately funded and costing parents (or districts) tens of thousands of dollars. Here’s where some of the big differences between Finland and America come to light. In Finland, tax money goes towards education and education falls under the national government. The funding for this project came from the Ministry of Education. In Finland, a municipality is responsible for the education of a child and if they feel that they cannot appropriately educate a child, they apply (with the support of the parents) to Onerva or one of the other Valteri locations. Students apply each spring and are at the school for at least one full year. There is no waiting list; students are either accepted for the year or not. Sending a student to Onerva does not cost the municipality any money except in transportation for the student (that is, the municipality is responsible for transporting the student to Onerva). In addition to the regular 137 students that are educated each day at Onerva, there are visiting students. These students come in groups for one to three weeks to ensure that their needs are being met by their municipality and their schools. For example, all the blind fourth graders may come to Onerva for a week to make sure they are getting around smoothly, are using appropriate technology, have appropriate IEPs, and are progressing appropriately given their disabilities. Some suggestions may be made for educational programs or technology and the students then return to their regular school.
Having the opportunity to be in the group of the first foreign visitors to Onerva was incredible. Onerva works closely with the Niilo Maki Institute. In fact, Onerva is a Finnish woman’s name and the name of Niilo Maki’s wife. Both Onerva and Niilo were supporters of and leaders in special education and when the new school was built a naming contest was held and naming the school after Onerva Maki made sense to everyone. Onerva is still living and will be turning ninety this year. She lives near the Niilo Maki Institute and is still a very active board member. Annie and I hope to meet her soon. This was a great introduction to special education services in Finland and I am looking forward to the range of services and how they happen in Finland. On Friday I’m off to a lukio, a more traditional, academic track high school. I’m looking forward to being around some high schoolers! I miss my Marvelwood students but I am enjoying this experience tremendously!
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