A teacher’s Finnish line: Meet Suvi

Moi! That means “hello” in Finnish. That’s my only mother tongue and I have no other cultural heritage. So yes, I am a teacher from the country that you might know thanks to sauna, Nokia, our PISA rankings, Angry Birds or Santa Claus. My name is Suvi and I am a linguist so be prepared that I might be playing around with languages, sometimes purposefully and sometimes accidentally.

I will be sharing my teaching experiences, thoughts and ideas with you from a Finnish point of view since that’s the system I am still the most familiar with. My aim is not to judge or praise one educational system over another but to pick up bits and pieces from each school and each curriculum that could make me a better teacher. Obviously my background will always affect the way I look at teaching in one way or another but maybe through traveling and teaching in different countries and different cultures I will find something new and inspiring, which makes me to change my opinion.

I hold a Master’s degree majoring in German language and culture. I specialized in teaching but unlike in many other countries I’ve come to know in Finland subject teachers don’t qualify only for one level in the education system. I am qualified from the first grade of Primary all the way to the Universities of Applied Sciences. Here in EISB, I am the Year 4 classroom teacher and the Year 12 German teacher. 

I hope that this blog will make you think, whether that’s regarding learning, teaching, languages, cultures or just life in general. As a teacher, I always try to motivate my pupils to learn something new everyday even if it’s only one new word! If I’ll manage to inspire you to find out more about something then I’d consider this blog a success. I learned this afternoon that Nemecko means Germany in Slovak. What did you learn today?