Our Finnish exchange students were invited to visit Brazilian schools through our cooperation with Muuvit, an educational programme, originated in Finland, that promotes movement. It is encouraging school children to be more active and healthy. Pupils are working together to earn points to virtual travel to other cities and learn about them. The programme can be good for Brazilian schools, as the children seemed already very active, have fun moving and they are so eager to learn more about the world. Henriikka shares her impressions about the visit:

“Last week I had the chance to visit four local schools in the Bairro Novo district in Curitiba. Outside the building you could usually guess it is a school, because they could be some colorful paintings or graffiti. Compared to Finnish schools, some of buildings were small, some of them not much bigger than a house, the class rooms very tiny and so the groups did not have more than 15 pupils. The schools were open, connected to the outside spaces and some of them had huge, green yards for playing. The atmosphere was very positive in all of the school, in the break time the volume was incredible loud, when everyone was talking at the same time. All of the pupils wore the same t-shirts and seemed happy to be at school.

What I noticed immediately is that Brazilian children are not shy at all, but they were excited to meet people from other countries. Children were so excited to hear that people from another continent are visiting their classroom. They were staring at us mouth open and with wide eyes. We taught the children some Finnish words and the children, who already knew some English wanted to practice with us the words they had learned. Maybe in a Finnish school pupils could hesitate when meeting new people, but in Brazil, children are quick to come to meet you and ask, if you will be their new teacher or how snow feels like.

The biggest difference between Finnish and Brazilian children is that when you ask them, who wants to come in front of the class and practice a new language, in Brazil at least half of the class will raise the hand and some of the pupils will stand up and start walking towards the front. When in Finland usually no one wants to raise their hand to talk in front of the whole class. The pupils I met during the school visit were very receptive and asked many questions. Everyone is trying to get a chance to meet the visitors. The best part of visiting schools is that Brazilian children will hug when you are leaving. This is a lovely habit and it makes you want to return!”