Week 9 - Cultural

This week I spent a lot of time in my placement. On Thursday, it was St Patrick’s Day, and when I mentioned this to the staff in my placement, they were unsure of the meaning, and had never celebrated this day before. Therefore we agreed that I would teach the children all about the significance of the day, and take an activity with them. St Patrick’s Day is not a public holiday in Finland, and so very few people are aware that this day exists. On Thursday, whilst I was in my placement, I explained the significance of the day to the children and we agreed to make paper maché snakes, to reflect the myth that St Patrick took all the snakes out of Ireland. The children were thrilled with this idea, and so we began to make the snakes. When I showed the children a shamrock, there was only one child who had seen this before, and so I also had to explain the relationship between the shamrock, and Saint Patrick's Day. I was very surprised when the children and the staff were unaware of this day, because I know that St Patrick’s Day is widely celebrated in America and many other countries around the globe. This week I also visited Turku castle. Turku Castle is the largest surviving medieval building in Finland, and one of the largest surviving medieval castles in Scandinavia. It stands as a national monument, on the banks of the Aura River, as it has done since the 14th century. The castle contains many antique monuments and items, such as old military uniforms or antique coins. There are even some surviving items from the castle itself, such as old clothes, swords, coins and tools. This was very interesting to go and look at because there were a lot of ancient artifacts, and the castle also had a museum attached to it where there were even more artifacts, such as furniture, weapons and personal items from people of that time. This week really introduced me to the history of Turku, and I hope that in the near future I can go to other cultural events, in order to find out some more about the history of Turku.