The Mexican

Last week we had a pleasure to host prof. Eduardo Andere from Mexico City in our school. Mr. Andere is a famous author and a scientist. He is currently gathering material for a new book that will be about Finnish education system. His next book will be out in a few weeks, right before Christmas.

Prof. Andere is a good friend with former principal of Kirkkoharju School, Ms. Maarit Rossi. Ms. Rossi called me a few weeks ago and asked a permission to bring prof. Andere to our school. He had asked to show "the most amazing school in Finland". I told my collegue Ms. Rossi that you have promised quite a lot to this Mexican professor. She just laughed and said that you have to set your goals high.

Prof. Andere wanted to ask 16 questions about school, learning environments, learning in general, ICT in schools etc. He wanted to discuss with the principal and one teacher. I asked the teachers, who would like to attend the discussion. No hands were risen ;-) Fortunately during the day I had a chance to chat with a few teachers and one of our 2nd grade teachers answered "yes".

The questions were not easy at all. Actually they would have been difficult even in Finnish. Now we had to discuss about these issues with a foreign language. But sometimes you have to challenge yourself. It was really interesting to talk with a person who knew exactly the right questions to ask. Every question challenged you to think and re-think your own views. Or what would you have answered to a question: "Should you have to describe your job/work with a metaphor, what would you say you are?"

Ps. There was a famous Hollywood movie back in 2001 called The Mexican (starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts). I borrowed my topic from the movie ;-)