School on the move???

The day dawned and my back ached. Dragging myself to school again. Mysteriously, the alarm clock struck the wall. Eyes crossed, I get up, I get out and go to school; was that what the day was supposed to be about? Had I forgotten something? I’d find that out at morning assembly. As I walked towards the assembly hall, I remembered: the people from Kiasma and the Pedagogical Performace! That’s it! They sure let all kinds of crazy people into our school, I thought. Chairs had been brought into the hall and the ninth-graders were chatting, as unimpressed as ever. There was strange stuff in front of the stage. Minna and Eeva-Mari gave a long ’assembly speech’.

Pedagogical performance? That was the topic of the assembly that morning but what on earth did it mean? Two very difficult words together, were they trying to twist our tongues? Well. I still don’t know, but it was fun. We were taught different subjects with the help of Contemporary Art: in biology we saw a modern Eagle Owl, for example. I thought the poor bird was a bit skinny but then life outdoors is tough. In home economics we got to hear what foods Eeva-Mari recommended and what she thought were bad for us, although we didn’t really agree with the artists’ food art. I guess seven litres of whole milk on the floor would make even a home economics teacher wonder. Refuse-sack clothing are in fashion, too, at least in Kiasma. I suspect, though, that it’ll take some time before we’ll see people walking down the street wearing a plastic bag from the local grocer’s.

After an hour off to recuperate, it was time to decorate Kiasma’s blackboard van. If some-one was still feeling sleepy, they woke up doing this. Especially since we were totally barehanded. But with music playing in the background, the lorry was quickly decorated. Stiff fingers don’t hurt a bit when you get to draw on the sides of a lorry, with permission. The lorry turned out a real piece of art, although I think doctors will be treating a lot of people for stress disorder when they see the lorry and think they are hallucinating. I would gladly take the lorry any time, though, at least you’d never get bored of the way it looked. My granny would probably not accept a ride in it, though.

Next stop was history. We really got a historical lesson on history. To start with, we cleared our voices by fighting over whether the class should be communist or democratic. Minna and the communists won the day. The social democrats, on the other hand, felt that passing laws should have come before painting the leader’s portrait (odd bunch) and finally they took over after staging a revolution.

A rather colourful day. I think it made a nice change from an ordinary school day. And I got a better idea of what Kiasma is. After all, it is too far away to just get up and go there. I’ve been there but only in the ladies’ toilet, but the school on the move made me think it is not such a bad place after all. Or it’s so bad that it’s really worth a visit.

Nora Saloranta
9th grade student at Anna Tapio School