It's good to be a teacher in a small town

At work in Riksu, there is a story series in which the employees of the city of Riihimäki talk about their work.

Eteläinen school teachers Jukka Eronen and Anja Sankari thank the school's location in the middle of a human-sized small town. It is easy to walk with students to the museum, library, swimming pool and nature trails. You can easily get to work in Riihimäki from further afield by train.

Work remains meaningful when you have access to additional training that inspires you. Eronen has acquired additional lessons in robotics, Sankari in environmental education.

To compete abroad through robotics

"After graduating as a classroom teacher in 2014, I first taught for a year in Hyvinkää and in the fall of 2015 I moved to Riihimäki Eteläinen koulu. After a couple of years, robotics started to come strongly to Riihimäki and I got into many interesting trainings. I was our school's robotics supervisor for many years, but now I work as a partner to the robotics supervisor," says Eronen.

Riihimäki is a pioneer in teaching robotics in Finland. The city invests in it, and every teacher is trained in robotics with a few days of basic training.

"Sometimes there have been trainings outside of Riihimäki as well. Let's spend a couple of nights somewhere and study effectively. There are different training contents for elementary teachers and elementary and middle schools."

Robotics teaching combines mechanical construction and programming. Robotics is about problem solving, creativity and teamwork skills. It is taught in Riksu already at preschool age.

"The vitos at our school have nine double hours of robotics during the year. Their fall robotics session just ended. The topic was a utility robot, and they built a car washer with lego-like vex parts, which are based on the vex Robotics toolkit."

Eronen praises robotics as a fascinating world that brings, for example, new opportunities to teaching crafts and environmental studies.

Every school in Riihimäki has a robotics club. There are about 20 students in the Eteläinen school club, and they are usually 3-5th graders. The club's activities aim at robotics competitions. First, there are competitions between schools, then in the championships in Riihimäki, and it is possible for middle school teams to go abroad to compete.

"They start construction in the spring, and sometimes the fire to do is so big that they want to continue working even during the breaks. I see a lot of success and it's cool to be able to help them. Last year, I came to Pärnu to compete with the school's robotics teams. As a teacher, it's great to be able to monitor the results of long-term activities."

Eronen considers the best aspects of the profession to be that you can develop yourself in many ways. For example, at Riihimäki you can specialize in robotics or drama pedagogy. Eronen is also the assistant principal of Eteläinen koulu, which means he takes care of day-to-day matters in support of the principal.

"By far the best thing as a teacher is the freedom to make the work your own, with your own personality, within the framework of the curriculum."

The green team plans eco-activities

Second-grade teacher Anja Sankari started as a kindergarten teacher in preschool, but she got so excited about the school world that she still studied to become a classroom teacher.

"I graduated in 2008 and came to Eteläinen to teach grades 1-2. We use a pen, paper and a traditional book, because they are important at the beginning of the school path."

Sankari has been the circular economy manager at his school for several years. He praises that environmental education gives a lot when students think about small eco-activities for everyday school life.

"We also have a really good group of teachers responsible for circular economy education, with one teacher from each elementary and middle school. We meet a few times a year to exchange ideas. For example, there is a good, together list of nearby nature attractions. This group provides enormous collegial support.”

The circular economy is one of Riihimäki's top projects, as the city's goal is to be emission-free in 2030. The circular economy entered the curriculum as early as 2019. Riihimäki's circular economy teaching was awarded an honorable mention in the Municipalities' best circular economy actions competition in 2022.

Eteläinen koulu applied for and received the green flag certificate for several years. But because it involves a huge amount of reporting work, it has now been decided to operate as before without the green flag status. The school has a green team with two students from each class thinking about environmental issues.

"The team decided which ten environmental issues will be included in this school year's green tasks in the classes. These include, for example, the class's recycling bins and reading their instructions, outerwear labeling day, neighborhood cleaning day and food waste reduction day.

Sankari says that he has recently been in a rewarding cooperative game training, where the focus was on developing the students' teamwork and working skills.

"The goal is to strengthen children's emotional and interaction skills, which sometimes seem to be a disappearing folk tradition."

Some of the circular economy teachers are participating in the sustainable, research school training, which Häme University of Applied Sciences HAMK organizes together with the Lammi Biological Research Station of the University of Helsinki. The hero will probably visit it next year.

"The best thing about a teacher's job is the children and experiencing the joy of learning together. The working community of the small town also supports. I know most of the teachers, and every other visitor is a familiar one, former students or their parents," Sankari laughs.

Reija Ypyä

Watch the video In Riihimäki, robotics and the circular economy are studied from a young age as a YouTube embed.