Exchange Program between Keio Futsubu School and a Junior High School in Finland

From the 2012 academic year, Keio Futsubu School (Boys’ Junior High School) started a program of reciprocal visits with Luostarivuoren Koulu (Public Junior High School) in Turku, Finland. At the end of August, the first group of 19 Futsubu students and three teachers visited Turku. Unlike Japan's sticky summer, Finland was already on the cusp of early fall, and the crisp, refreshing breeze there was a pleasant surprise. The students attended school and joined in classes while experiencing the local culture through homestays, spending their afternoons and weekends doing a variety of activities with their host families. Students who were nervous at first soon found themselves at ease as they shared meals and enjoyed saunas with Finns. The picture at the top shows students on a tour of the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Just after this tour, Futsubu students parted with their host students, and the tearful goodbyes shared by some students give an indication of how deep many of their friendships had become.

In February 2013, three teachers and 17 of the students from Finland who had hosted Futsubu students came to visit us. This was the first time in the Futsubu's 115-year history that students from overseas participated in regular Futsubu classes. It seems that the Futsubu students had feelings of amazement and anticipation, thinking that girls from another country would be coming to the all-boy’s school. The visiting Finns participated in classes on a wide range of subjects, so more than 540 Futsubu students were able to have classes with them over the course of their three-day visit. The picture at the right hand side shows each Turku student's favorite word symbolized as a single Chinese character, which they wrote in collaboration with Futsubu students taking a calligraphy class. Their works were then affixed to panels to be taken home as souvenirs. Additionally, Finnish students were able to experience club activities after school for the first time, as their school does not have these types of clubs. They returned home with a fulfilling Japan experience, spending their weekend on excursions to Hakone or Kyoto and on climbing the Tokyo Skytree.
　One major characteristic of this program is the fact that it is exchange with a non-English speaking country. The Finnish students cannot understand Japanese, and the Japanese students cannot understand Finnish, so they can only communicate using English as a lingua franca. To the extent of using a foreign language to have communication, both Japanese and Finnish students are on equal footing. It would give me a great deal of pleasure if the students start to become aware of the fact that English is not something to be learned to score well on a test but a useful tool to connect people all over the world. I hope that, through our steady efforts, this fortunate program between the two schools continues to grow and flourish, and so do friendships between the Futsubu and Turku students.