Today Aada came and woke me up at 8:30, and then I fell back asleep and slept till 12:30. When I woke up the house was empty. Jarno and Aada had also taken the day off, but he took her to the gym with him. I decided to use my opportunity to write about my school in Finland. Finland is known as having the best school system in the world. I am taking mostly easy classes, but the one class that I am taking that is higher level is math. I started out in “short” math, but it was so easy that I switched into the “long math.” The biggest difference I have noticed so far is the difference in the amount of work students are given. In math at Chelsea, it was common to learn a chapter or two a day, and we were given 30-40 problems for homework and also time in class to work on it. In Finland, however, we learn one chapter in a week. For the first 15 minutes of class the teacher demonstrates how to do a problem, and we are given around 3-4 questions to finish in class. We then work on those 4 problems for the remaining hour of class. If we do not finish those problems then we are expected to do them at home. I caught up on a weeks worth of work in one hour because I was simply focused. It was very strange when I suddenly realized I had just finished the problem that the other people at my table had been working on for the entire hour. The main thing I have noticed about this is that the students are particularly less stressed and less pushed for time. I am not sure whether they learn less or more using this method, but the fact is that there is significantly less pressure on the students. I am not scared to miss a day of math, knowing that I can easily make it up tomorrow. Whereas in Chelsea missing a day of math meant a lot of extra trouble for me. This difference in homework allows for extra time to be a teenager and extra time to sleep. Like I said before, I don't know whether or not this method of teaching causes higher learning, all I can say is that learning about it has broadened my insights and the way I view education in America and I can't wait to learn more about it and how it works.