Week 39; teaching well on the way

This week we dealt with news, and particularly good news, in my Coffee mornings –groups. Last week I asked people to bring  to class a newspaper clipping that had a piece of good news in it. It was quite interesting to see that we all had chosen different news items even though almost all of us had been reading Savon Sanomat. The pieces of good news included for instance a story of a man from Suonenjoki who has solar panels on the top of the roof in his house and also in his yard, and who doesn’t have to buy electricity but who is able to sell it back to the electricity company. There was also a story about an activity club for little children, which has started running in the hinterland of Suonenjoki. Also an article about immigrants and their Finnish studies was very interesting. Another news item that had to do with children was that of a new playground that features Moomin –characters. This playground has been opened in Suonenjoki, and one of the participants has tested this place with his children. He told us that the children have approved of the place, and like it a lot.

I chose a small article on Stephen Hawking, who said that love was the main reason that kept him going when he was diagnosed with a progressive neurodegenerative disease as a young man. He also said that because he knows that any day could be his last, he tries to get the most out of it. Quite a good motto for anyone, I would say!

In Write it down the topic this week was sports that we like. Each participant was supposed to write about his or her favourite forms of physical exercise, and we really got some interesting results. Some like hard physical exercise like running, whereas others prefer for instance taking long walks. For some the aspect of fresh air is important, and somebody wrote that in her opinion physical exercise is the best way to forget your troubles. In this course the main aim is to get people to write about different topics, but I think that we’ll be able to have fruitful conversations during this semester. Looking forward to reading next week’s texts!