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Turnip Troll Goes to School

In August 2014 Turnip Troll and his brothers
and sisters went to school for the first time.
I visited the Rovaniemi Lyseonpuisto IB lukio
(high school) to read the pre-IB students a
story during their English class. I don't think
Turnip and the other Troll children were
nearly as nervous as I was, wondering if
the students would like the story, if they
would find it too hard to understand or too
childish. But I needn't have worried.
The students were bright and eager and
participated actively. They had already
read one story ("Midsummer") and listened
to the recording of it with their teacher,
Arja-Liisa Kahelin, during the previous week.
Now they had a chance to meet the author,
and they had plenty of questions to ask
about me, my impressions of Finland and
Lapland, how I had come to write the
stories, and so on. Once I had satisfied their
curiosity, I read them another story, "The
Dancing Haystacks". You can try to guess
from the pictures below whether it was the
students or their guest who had a better
time. After many years of teaching university
students, it was a wonderful experience for
me to work with younger people.

Here are some pictures from Turnip Troll's
visit to the Lyseonpuisto IB lukio. They were
taken by the teacher, Arja-Liisa Kahelin, and
are posted with the students' permission:

 
I don't remember what I was asking, but
there are certainly a lot of hands in the air!



This question must have been harder, but
there's still one hand in the air...



Here's what I was lucky enough to see
from the front of the class!



Studying the names of bugs in English!
 

Since that first visit, my cooperation with
the Lyseonpuisto IB lukio has continued
with the support of English teacher Annukka
Kurvinen. In my recent visits, I've been
reading "The Mayday Balloons" since it
contains useful vocabulary for discussing
the important Finnish holiday of Vappu
(May Day), and the subject of the story -
first love - is a suitable one for students
who are in their teens.

In December 2014, I had a chance to
introduce a group of younger students to
the adventures of the Troll family. I visited
our neighborhood primary school,
Viirinkankaan koulu (which is, in fact, my
children's old school), where I read the story
"Where Is Turnip Troll" to the pupils in Sari
Alatervo's 5th grade class and Teppo
Hiekkaranta's 6th grade class. It was a
fascinating - and challenging - experience
to see how the story would work with 10-
to 12-year-olds. Thanks to good pedagogical
support from the teachers and the visual
material I developed for the occasion, as
well as modifications in the text to make it
more accessible to lower-level learners of
English, both pupils and guest enjoyed the
experience immensely. I was delighted to
have an opportunity to give something back
to the school which gave so much to my
children and me many years ago.

Aside from my pedagogically oriented work
in local schools, I have also read my Troll
stories at various events organized at the
University of Lapland and in the local
community, often combining the reading
with songs with my repertoire as a folk
singer. The following picture shows me at
one such event a couple of years ago
with a student of mine from the University,
Zhanna Anshukova:



If you would be interested in having me do a
reading of one of my stories at your school
or other event, please contact me at:
mrhurd@gmail.com


Picture © Ulla Etto