Watching the Ripples Grow: A Teacher Deepens Connections with Finland

A common metaphor often used to describe teaching is the “ripple effect”: the actions that you undertake in your classroom can have myriad effects on students, families, and communities, often far beyond what you, the teacher, could ever imagine.  I returned to Seattle from completing my grant in the spring of 2023, and immediately began work on supporting and planning a Transatlantic Classroom exchange with Porkkalan Lukio, a secondary school in Kirkkonummi, Finland. 

Our grand vision? To host Finnish students at University Prep (UPrep) in Seattle during the coming school year, and then take students to Finland to be hosted in turn.

My hope was to create ripples for my students: lasting memories, new perspectives, and a deeper sense of who they are in the world.

This was to be a true cultural exchange, not a “travel trip”. Students would stay with host families, experience daily school life by shadowing classes, and take in the sights of the country with their hosts on evening and weekend excursions. Porkkala students arrived in October of 2023, eager to meet their host siblings, share Finnish culture with Seattle, and experience American Halloween. 

One small, but significant, interaction occurred when the Porkkala students participated in a Model UN conference with our UPrep seniors. The Finnish students shared information about Finnish society and culture, and I remember a UPrep student coming up to me later that day with a look of amazement on his face. “Did you know”, he said to me, “that in Finland you have health insurance even if you don’t have a job?” Ripple…

In April of 2025, another teacher and I travelled to Helsinki with 9 students to complete our portion of the exchange. We were met at the airport by our host families, and students were whisked away to begin their experience. The days were full, sometimes exhausting, but at the heart of each day was genuine connection and learning on both sides.  

The world, especially today’s world, needs these connections, these ripples.  These are the reminders that we have more in common than we ever imagine.  

As we checked in with our students over the days that followed, their impressions of Finland bubbled out of them: 

“It’s so quiet here.”
“I feel really peaceful.” 
“I heard that they have, like, nine political parties. Why does the U.S. just have two?”
“Did you know you can go to college here for free?”
“What even IS salmiakki?”
“I cold plunged with my host brother this morning- it was amazing.” 

Ripples upon ripples.

We visited four different schools in 11 days. Our students learned Finnish history, the basics of Finnish language, played Finnish baseball, and brought back some “old dances” from Finnish Prom to teach to our community in Seattle. The world, especially today’s world, needs these connections, these ripples. These are the reminders that we have more in common than we ever imagine.  

Ultimately, we made it back to Seattle, happy and tired. The true marker of success?  Each student who went on this exchange said they wanted to return to Finland. Ripples, indeed.