Penkkarit

Today was Penkkarit. The kids thought it was awesome. Here's the email we got from the school last week explaining it:

Our Senior Class Grade 12 will officially leave school on Thursday 17th February. They will of course return to complete their IB studies and take their exams. All Grade 12 students in Helsinki will commemorate this day with a Penkkarit celebration. This is an unique part of Finnish Education Culture. All parents are warmly invited to come to school from 11.30 on Thursday to watch the final assembly and to see us wave the 12s 'Goodbye'. We hope you can come to help us 'Press the Bench' which is the literal translation of Penkkarit. No-one knows why!

Dan and I do not understand how Grade 12 can be done with school now, but come back to do their IB studies and exams. Oh well. Ours is not to question why.

Why the kids thought it was awesome...

(Disclaimer. Since I wasn't there, I'm relying on the accounts of my 10 and 12 year old.)

Around 10:45 the Grade 12 kids made an announcement that they would be interrupting classes and to "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

When they came to Lauren's class they asked each kid a question. Like 'True or False. Katy Perry is married to Russell Brand' or 'How many African Americans fought for the Union during the Civil War?' If they got it wrong, they were squirted with water. If they got it right, candy. Lauren got squirted. Don't worry. She got lots of candy from her BFF's older sister later in the day.

When they came to Derek's class they had all the kids get up and dance.

After, there was an assembly where the silliness continued. The Grade 12 kids gave a speech. Then they invited Grade 11 up and told them to dance. Grade 12 gave bean bags to the Kindergarten kids. They were told to throw them at Grade 11 if they didn't dance well. Naturally, they were thrown. Bean bags then got thrown back into the audience and Derek ended up with one. He said he hit a kid in the back. 

Assembly over, it was time for the lorry ride which from what I understand was a decorated-truck-parade-type thing. The student body made a tunnel for Grade 12 to go through. There was a sign that read, 'You're as cool as Finish Cucumbers' (Not Finnish, Finish, like you finished school. At least that's the way Lauren explained it.) Anyway, everyone had cucumbers and held them up as part of the tunnel. Once Grade 12 was on the lorry, they threw the cucumbers at them. Grade 12 threw candy back. And then cucumbers.

So after they told me all of this, they asked if schools in the US did anything cool for Grade 12 kids. Sorry. Nothing like this, kiddos. They were disappointed.