Estonian student on exchange spends two weeks at tiny Kihnu island school
Vesirooži Rozmari, a student from a school in Rapla, Estonia, is spending two weeks at the school on Kihnu island, which has about 20 pupils. She chose it over a trip to the US so as not to fall behind in her own school's curriculum.
A student from a school in Rapla, Estonia, Vesirooži Rozmari, has chosen to go on an exchange not abroad, as many of her peers do, but to a small school on Kihnu island. She is spending two weeks there, getting to know how teaching works in a school with about 20 pupils in total. Rozmari spoke about the experience on Ringvaade, a programme on ETV, Estonia's public broadcaster.
She originally wanted to go to the United States, but after thinking it over concluded that she would then fall behind in her own school's programme. She attends a very large school, where classes average about 20 students, while the whole school on Kihnu has roughly the same number. That made her curious about how this works. Before the trip she had never been to the island. In her current class, there is only one other pupil besides her.
Known on Kihnu as Roozi, the student says she likes how closely connected pupils from first to ninth grade are. In her words, the whole school is like one big family.
Homework from her own school
Alongside her studies on Kihnu, Rozmari must keep up with homework set by her home school. She says she first worried she would not cope, but local teachers met her halfway, helping her understand the material and complete her home school's assignments so she does not fall behind.
On the island she misses shops, her family and her dog. There is a dog in the house where she is staying, though. She is living at the Kolde farm with her host parents, their eldest son and about two hundred animals.
