Finnish family moves to Sicily, after 2 months they flee: “It’s a disaster"

 Working in a job that doesn’t require a fixed location, the family had decided to move to Sicily. After two months they changed their minds.

Sun, sea, wonderful territories weren’t enough to convince the family to be arrested on the island. After only two months they packed up to migrate elsewhere.

Elin Mattsson is a Finnish painter aged 42. Her wonderful job allows her to live anywhere and so a couple of months ago she moved to Syracuse, together with her husband, an Information Technology Manager who can work remotely, and their four children . But just two months were enough to change the couple’s mind, who packed their bags and left not only Sicily but even Italy. The woman has wrote a letter to a newspaper local to explain the reasons that prompted her and her husband to flee Sicily after just two months. The Finnish painter, in the letter, speaks of an inadequate school system and poor, with noisy classes and contemptuous teachers: “’Mom they yell and bang on the table” says my 6-year-old. ‘Yes, it’s crazy that they use the whistle and shout’ says the 14-year-old, ‘and I know English better than the English teacher himself!’” –reads the letter.

A school system that doesn’t work
The Mattsson family already had lived in Spain and the UK. The hope was to find a similar school system throughout the Mediterranean, but they collided with a very different school system – the Italian one. THE Elin’s doubts it started from the first day he set foot in school to register: “The noise of the classes was so loud that I wondered how the hell it was possible to concentrate with that noise. That day I also caught a glimpse of a classroom where a boy of about 7 was doing an exercise in front of an angry teacher, who contemptuously looked down on not only the boy at the blackboard but everyone students. He was shocking ”- explains the woman. But that is not all. Another of the reasons that prompted the Finnish family to turn around was the absence of breaks. In Italy, the school day is spent in the same chair from morning until one returns home. In Finland, on the other hand, students have one 15 minute break between lessons, and leave the classroom to play together in the garden. A teacher or two keeps an eye on them while they’re out. “Finland realizes the benefits of children moving, playing, screaming and running freely outdoors to get rid of excess energy and get fresh air, thus achieving better results in school”– points out the young mother.

The transport problem
 Italian school, according to the Finnish family, that’s not the only thing wrong with our country. Transportation is also leaking everywhere. The woman explains that in Finland children from 7 to 12 years they go to school alone, they use the bicycle o they walk, if they live more than 5 kilometers from the school they can go with the taxi or the school bus. They have lunch at school, then go home alone when the school day is over. in Italy – especially in certain regions – all this is unthinkable and the service of school bus does not exist neither. The woman concluded her letter by stating that, in the future, she and her family certainly will they will return to Sicily but only as tourists: “We will visit Sicily like normal tourists. Sicily is a fantastic place, with nice people, good food, sun, when they don’t delve into it and go to school”.