For the past year
I have been working in a detective agency.
And I'd like to share a story with you
of one case we had in our detective agency.
Our detective agency has become
one of those agencies that gets the oldest cases around.
In this case that I am going to share with you was no exception.
Everything you are about to hear happen in Helsinski
during the Spring of 2016
It all got started when our boss
sent us a weird short clue from Jyväskylä.
It has only three words in it.
(Image)
[BERTEL LILJEQUIST PAAVALI]
First we were baffled by his message.
What are we supposed to do with this information?
So we had a meeting, we sat around
trying to remember anything related to these three words.
We knew there was a church called Paavali in Vaakuna, Helsinki,
but that was about it.
Finally, one of my colleagues blurted out the obvious:
Just put those three words to the search engine.
And we did that.
And the very first results
Paavalinkirkko in Helsinki
or St Paul's Church in Helsinski.
So what did we do with this information?
We planned our operation.
We checked the route to the church.
We packed all our cool gadgets and gear.
And a little bit of snack and off we went
snooping in the Church.
In the church we met helpful priest.
He was happy to show us around and answer all our questions.
And during all that conversations and questions
we managed to find something
that didn't quite seem to belong to the church.
It was a tiny old wrinkly paper scroll.
And when open up,
seems to be a part of a bigger map.
At this point some of my colleagues just went crazy.
We never had a case like this before.
All I know
we got three more clues.
similar kinds of clues that all took us to villages' sights.
The second one
had two words.
(image)
[AHRENBERG NARINKKA]
You know what I am guessing?
This took us to the Helsinki synagogue.
And the third one had even numbers in it.
(Image)
[1862 1868 Gornostajev]
This took us to that beautiful Uspenskin Katedraali in Helskinski
In both of these places we found another map.
The fourth clue would have taken us to Jyväskylä,
The Muslim prayer house.
That was too far for us,
so we ask our boss in Jyväskylä
If she could do the snooping for us.
Luckily she could,
And she managed to find that fourth missing piece.
When we combined those four pieces,
we found that it formed a map of Suomenlinna.
This old fortress island off the coast of Helsinki.
And what is even more exciting,
on the fourth map there was this big red X-mark
right on the Kuninkaanportti, the King's Gate there as well.
But at this point
I will let one of my colleagues tell you what happens next.
(Video)
[ Well, we kind of made the first map.]
[ And then with the help of the map we went to the King's Gate]
[Then, at the King's Gate, we found the key from the moat]
[ Who found it?]
[Girl: I did!]
[ Where did you find it from? ]
[From a rock, it was attached to it.]
[ So how did it feel like? ]
[ Exciting ]
[ I remember a little girl who was quite thrilled.]
[ (Laughter) ]
[ It was exciting, right? ]
[Girl: Yes ]
[ I was really wondering, where does the key belong to? ]
[ And we never found it out. ]
Yeah.
My colleagues are a little bit younger.
In fact I have a confession to make:
those are my pupils in our pre-school.
I am a pre-school teacher.
And we had a detective agency called Leopardit or Leopards.
And,
we are three educators and free thinkers.
We had this detective agency running throughout the school year.
with different kind of cases,
and different kind of or different learning objectives.
But you might still be wondering why?
What happens to that key we found?
For all of you English speakers, we found a key, old looking key.
What happened to that key?
What was it for?
Well we took it to the national museum
because it was, looked really old, to get it evaluated.
We still haven't heard back from the museum,
but I am sure we will soon.
and maybe the next year's detectives
want to find out what that key opens.
What else there is still to be found.
So,
why did I want to share this story with you?
We knew that adventure is a great tool for learning.
And with this exciting narrative running throughout the school year,
we managed to get a lot of learning objectives fulfilled.
For example, we met a lot of new letters, new numbers.
And we even managed to read maps.
We got to know our city better.
And most importantly,
most importantly we got to know ourself better.
Because we have to remember that preschool isn't just about academic skills
It's about growing.
It's about learning about yourself,
how to take care of yourself.
Having success in an adventure like we did
builds that confidence.
that inner feeling that you are going to get through no matter what.
And come that first school day:
with new teachers, new classmates,
new school, new everything.
And with that same confidence
they faced the King's Gate in Suomenlinna.
Thank you.
(Applause)