Artistic Discoveries in European Schoolyards

I started at the music class...

HETA HAANPERA Director, Finland

I started at the music class when I was 8 years old. The school was old and classy, with large stone stairs and huge frescos. Just opening the big oak doors was something special. I was a wild child, curious, and always in trouble. Our class had only four boys and twenty girls. The poor boys were just like toys for us girls and every day we had to create a little excitement. The most exciting place was the attic of our school. We used to sneak in there during breaks. It was full of stuffed animals and skeletons. There was also a human skeleton, standing right next to the old school-desks. It was spooky, and we often thought we heard children crying there. Once our teacher caught us, spending our break indoors again.
We were playing hide and seek in the school’s stage costume department. In the beginning of the next class, our teacher asked the guilty ones to stand up. As I stood up, afraid of the punishment, something very surprising happened. Everybody stood up. Not just us three guilty ones, but all the twenty girls and all the four boys. I don’t know how that happened, but I will always remember the feeling of standing there with the others, in front of the confused teacher.