The Global Search for Education
The aim of “Campus” is to allow experts on a diverse range of topics, from neuroscience to eating disorders to cyber-bullying, to share perspectives with educators.
Campus Talk
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
“Campus,” an idea born in Finland (the top ranking country in education according to recent international comparisons), is an exclusive professional seminar for all New York City public school teachers that will be held this Saturday, May 4th at Sunshine Cinema in New York, in cooperation with the NYC Department of Education. The aim is to allow experts on a diverse range of topics, from neuroscience to eating disorders to cyber-bullying, to share perspectives with educators on recent developments in those spheres.
“What is School For? The Power of the Heroic Teacher,” will be the keynote speech by blogger and best selling author Seth Godin. Other speakers include Gary Carter, Dr. Eero Castren, Dr. Elizabeth Englander, Dr. Andrea Vazzana and Kathy Bostjancic. I was able to catch up with them to talk about some of the topics they will be addressing.
Seth, what makes a heroic teacher?
Seth: Heroism is about taking risks. Sometimes it’s the existential risk of running into a fire but more often than not it’s the vulnerability that comes from going off the beaten path, from standing up for what you believe in and, most of all, for caring more than you should.
Elizabeth, what makes cyber-bullying a major issue?
Elizabeth: Communicating through digital means represents a major change for the human race. Unlike the advent of some other technologies, cyberspace literally changes the way people perceive and understand each other. But because it is so new, these subtleties aren’t well understood, and thus the impact of social cruelty that occurs digitally is still an area of intensive study. Children, in particular, often don’t understand how severely their digital words and their sharing of images can affect their peers (and others), and thus the social problems caused by cyber-communications are far too frequent and can be very severe. For all its advantages, cyber-communication can also lead to serious problems, including depression, anxiety, problems with social skills, and difficulties in human relationships. Cyber-bullying is a major issue simply because it causes a great deal of grief and will not subside before it is better understood and before this knowledge is successfully transmitted to users.
Gary, do you believe our education system is doing enough for children with learning disabilities?
Gary: As I am neither an American, nor an educationalist, I am not qualified to comment on whether this education system does enough for children with learning disabilities. I am the parent of an adopted disabled child.
However, I am convinced that mainstream society in the Western world undervalues the lived experience of people with all kinds of disabilities, physical and developmental/learning. We assume that the experience of individuals with disabilities is somehow less than ours, or lacking, and as a result we tend not to focus on understanding, participating in, or enriching their experience of the world. We tend instead to move from a position of pity, to discussing the impact of non-mainstream children on parents and other (mainstream) family members, again usually in a context of the difficulties families experience in managing, dealing with or living with disabled members. This has a number of dangerous implications: it tends to make the whole family ‘about’ the disabled member, at the expense of other members of it, and at the same time it does little to enrich the life experience of the disabled individual or the other family members.
There is surprisingly little focus by professionals on the direct relationship or interface between mainstream family members and disabled family members, in an emotional sense and experiential sense, and even less on ensuring that disabled family members have a rich emotional and conceptual experience of the world. It’s as if we cannot imagine that a world that is experienced fundamentally differently to ours can be valuable, rich and inspiring.
Eero, how significant an impact can the neuroscience of learning have on what and how students are taught?
Eero: Many forms of learning take best place during sensitive periods in childhood and juvenile life. We have recently learned a great deal of new things about how learning can be promoted in adults, when the sensitive periods are closed, and about the neurobiological basis of this enhanced learning. Experiments performed in rodents demonstrate that certain commonly used drugs, such as the antidepressant Prozac, can promote learning by activating in adult brain a state similar to that present during sensitive periods of learning in juveniles. Drug treatment needs to be combined with a training program for any beneficial effects to become apparent. A similar plastic state can be activated by purely environmental changes, such as an enriched environment. It is currently unclear how these treatments might influence children still within the sensitive periods of learning, but these findings underlie the importance of a stimulating and supportive environment for optimal learning.
Andrea, how big of an issue is body image for students in the classroom?
Andrea: Awareness of one’s appearance begins during the preschool years. Sadly, negative body image begins soon thereafter and increases with age, peaking in adolescence. Among grade school kids, most girls and nearly half of boys report body dissatisfaction. It’s estimated that by adolescence, one-third of girls engage in unhealthy weight-control practices (i.e., fasting, self-induced vomiting, diet pill/laxative use). Kids learn from parents, teachers, peers and the media to value thinness (for girls) and muscularity (for boys). Deviations from the ideal can result in decreased self-worth, even among normal weight individuals. School, where the preponderance of peer interactions occurs, is a prime setting for appearance-related conversations and comparisons. The school’s physical environment, as well as faculty’s role-modeling and direct comments, sometimes provides further inculcation of idealized appearance standards. The past decade has seen the development of school-based interventions that realign body image with realistic standards and protect students from otherwise deleterious effects.
Kathy, what should we be teaching students about the interconnectedness of global economies?
Kathy: The U.S. economy still remains the single largest in the world, and its influence remains great. However, the winds of economic power are shifting from the advanced economies to the emerging economies. In 2000, the advanced economies, including the U.S., Europe, and Japan, accounted for 60 percent of total world economic activity, while the emerging economies accounted for 40 percent. Just a decade later in 2010, the split between advanced and emerging economies shifted to 50 percent - 50 percent. In 2020, the emerging economies are projected to outpace the advanced economies, with the split moving to 60 percent - 40 percent in favor of the emerging economies. And China is forecast to displace the U.S. as the largest economy. Moreover, the global economies and financial markets are becoming more and more interconnected. Given these global realities, it is critical that U.S. students view the U.S. economy and their own future within a global context.
For more information and registration: http://campusnyc.eventbrite.com
Top row: Andrea Vazzana, C.M. Rubin, Seth GodinBottom row: Gary Carter, Elizabeth Englander, Eero Castren, Kathy Bostjancic
Photos are courtesy of Idealist Group (Helsinki, Finland) and the Consulate General of Finland.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
The Education Debate 2012 — Howard Gardner
The Education Debate 2012 — Howard Gardner
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
Has there ever been a more important time to debate the big picture questions of education? As nations around the world reform education to prepare their students for the 21st century workplace, are our students ready to compete? In five interviews with education luminaries, I’ve asked them to imagine they were Secretary of Education and to discuss how they would address the issues facing America.
Today, my imaginary Secretary of Education is Dr. Howard Gardner. Dr. Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, he received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. Dr. Gardner has received honorary degrees from 26 colleges and universities. In 2005 and 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. His most recent book is Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the Age of Truthiness and Twitter.
“Asking me to be Secretary of Education is a stretch, if not a counterfactual state of affairs, since my ideas and values are quite distant from those of my predecessors. Nonetheless, if, knowing of my views, a hypothetical President were to appoint me, here’s how I would answer his or her questions.”
What should the role of the federal government be in K-12 education? How much more funding should be given to education reform and in what major areas should it be spent?
The Federal Government plays a crucial role in ensuring civil rights and equitable distribution of funds to districts-in-need and to talented students. In the last few decades, it has become involved in issues of curriculum and assessment. While the motivation may have been praiseworthy, the results have been mixed. In many ways, the education that has been promoted is regressive; it presumes a population that was needed in the 19th or 20th century, rather than the graduates that we should want and need for the 21st century (versatile, critical and creative problem solvers, and responsible, decent, well-informed citizens). The curriculum has been increasingly narrowed to STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) subjects and the assessments to multiple choice, fact-centric instruments.
Every educator and every parent in America should read Pasi Sahlberg’s book, Finnish Lessons. Finland has catapulted from a country with a mediocre educational system to perhaps the most admired system in the world. It has done so by ignoring the GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) approach to educational reform (Sahlberg’s sardonic term) favored by the U.S. and England.
Finnish education features: 1) a highly professionalized teacher cohort; 2) a very ‘flat’ system. Schools around the country look similar to one another and each classroom contains the range of students. Teachers are expected to deal with the range - little talk about ‘special needs’ or ‘special education.’ There is plenty of art, music, and crafts in the system, and the amount is being increased this year! Also, through ninth grade, there are few formal tests.
What would be your position on improving the teaching profession, including recruitment, teacher training, compensation, and assignment to low income schools?
The key to a high performing educational system — whether it is in Finland, Singapore, or Canada — is a highly professionalized teacher corps. Professionals know their subjects and how to teach them effectively. They are given status, autonomy, and a reasonable standard of living, on the assumption that they can make judicious decisions about complex, not easily solved dilemmas. (For more on the good professional, see goodworkproject.org). The bulk of federal discretionary funds should be used to shift our country from a K-12 teaching cohort that is not distinguished academically and has not had the opportunity to act in a professional manner to a cohort that is as well-informed as our best engineers and physicians and as thoughtful and fair minded as our best judges.
The most skilled teachers should work in the most challenging districts and should be compensated accordingly. We should be recruiting from the same ranks as Teach for America, but not for a two year immersion — rather for decades-long dedication to a noble profession. Teacher training should take place over several years, largely on site, and not in brief ‘boot camps’. There should be a career path from intern to teacher to master teacher and teacher-of-teachers. The issue is NOT price — we spent trillions on wars, and give huge tax breaks to multi-millionaires, with hardly any second guessing.
What would be your position on school choice, including charter schools and their expansion, private schools, vouchers and investment in inadequately staffed and facilitated low income schools?
Given the disagreements and different value systems across the American educational system, the experimentation involved in charter schools has probably been worthwhile. It has hardly been revolutionary in any sense, and certainly not in results. I have stated for twenty years that we cannot expect charter schools to be notably better than regular public schools because ultimately they draw on the same population of teachers and students and, except in a few cases, have available equivalent funding.
In a country that was truly serious about educational reform, one would aim for excellently trained teachers in the full range of public schools, and there would be no need for charters or vouchers. The needed experimentation can be done within the public system as happens, for example, in Singapore.
Howard Gardner
What would be your strategy to address the domestic and international achievement gaps, including your position on early childhood education, standardized testing, on-line modular education, and teacher/principal accountability?
Though it is politically incorrect to say so, I think the U.S. has spent much too much time and energy documenting the achievement gap. Any social scientist, indeed any reasonable observer, could have told us twenty years ago that there would be large achievement gaps across racial and socio-economic groups. And any person with common sense could indicate the kinds of steps that were likely to lead to the reducing of the achievement gap.
In the U.S., we have a figure/ground problem. The dominant figure has become test scores and international comparisons — everything is focused on this ‘league table’ mentality. As a person who believes in the United States as it once was, the ‘figure’ should be the kind of society that we want to have and the kind of human beings that we want to nurture. All education, including testing and ranking, should be organized around the attainment of that vision. I believe that if we succeeded in having schools that were as good as our country can be, the test scores and rankings would take care of themselves. Remember, too, that the U.S. remained predominant, despite earlier threats from the Soviet Union and Japan; this was not about our test scores, it was about the health of our society.
What would be your position on curriculum reform, including the role of the arts, the treatment of ethics, and the adoption of blended online learning?
Our educational system ought to reflect the highest values of our society. I believe that education in the arts should be as central in the lives of young people as education in science or mathematics. Moreover, and this may ensure my marginality in current discourse, I believe that education in the arts needs no justification in terms of ‘transfer’ to other subjects or to its generation of wealth; it is a ‘good’ in itself. Indeed, societies are ultimately remembered for their art and culture, and that is as it should be.
Since I’ve devoted almost twenty years to the promotion of ethical thinking in young people, I don’t have to reiterate the importance of ethics in the educational system. There is nothing wrong with courses in ethics. But ultimately, the most powerful ‘treatment’ is the way that adults behave, at home, at school, and in the workplace; and the kinds of signals given by our society to those who behave ethically and those — often working on Wall Street — who do not. If ethics is ‘in the air’ and ‘on the street’, young people will notice; and if ethical behavior is honored in the breach, rather than in the observance, that will, alas, be noted as well.
When I describe my studies of ‘good work,’ to strangers, their eyes often glaze over. Hearing about ‘bad work’ is so much more tantalizing. But I gain attention when I point out that all over the world, people admire our legal system, our judicial system, our journalism, our institutions of higher education. And yet, I can testify first hand, that we are doing our best, as a society, to undermine those institutions. What a tragedy! That is because, over the last four decades, ethics has taken a back seat to the accumulation of wealth, by any means possible. The best political system is NOT untrammeled capitalism; it is the subtle blending of democracy, capitalism, and socialism — as observed in Scandinavia and in Northern Italy.
What would be your position on how to make college affordable for more qualified low income students?
Again, I risk being politically incorrect. I am great believer in the liberal arts, as conveyed in our best residential colleges, and I believe that Yale (and Swarthmore and Williams) are worth what they charge — and of course, they actually cost more than they charge. It would be tragic if these schools were to abandon their educational mission, again at the very time that the rest of the world (e.g. ,Singapore, the Emirates) are trying to emulate them.
But, alas, an education like this is only available to families that are affluent, or to the lucky few who benefit from need-blind admissions; the inequity of human, social and financial capital is fanning the distance between the haves (the upper 1 percent) and everyone else.
I have several suggestions:
- We need to determine what can be accomplished well ‘online’ and transmit as much of education as we can in ways that are inexpensive and widely accessible.
- We need to redirect as much of governmental and charitable discretionary funds to provide opportunities for the talented who lack the money for a higher education.
- We should provide forgivable loans to those who go into public service careers.
- We need to experiment with blended learning, such that students can have residential experiences while living at home, so that they don’t need to move across country into expensive housing.
- We need to improve our primary and secondary education so that we don’t need the remedial courses required for millions of students in our community colleges and other non-selective institutions.
- At some point in their lives, all individuals who would like a broader liberal arts education ought to have the opportunity, but there is absolutely no need to provide this to all 18 years olds. Many of them are much better off in the workplace — both for them and for our workplaces.
Howard Gardner and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of Harvard Graduate School of Education.
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Andy Hargreaves (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“We believe that influencing the bystanders is a key to successful prevention of bullying.”— Professor Christina Salmivalli
It Takes a Community
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
It takes a community to prevent bullying in schools, which is expected to affect 13 million children in the U.S. in the current school year. Stopping the bullying epidemic also requires funding, research, a holistic program developed with that research plus the collaboration and commitment of all the principal stakeholders.
Educators in Finland understand how to reduce bullying and victimization in their country, which has one of the world’s leading education systems. They already have a comprehensive anti-bullying program in place called KiVa™ (from the Finnish words, kiusaamista vastaan, meaning against bullying). A key measure of the program’s success is that 98% of the students whose bullying incident was tackled by the school’s KiVa™ team said their situation improved.
There are 2800 schools in Finland providing comprehensive education from grades 1 through 9. At the moment, 90% of Finnish schools are logged in as users of the KiVa™ anti-bullying program and approximately 1500 schools use it systematically and repeatedly. Additionally, other countries around the world want it.
Today I am joined by Professor Christina Salmivalli of the University of Turku, Finland. For over 20 years, she and her team have done school based research on bullying and its prevention. She is the principal investigator of the KiVa™ anti-bullying program, which received first prize in the European Crime Prevention Awards (2009). KiVa™ has also won the Humanist Act of the Year Award (2008), the Child Act of the Year Award (2010), and the Campus Award (2012) in Finland. The latest evaluation study of KiVa™ received the 2012 Social Policy Award in Vancouver for the best article in the SRA (Society for Research on Adolescence). I am also joined today by teacher Juha Ollila who works with Professor Salmivalli as a teacher expert and is in addition international project manager for the KiVA™ anti-bullying program.
“Socially anxious children are at high risk of being victimized, especially in classrooms where reinforcing the bully is normative (occurring at high levels).”— Professor Christina SalmivalliJuha, why did the Finnish government and Finnish educators decide to make bullying prevention a priority?
Bullying became a big concern in Finnish society in the 1990´s and there were some changes in legislation because of this concern. However, the annual prevalence survey (School Health Promotion Study) showed that there were no changes on national trend data. Before KiVa™, Finland´s prevalence of bullies and victims was slightly below average based on studies done by the World Health Organization but they were still higher than in Sweden, for example. The Ministry of Education commissioned Professor Christina Salmivalli and her team to develop an anti-bullying program that would be suitable for national use because of the decades of research already done by her group in Finland.
Christina, what were the most important findings in your research on bullying?
In my own research, the first important thing was probably the notion that bystanders ARE part of the bullying process. My first publication on this topic came out in 1996, and at that time it was still common to focus (both in research and in interventions) on the individual bullies and victims. Today, the view of the group as participant is widely spread and also mentioned (e.g. empowering the bystanders) in many bullying prevention/intervention programs. After the first 1996 study, my group has continued to focus more on the bystanders than on bullies or victims. We know that classrooms vary considerably with respect to the degree of bullying problems, and this variation can be explained by classroom norms and actual bystander behaviors (whether students witnessing bullying tend to take sides with the victim or to join/reinforce the bully). We also know that individual-level factors, which usually increase the risk of victimization, do not operate similarly in all classrooms. For instance, socially anxious children are at high risk of being victimized, especially in classrooms where reinforcing the bully is normative (occurring at high levels). We believe that influencing the bystanders is a key to successful prevention of bullying. Also, we have examined which individual and classroom-level factors are associated with constructive bystander behaviors such as defending and supporting the peers who are targets of bullying. For instance, in order to take sides with the victimized peer, empathy is not enough. Many students who have lots of empathy towards victims still do not act upon it. We need to provide students with safe strategies to take sides with the weaker ones. This information has been utilized in developing the materials included in the KiVa™ program.
“We have tested the program in a very rigorous randomized controlled trial.”— Professor Christina Salmivalli
Christina, why do you believe the KiVa™ approach can combat bullying effectively?
One key is focusing on the bystanders. Another key to combating bullying is the systematic way in which KiVa™ guides school staff to coordinate and organize anti-bullying activities. KiVa™ is not just a pack of materials, it is a process. I have heard from Finnish teachers and students that the program materials are attractive and easy to implement. We have included some special features such as anti-bullying computer games. These are motivating ways to learn about bullying-related issues.
And, of course, we have very convincing evidence that KiVa™ works. We have tested the program in a very rigorous randomized controlled trial (Note: between 2007 and 2009, a large-scale randomized control trial was conducted with over 30,000 children from 234 elementary and high schools. 117 schools implemented KiVa™ and 117 continued with their existing action plan or anti-bullying policy. Results show KiVa™ was effective in reducing bullying and victimization during the first nine months of implementation. The study also showed that KiVa™ reduced depression and anxiety among students. Additional positive outcomes included an increase in school liking, academic motivation, and academic performance.)
“We need to provide students with safe strategies to take sides with the weaker ones.”— Professor Christina Salmivalli
Juha, what are some of the special preventative characteristics which make the Kiva™ program unique?
School personnel need concrete tools for bullying prevention work with children and youth, just as they need clear guidelines to intervene when bullying is detected. Adults are not usually present when the bullying takes place so children need to know how to behave constructively when witnessing bullying incidents. So KiVa™ teaches not only teachers but also students what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Of course, reporting systematic bullying to adults is also important, and KiVa™ makes that easier by providing an online reporting tool (Note: a virtual “mailbox” in the KiVa™ computer game) that students can use to report bullying they have experienced or witnessed directly to the KiVa™ team in their school.
Other special characteristics are that we have both universal and indicated actions. Universal actions illustrate commitment and coordination at the school level. Types of things that signal we are a KiVa™ school include visible vests for teachers supervising recess time, student online surveys, student lessons, computer games, virtual learning environments, and a website and guide for parents.
Indicated actions include tackling the cases of bullying that come to the attention of school staff. In such cases, the school-based KiVa™ team conducts individual and group discussions with the students who have been bullying and the target child.
“School personnel need concrete tools for bullying prevention work with children and youth, just as they need clear guidelines to intervene when bullying is detected.” — Juha OllilaIs the strategy as effective for the child who is most likely to be the bully?
Speaking as a teacher, a KiVa™ teacher has been specially trained in the KiVa™ practice. We have KiVa™ exercises which enable us to put different types of students in different types of positions. For example, one might put the person who is more likely to bully in the position of the victim, and vice versa. Further, the Universal actions are not only for the students and the teachers but also for the parents, who play a big role. Before the program starts, we recommend that parents are educated and engaged via the Parent-Teacher meetings. We find that parents support the program because it creates a better school environment for their children.
When bullies are identified, how are they punished?
Punishment is not the key issue, at least in the beginning of the process. There are two slightly different strategies that KiVa™ teams might use when tackling bullying cases; we call them “confronting” and “non-confronting” approaches. Without going into detail, both approaches are based on the idea that the bullying students themselves, after discussion with KiVa™ team members, suggest how they will change their behavior. After one or two weeks there is a follow-up in which the adults make sure that bullying has stopped. Punishments may come if these approaches fail, but in most cases the situation has improved by the time of the follow-up meeting. The kind of punishment used varies across schools.
“Adults are not usually present when the bullying takes place so children need to know how to behave constructively when witnessing bullying incidents.” — Juha Ollila
Where else in the world is the KiVa™ program?
Professor Rene Veenstra from the University of Groningen is implementing KiVa™ in the Netherlands as a part of his and his group’s study. There are 70 schools using KiVa™, and 35 control schools. Dr. Veenstra is doing research on the implementation and its effects during 2012-2014.
Professor Judy Hutchings is responsible for the KiVa™ implementation in the UK in Wales. There are 14 schools using KiVa™ in Wales starting this school year.
Professor Julie Hubbard is testing KiVa™ in the U.S. in Delaware this school year in 60 classrooms in 6 different schools.
Last year in Sweden in the Lerum municipality, 17 schools took part in the KiVa™ program. During the first school year, the number of students who were bullied decreased by 40% and the number of students who were bullying others decreased by 30%. They will continue the program this year.
In Luxembourg, the European School is testing French, German, and English versions of the KiVa™ materials.
A Japanese version of KiVa™ material is being evaluated by Professor Yuichi Toda and his team (University of Osaka). Hopefully some Japanese schools will soon be testing KiVa™.
Christina Salmivalli, C. M. Rubin, Juha Ollila
Photos courtesy of KiVa™
In The Global Search for Education, join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (US), Dr. Leon Botstein (US), Professor Clay Christensen (US), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (US), Dr. Madhav Chavan (India), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (US), Professor Andy Hargreaves (US), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (US), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. Eija Kauppinen (Finland), State Secretary Tapio Kosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Professor Ben Levin (Canada), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (US), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (US), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (US), Yves Theze (Lycee Francais US), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (US), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
The Global Search for Education Community Page
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
Follow C. M. Rubin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@cmrubinworld
The Global Search for Education
“In the Finnish public education system we already have a music, visual arts, and crafts education that is compulsory for all students.” - Dr. Eija Kauppinen
The Arts Face to Face
By C. M. Rubin with Harry Rubin and Michael Freeborn
The New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, a member driven association of arts education entities, held its 2012 Face to Face conference last week. Presentations were made on best arts practices in both domestic and international communities, which included successful programs in Dallas Texas, Venezuela, Scotland and Finland.
Co-Chair Kati Koerner commented, “These are places where they are thinking about arts education across entire nations. Given the fact that arts education access is still (despite NYC Department of Education Office of Arts and Special Projects efforts) distributed quite inequitably across our 1700 schools in New York City, it is inspiring to hear that in other places every child has the opportunity to engage in hands on arts learning. That is a beacon for us. It makes us realize that we have a long way to go.”
I had the opportunity to have a more private “face to face” with conference participant Dr. Eija Kauppinen on the thinking behind arts education in Finland today and for the future. Dr. Eija Kauppinen has been Counselor of Education at the Finnish National Board of Education (the FNBE) since 2006. In the FNBE, she is responsible for issues related to music and dance education from pre-school to professional training.
What is Finland currently doing in terms of an arts curriculum in primary/secondary school education and what are your goals and objectives going forward?
In the Finnish public education system we already have a music, visual arts, and crafts education that is compulsory for all students aged 7 to 16. However, over the past decade there has been a lot of pressure (especially from arts advocates and other experts) to further increase arts education in Finland. Our ministry of education established a working group in August, 2011 to draw up a proposal covering new general educational objectives in Finland. That proposal (Future of Basic Education) was published last Friday and aims to strengthen many areas including arts education, physical education, civic and citizenship education, education in environmental issues, and diversification of language teaching. The working group proposed increasing the number of required lesson hours in music, visual arts, and crafts for all students (music from 7 to 8 hours per week, visual arts from 8 to 10 hours per week, and crafts from 11 to 12 hours per week). The extra hours will guarantee the availability of qualified teachers in the arts subjects. The proposal would also enable specialization in teaching arts. Our government now has to agree this proposal and issue the Government Decree on the General National Objectives and Distribution of Lesson Hours, and then the FNBE will draw up National Core Curricula for basic education.
“Arts subjects are essential if we think in terms of personal development.” - Dr. Eija Kauppinen
Can you explain how you will be able to get better qualified arts teachers by adding more hours to your curriculum? How many years do your teachers study before they are considered qualified?
We have two kinds of teachers in basic education: class teachers who teach in grades 1-6, and subject teachers who teach in grades 7-9. There has been a slight shortage of qualified subject teachers in grades 7-9, because there have not been enough lesson hours for full-time arts teacher positions in some schools. The situation has been the worst in music. I think that the working group’s idea has been that increasing the number of lesson hours may bring more full-time teacher positions, which may facilitate the recruitment of qualified teachers.
In Finland’s basic education system, all qualified teachers must have a Master’s degree. The Master’s degree can be completed in five to five and a half years from entry to college.
How do your teachers assess students studying the arts in the current system?
Teachers are responsible for pupil assessment. Pupil assessment is divided into assessment during the course of studies and final assessment. According to our national curricula, the tasks of assessment are to guide and encourage studying and to depict how well the pupil has met the objectives established for learning. The task of the final assessment is to define how well the pupil has achieved the objectives of the basic education syllabus in the different subjects.
Our national curricula include the criteria for final assessment in core subject areas and also in music, visual arts, and crafts. Teachers have to assess the pupil’s performance with those criteria on the basis of diverse evidence. For instance, in music education we have eight criteria for different kinds of key competences in music, for instance, the pupils will “master, as individuals, the basic technique of some rhythm, melody, or harmony instrument so as to be able to play in an ensemble” or “know how to listen to both their own music and music produced by others, so as to be able to make music together with others.”
“If we want to promote our children’s creativity, the arts play an important role.” - Dr. Eija Kauppinen
How do you see the impact of the arts on students’ personal development?
First, arts subjects are essential if we think in terms of personal development. The arts are essential tools to increase self-awareness and understanding of your own and other’s experiences; the arts are a means to understanding emotions and the emotional aspects of life; the arts are also essential tools in self-expression.
Second, if we want to promote our children’s creativity, the arts play an important role. Creativity should be part of teaching in all subject areas, of course, but the arts are key for learning active problem solving and for understanding and learning creative processes.
In addition, in terms of students’ abilities in other subject areas, based on cognitive studies, it seems that the arts promote our capability to learn other subject areas too. For instance, learning music in early childhood seems to develop one’s linguistic capacity. (Please see the work of Minna Huotilainen at the University of Helsinki).
What other things do you believe need to be added to the current arts curriculum in Finnish schools?
The arts should be part of everyday life in schools and a part of the operational culture of our schools.
We need to draw up objectives for an arts education in such a way that it is able to foster the development of critical thinking skills, i.e. the ability to apply skills and knowledge, to analyze, to evaluate and to create.
At the moment, the aim of our music education is to develop basic knowledge in music and skills in singing, playing instruments, and composing. We should continue to strengthen all these skills in the future, but what we should promote in particular is composing. To get children involved in composing is an excellent way to promote their creativity.
“The arts should be part of everyday life in schools and a part of the operational culture of our schools.” - Dr. Eija Kauppinen
What is your perspective on arts education in the US today?
You have great teachers and great practices, but every child should have access to an arts education, which I understand is not the case everywhere. All children need a broad general education, including arts. You have excellent arts institutions and artists too, and have the opportunity to be a leader in arts education.
What did you learn in Face to Face 2012 about the state of the arts in the US?
I learned that you have excellent practices and practitioners in the field of arts education. We have always believed that the reason Finland is so successful in education is because we have excellent teachers. However, what also matter are the resources (time, classrooms, equipment, etc.). A high quality education is not only dependent on teachers’ personal characteristics; conditions matter too.
For more information on the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable
Dr. Eija Kauppinen and C. M. Rubin
Photos courtesy of the Finnish Arts Association of Basic Education for the Arts, Sorin Sirkus, and Dr. Eija Kauppinen.
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C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland.
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