A Child's Day - video

Going to Gambia

December 1st 2013, Finland, Hämeenlinna

Our co-operation project’s “A child’s Day” work visit to Gambia is coming soon – only four nights and then we go! A group of classteachers, Jenni, Sanna and Jarkko, our photographer Jari and me, are travelling to Gambia for a week during December 6th and 13th.  We are spending a week with our colleagues from Gola Fortunate and Primary School. We have planned some lessons about Finnish nature, school, music, sports and peer mediation. But what is more important, we have an opportunity to see how Gambian school system works and have conversations with the staff.

We have planned this journey carefully with the students and with the whole school staff. First thing what the students did was that day wrote letters, draw pictures and took photos. We sent a big post paggage to the school. We have been told that the students really liked everything that we send there. The students have took pictures and made some presentations about our school day and child’s day in general. Also we have some material about peer mediaton which we are taking with us and starting a conversation with the Gambian school staff about conflict management.

I have spent quite many evenings by the laptop having conversations with my colleague Victoria via Skype. Quite often it has occurred that the electricity is off in Gambia and we have had to re-schedule our video-meetings. Also the line is usually very low, so that has made the communication very difficult sometimes.

We are taking an invitation letter with us to Gambia. We hope that a group of Gola School staff could come to Finland in April 2014 and visit us for one week. We have learned that travelling from Finland to Gambia is much more easier than from Gambia to Finland. Our Gambian colleagues need to travel to Abuja/Nigeria to apply for a visa – and that is a longlong way to go. But we hope that everything goes well and we will have our colleagues from Gambia visiting our school on April.

Our accommodation is in a town village called Kololi and Banana Villa is situated in the middle of Gambiancombounds. We didn’t want to go to the hotel area, because we think in this way we will get more realistic picture about normal Gambian lifestyle. It is a modest, but safe place to live.

It will take ten hours to fly to Gambia with only one stop at the Canary Islands. We are looking forward on meeting our companion school soon!

Ulla Sara-aho

Lapsen päivä - A child's Day

Kirkonkulman koulu on mukana Opetushallituksen ja Ulkoministeriön globaalikasvatushankkeessa – KOMPPI- HANKE.

Kirkonkulman ja kumppanikoulun välisen projektin tarkoituksena on kumppanikoulujen oppilaiden ja opettajien kulttuuritietouden ja -ymmärryksen lisääminen ja syventäminen. Tarkoitus on tukea myönteisten mielikuvien ja kokemusten syntymistä oppilaille sekä ohjata oppilaita havaitsemaan oman toiminnan vaikutuksia muihin ihmisiin. Tarkasteltavana ilmiönä on "Lapsen päivä" omassa paikallisessa arjessa (koulu, koti, perhe, vapaa-aika, yhteisöt ja toimintaympäristöt). Mielenkiinnon kohteena ovat oppilaiden osallisuus oppimisessa, ristiriitatilanteiden ratkaisemisessa sekä oppilaiden onnen aiheet. Opettajatason yhteistyön tarkoitus on opetusmenetelmällistä rikastamista, ymmärryksen syventämistä sekä monikulttuuristen sovittelutaitojen kehittämistä collegue to collegue-periaatteella.

Tavoitteena on osallistava prosessi, jonka avulla mallinnetaan osallisuutta: oppilaat ovat mukana projektin suunnittelussa, toteutuksessa ja arvioinnissa. Henkilökohtainen suhde opiskeltavaan asiaan luo hedelmällisen lähtökohdan syventää ymmärrystä globaaleista kysymyksistä paikallisella tasolla.

Yhtenä konkreettisena sisältönä on sovitteluun tutustuminen osallistavana menetelmänä. Kumppanikoulujen paikallisissa kulttuureissa on isoja lähtökohtaisia ja asenteellisia eroja konflikteihin suhtautumisessa ja tämän tiedostamme haasteena. Tarkoitus ei ole ottaa ns. tietäjän positiota, vaan asettua aitoon dialogiin ja edistää tasa¬ arvoista ja kunnioittavaa vuorovaikutusta, joka on restoratiivisessa ajattelussa keskeisintä. Uskomme, että kehityskumppanuudelle ja yhteisen ymmärryksen rakentamiselle luodaan vahva pohja kunnioittavan vuorovaikutuksen periaatteilla. Kumppanuushankkeen aikana kumppanikoulujen opettajat ja oppilaat saavat koulutusta sovittelusta menetelmänä. Tavoitteena on yhdessä tutustua ja harjoitella sovittelua sekä muita osallistavan ja restoratiivisen pedagogiikan menetelmiä ja niiden soveltamista paikallisissa kulttuureissa.

Hankkeen kumppanikoulu Gambiassa on Gola Fortunate Nursery and Primary School. Koulussa on 360 oppilasta. Kumppanikoulu on alakoulu jossa järjestetään myös esiopetusta. Koulun rehtori Victoria Onwenu ja opettajat ovat kiinnostuneita kehityskumppanuudesta sekä osallistavasta pedagogiikasta ja koulusovittelusta. Gambian kumppanikoulujen rahoituspohjat ovat erilaiset ja taloudelliset edellytykset ovat vähäiset. On tärkeää tiedostaa, että kumppanikoulu toimii omista edellytyksistään käsin.

Oppilaiden osallistuminen hankkeessa Oppilaiden osallistuminen on olennaisessa roolissa hankkeen sisältöjen suunnittelussa (esim. toimet kumppanikouluissa), tapaamisissa sekä yhteydenpidossa mm käsiteltäviin teemoihin liittyvien ryhmätöiden ja kirjeiden/kirjoitusten kautta. Oppilaat otetaan mukaan hankkeeseen jo suunnitteluvaiheessa rahoituspäätöksen jälkeen. Hanketyöryhmään nimetään oppilaskunnasta oppilasedustajat ja heidät kutsutaan mukaan työryhmän tapaamisiin. Oppilaskunnan hallitus tai oppilasedustajien kokoama oppilastyöryhmä kokoontuu myös keskenään vastuuopettajan kanssa ideoimaan ja suunnittelemaan hanketta.

A child's Day

The aim of the project is to increase and deepen cultural knowledge and understanding of the students as well as staff in the partnering schools. The objective is to help the students to make positive images and experiences and as well as make them conscious of the effects their actions have on other people. The phenomenon we are focusing on is a child´s child´s day in his or her own natural settings (school, home, family, free time, communities, environment) The object of interest is the children`s participation in learning, solving conflicts and the things that make them happy. The aim of co-operation between teachers is to enrich one´s pedagogical methods and to deepen the understanding and developing multi-cultural means of conflict solving with the help of colleague to colleague -principle.

The objective is to create an inclusive process to model participation: the students are envolved in planning, performing and evaluating the project. A personal relationship to the things they are learning creates an ideal starting point to deepen the understanding of global questions on a local level. The objective for the teachers is to reflect upon one´s own teaching as well as sharing methods of one´s every day work between the teachers envolved. Since the aim is an equal partnership, peer learning and peer evaluation play an important role as methods as well as between teachers as between students. Co-operation is carried out both by mail and email. However, a meeting in both participating countries plays an important role in learning and sharing knowledge. Developing ideas of equality and parity The aim is to discuss the meaning of inclusiveness/sharing in learning and to find ways of increasing participation of both students and teachers in the schools through inclusive leadership and pedagogy. One concrete content of the project is mediation as a method to enable participation/inclusion. There are significant differences between the partnering schools in dealing with conflicts and we are aware of this being a challenge. The aim is not to take the position of a know-it-all but to engage in genuine dialogue and advance equal and respectful interaction that plays a central role in mediation. We believe that a strong foundation for developing partnership and building mutual understanding is created with the help of respectful interaction. During the project, the teachers and students in the partnering schools will learn about mediation as a method. The aim is together to get acquinted with and practice mediation as well as other methods of restorative pedagogy and to apply them in local cultures.

The reason for Kirkonkulma school to participate in this project is the long-term systematic workin developing an inclusive school culture. The school was rewarded on the 4th March for advancing inclusive pedagogy with the students. Gola Fortunate Nursery and Primary School There are about 360 pupils in the school. The partner school is a primary school with some pre-school education. The head teacher Ms Victoria Onwenu and the teachers are interested in developing partnership and inclusive pedagogy and mediation in the school. The means of finance are different and economical conditions are low. It is important to be aware that the partner schools are working within their economical conditions. Finnish Forum for Mediation (Suomen Sovittelufoorumi) is envolved in the project as a cooperation partner. They provide us with teaching, consulting aid and expert help in school mediation as well as means of inclusive and restorative pedagogy. In addition, we receive materials in English from them. The practical experiences they have made in a global education project located in Uganda are essential to the realistic planning and impimentation of our project. On a local level in Hämeenlinna the parents´society of the school and other local societieswill participate on the project.

Participation of pupils plays an essential role in planning the project themes (eg. what we do in partner schools) meetings and communicating by means of group works and letters/written documents. The pupils are envolved in the project even in the planning phase after the funding is sequred. There will be representatitives in the project group from the student board and they are invited in group meetings. The student board or a group of pupils named by them will meet with the staff member in charge to gather ideas for and plan the project.

Ulla Sara-aho, headteacher of Kirkonkulma Primary School.