Nordic Values in Education - a workshop
Associate Professor, Peter H. Frostholm, VIA University College phf@via.dk
The workshop
• 2 hours:
• A lecture
• A short movie
• Discussion in groups
Some numbers and facts
The pedagogue – an educated person with a 3,5 year
bachelors degree
Roughly 30.000 people work as pedagogues in Denmark
(pop. 5,7 mill.)
A key cornerstone in the
Danish welfare state! Works with people in all age groups – 0 – 99
Works in a great variety of work fields – nurseries, kindergartens, day care centres, schools, after school
centres, youth clubs, group homes for the mentally or
physically disabled, rehabilitation centres, sheltered workshops and
much more…
Works alongside teachers, nurses, psychologists, physios
and many other professionals…
So what is pedagogy?
• Is it a method for achieving a certain goal?
• Is it an idea? A philosophy?
• Or is it the framework for our work?
• Whatever we believe in, there will always be an element of uncertainty present… We are dealing with a phenomenon that changes and mutates constantly and becomes
”something”, as we go…
What frames a nordic
pedagogical perspective.
A Danish
pedagogue works with:
Educating people through a formal
“bildung”- perspective
Nurturing people
Learning people stuff… (A very
broad
understanding of learning)
Being solicitous of people – taking
care of people, nurturing them…
Taking care of the individuals overall
development.
So what is the point?
Every developed society has a more or less well-defined or formulated EDUCATIONAL IDEAL!
• From a Nordic perspective the idea DEMOCRACY is heavily emphasised as a main educational ideal.
• “Daycare institutions and schools must give the children CO-DETERMINATION, CO- RESPONSIBILITY and a core understanding of DEMOCRACY!”
• ”The primary school must prepare the students for participation, co-
responsibility, rights and duties in a society with freedom and democracy. The school's activities must therefore be characterized by freedom, equality and democracy.”
The whole idea of behind a Nordic formulated educational ideal are the critical and liberating
perspectives. A mindset everyone in Denmark should share…
10 min in groups…
• Reflect:
• What values or pedagogical ideals frame and constitute your educational thinking?
• (Could be in kindergartens, schools, adult education… -
whatever suits you!)
A typical community gathering
• It is a cloudy afternoon in November 2020. A community gathering has just begun as a volunteer has gathered nine children aged 8-13, and three volunteers on the stair-like multi-purpose piece of furniture build of wood and veneer, big enough to seat 10-15 children and adults.
• He strums a guitar, ready to play a traditional Danish folk song. “We get to practice our whisteling in this one”, he says.
Everybody chimes in.
• A line from the song says: “Domine et sanctus”. “What does that mean?”, a child asks. A girl googles it via her smartphone:
“Lord and holy”, she says, shrugging her shoulders. After the song, a volunteer wants the group to discuss the following:
“How can I know, that this and everything else isn’t a
dream?”. “I can’t know for sure, I guess”, a girl reflects. “I can pinch myself, in order to maybe wake up!”, another girl
suggests. The volunteer goes on to tell a story about a man dreaming he is a butterfly. Or is the man indeed a butterfly dreaming that it is a man? “Because, what is reality?”, the volunteer ends his story. “So are you saying that all this could be a dream?”. “Maybe. Would reality really exist, if we couldn’t sense anything? Smell or feel it…?”, the volunteer continues.
“It is really confusing, this… You have given me way to much to think about now”, the girl says, laughing.
The Pedagogy
• A significant finding during the fieldwork was, that I never once experienced, that those responsible for line of pedagogy - the adults express what would be the better thing to think or mean, like when for example the question what is a family? comes up at one of the joint gatherings.
• “Education has to do with opening the world and directing
your attention toward different values and perspectives in life.
Also, it has to do with one’s world becoming big enough to
include others in it” (Mortensen, 2017).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkiij9dJfcw
R E F L E C T
• What do you think about the pedagogical ideas being presented here?
Will the children be ready for school?
There are no fences? Is that safe?
What about the boy in the tree?
Are you inspired by the film? In what way?
• What indeed is the pedagogy of the forrest kindergarten?
But where does it come from?
Jens Juel, 1782
Jens Juel, 1802
Something happened... At around 1750:
• New ideals about a free and self-governing human being. People should be educated and brought up due to their open and indeterminate nature and their common sense, in break with religious superstition and political
guardianship.
• Undermining the power of the church and theology in education and in an attempt to cut the pedagogical ideas and its values free from the church. Values of the free spirit and nature of children and man occurred.
• The despotic state began to show interest in upbringing and education of more secular and practical reasons (Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017: 121)
• The opinion about children and man in a pedagogical and anthropological changed crucially in the 1700’… The Christian view on children as original sinful, as a punishment of the disobedience of Adam and Eve was left in the 1600’ (Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017: 129)
J O H N L O C K E ( 1 6 3 2 – 1 7 0 4 )
E N G E L S K F I L O S O F
• The sensible adult life depended on childhood and the upbringing one had received there.
• Thus, Locke also turned against the idea that man was born sinful.
• Locke: The child is born innocent - man has no innate ideas and abilities. (Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017: 130).
J E A N - J A C Q U E S
R O U S S E A U ( 1 7 1 2 – 1 7 7 8 )
• Owes a lot to Locke.
• “Childhood has ways of seeing, thinking and feeling that are peculiar to it. Nothing can be more foolish than to want to replace this childish way of perceiving with our own. ”
• Childhood is "the age of nature" -
Childhood is not inferior or unfinished and no less valuable than the adults' sense…
• The child is natural! It is the adult ceased to be.
(Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017: 133).
J E A N - J A C Q U E S
R O U S S E A U ( 1 7 1 2 – 1 7 7 8 )
• For Rousseau, the child was good by nature - evil, on the other hand, stemmed from the development of culture and the bad
influence of society.
• The upbringing therefore has the task of protecting against this influence for as long as possible by creating a protected
development space in a secluded rural environment (Korsgaard, Kristensen &
Jensen, 2017: 133).
J E A N - J A C Q U E S
R O U S S E A U ( 1 7 1 2 – 1 7 7 8 )
• Uses the term "negative upbringing"
• The child should not be steered in a
particular direction But must learn through own experiences ("the law of necessity")
• When the child learns from his experiences, he will learn to use his senses and not be dependent on authorities
• Upbringing and pedagogy without upbringing for religious or societal
functions! Goal: Natural and harmonious people!
T H E L E G A C Y O F R O U S S E A U
• With the combination of Rousseau's notion of the child, the foundation is laid for modern pedagogy and its emphasis on free play, natural
surroundings and creative activities (cf. eg Dewey)
• Focus on the notion of the authentic child, the creative individual and
critique of civilization… finds many different expressions over time and is organized institutionally very differently
J O H N D E W E Y ( 1 8 5 9 – 1 9 5 2 )
• The teaching must be based on the child and his experiences. Society-oriented pedagogy - pedagogy and upbringing is about teaching individuals to participate in society's processes and through upbringing and teaching to
strengthen the social, cultural and communicative basis for democracy
• Knowledge must not be forced into the child from the outside. Learning should be an active process based on the child's own experiences, interests and initiatives, and the teaching
should be characterized by democratic thoughts about student participation (Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017).
J O H N D E W E Y ( 1 8 5 9 – 1 9 5 2 )
• The criticism was directed at the school's authoritarian and theoretical teaching and harsh discipline.
• This teaching made the students passive and authoritative.
• The consequence of this was that the schools became community-preserving - and there is no development…
J O H N D E W E Y ( 1 8 5 9 – 1 9 5 2 )
A M E R I K A N S K P Æ D A G O G O G F I L O S O F
• Experience-based learning principles -
"learning by doing" – ”To do” rather than sit still and listen and read.
• Learning through experiencing the
consequences of one's own and others' actions and deeds (Korsgaard, Kristensen
& Jensen, 2017).
• Learning and experience with practical and intellectual problem solving - exchanging experiences and collaborating with other students through democratic communities
T H E L E G A C Y O F D E W E Y
• Dewey's influence on 20th century pedagogical thinking can hardly be overstated.
• Danish school thinking and pedagogy after WW2 and in the 1970s = Great focus on democratic ways of life and experiential pedagogy… (Korsgaard, Kristensen & Jensen, 2017).