[Updated November 18, 19, 20 and 23].
The former director-general for “The Swedish National Institute for Public Health”, Gunnar Ågren, in the interview “Children’s health says more than the grades” in one of my teacher’s papers. In an interview where he says that a school that produces healthy kids also gives (or creates) good learning results.
I have blogged about this in Swedish, here my amateur translation to English.
A short background to the school in Sweden today: Our school-minister (or minister of education) wants to reintroduce grades (or marks) from the first class in school here. And he wants more discipline in school... He says the school is so noisy and that Swedish kids can't compete with students in many other parts of the world. Something that isn't true. We CAN compete.
However, he is proved to be wrong in many of the things he has been claiming to make his changes authorized.
And I want to add that I dislike his politics from deep, deep in my heart. The strange thing is that he is the leader for the Liberal party here in Sweden! Aren't liberals for freedom? Do young people have to earn freedom??
Here my free translation of this interview and my earlier posting in Swedish:
Ågren says that the teacher’s profession has turned from a health-profession to a risk-profession. The cuts (in economy) during the former decade in school (and the rest of the society), termed the steel-bath, worsened the teachers’ health considerably. Today the teachers are still a roughly pressured group he judges.
Many see the school as an instance that has to solve a row of societal problems/questions (with fewer and fewer resources). Does this create a too great pressure on the teachers the interviewer wonders?
The teacher’s work is no enviable work today Ågren replies.
There are an enormous amount of people having opinions about the school. Unfortunately there is a tendency to tackle problems with separate projects – like against mobbing, drugs an so on.
We ought to see the totality and synergy effects instead he thinks. Yes, I agree!!
In a school where the students get on well and thrive, and have influence on things (the same things grown up need on their workplaces!), a good learning follows - and there a drug preventive milieu is created too, Ågren adds (he has worked with drug questions/problems).
Addition November 18: The point with health promoting work is that it walks hand in hand with a good pedagogical work. A teacher who is a good pedagogue in a subject is the healthiest teacher for the students Ågren says.
But how does one define a “good” teacher? What is a good teacher?
“…it’s good for the health to have a say in things, to have influence over ones daily work situation – how one arrange ones job. At the same time it is important with clear and unambiguous, unequivocal structures. It’s much about good living habits. More and more data point to that physical activity influences the psychic health.”
And this is true both when it comes to children as when it comes to adult people, having a say in things, having influence over ones situation and possibilities to exert influence on ones situation.
What about actual visions for what sort of society, school, yes, workplaces on the whole we want to create? See an article below by Hanna Hallin about politics and to attract young people.
Did the chicken or the egg come first when it comes to the question if one devotes oneself to physical activity? The more secure/safe and more socially well-established you are the more energy and strength you have for psychical activity?
A leader writer here actually wrote about this the other day, that this ultimately is a question of class. The one with more power over his/her life has bigger chances and possibilities to for instance escape overweight.
However, the sole responsibility is put on the individual (by the society, that is “all other people”), and of course each one of us has responsibility for ourselves, but the leader writer thinks this is even more a political problem; how the society, work as well as leisure time shall become organized, so we and our bodies feel well, psychically and physically.
My addition: all "shall" and "must" causes stress! Hm, I myself is very much well organized? Efficient? And very spontaneous and impatient! But I can see the potential stress...
The interviewer asked Gunnar Ågren about the biggest challenge for teachers today. Ågren replies that he thinks it is the increasing psychic ill health among students and the pressure tremendously many children feel.
The problem comes when the students finish the school he thinks.
Today it isn’t enough that the students work enormously hard, they feel an insecurity nevertheless for the future. This creates a too big competition in the school.
“I am convinced this is the most important cause to the increasing ill health among children and adolescents.”
he says. Do they feel that they are good enough from the beginning? That they are loved just as they are?
The interviewer asks what Ågren thinks about grade-liking opinions from the first year in school (we haven’t had grades in school from the first year for over 40 years I think, and I think we have achieved quite well despite this, when it comes to education and educated people managing quite okay and capable of competing with people from other parts of the world, if it shall be about competing, but that’s another discussion and topic!!).
“I am very hesitant,”
Ågren replies.
“There is no real evidence they should make the school better. On the contrary I can see a row of potentially negative effects. They probably contribute to demoralising certain students on a much earlier stage, so that they don’t experience the school as meaningful.”
How well said. I agree with him! No, what does our current government know what they are doing???
We ought to discuss entirely different solutions to problems in the school!! And above all become united in visions for what sort of society we want to create (if that’s possible or desirable maybe?) or at least what sort of school and maybe also what sort of other institutions for all our best, i.e., create belief in the future among all our young people – and among ALL people! Again see the article I am going to refer to below by a Hanna Hallin!
Addition November 19: Ågren was asked about the so called ANT-education (education about the effects and dangers with drugs) in the school, if it reduces the risk for addiction and how the school maybe could work instead.
He says that they have seen that solely spreading knowledge doesn’t influence the students drinking. Objective information can in the worst case lead to that the students want to try instead of the opposite. However, this shouldn’t be taken as an argument to give up information – it’s important as a base he thinks.
But he adds that it has been shown that if the school is well structured, if it intervenes against truancy, if it has an accepted system of rules, a well thought-out policy concerning alcohol and a close cooperation with the parents – then the risk that the students drink alcohol and use drugs reduces too. They feel less tempted to break rules if they get on well in the milieu they are in.
This is valid for all people, children as adults!?
But why do people resort to drugs in the first place? Are there things we ought to inform about much more strikes me when I am writing this? About what child abuse of different kinds causes. Including informing parents about all this. Informing them already before they get children and during the pregnancy.
Ågren also spoke about something called “The School provide guard against” emphasizing the method “social and emotional learning.” This is about practical psychology; seeing other people’s reactions and learning to express emotions in a more nuanced way.
But why don’t we see other people's reactions in the first place? And why do we need to learn how to express emotions in a more nuanced way in the first place? Were we born this way? I don't think we were. Should we have done something so we didn’t need this education rather? And how do the so called experts deal with already harmed individuals actually? Only (trying to) relearning the harmed? How successful is this method? Do the experts want to hear the truth(s)? Quite ironically.
So fewer people needed this education? So we functioned better together in all sorts of situations and relations. In a more genuine way.
Yes, Alice Miller writes about traditional moral…
Addition November 20: Gunnar Ågren about the most important they have done in the area the school is during his time on The Institute for Public Health:
“We have done a great achievement concerning support to parents. A revolution has almost been done concerning programs directed at parents. The parents are the most important force for adolescents’ health, even if some [parents] are capitulating and say that comrades and teachers are more important.”
Can this be used as an alibi by parents I came to wonder. Quite ironically in fact. Something I have heard among colleagues with children above all. A way of resigning from ones responsibility. It feels good hearing the parents are the most important force.
But this doesn’t mean that the school and other instances don’t have a responsibility too for young people. Here it’s not about an either/or!?
Ågren further on this topic:
“You can’t have different norm-systems in the home and at school. If the parents have a false idea they shall soften the children’s’ alcohol habits by offering them alcohol, it doesn’t matter if the school says that the students shall wait till they are 18 years. The school and the parents have to have the same policy.”
Addition November 23: Evin Rubar (who made the film "Scapegoats, see below) has also made a film about the alcohol habits in Sweden, "Don't touch (take) my dram."
She came to Sweden as a 8 year old child and reacted with discomfort at her friends parents alcohol use. It looks as she wasn't used to these habits from where she came (Kurdistan?).
Rubar got the idea of making this film when she sat at a sushi-restaurant in Stockholm. A girl, seven or eight years, was there in company with a man in his forties. She was drinking Fanta (soda) to the food and he drank wine, two glasses. But the girl wanted him to drink soda too and when he ordered a whiskey after the food she asked the waiter to dilute the whiskey. He wasn't drunk at all, but it was the girl's reaction that gave Rubar the idea of making this film, recalling her early reactions too. She wanted to explore this topic and her feeling as a child more.
Recently they have also sent a TV-film here "Enraging kids", about old raising-methods that are on their way back in Sweden - and the world. Yes, it was this with Nanny-programs. I don't manage to watch them even. I dislike them intensely and from deep in my heart. Also see later posting about this.
At last about underestimating young people, and about winning votes on uniting and not dividing and ruling, apropos the American election and that the participation in the election was higher than it uses to, not least among young people if I understood this right: There was an article in a paper here with the heading "Obama's victory - a lesson for Swedish politicians"!
In which a Hanna Hallin, chair-woman for Sweden's youth-organizations (LSU), writes about the importance of being seen as a human being and citizen irrespectively from background, resources or age! Being someone to count on, who can make a difference and who deserves confidence.
A human being who can engage other human beings on their own terms, on their own arenas and with their own ideas, will probably become their new candidate. Yes, by showing real, genuine respect.
This change is possible in Sweden too, and is an exhortation to Swedish politicians.
And also see about "The Scapegoats" about problems in the school in our third biggest city Malmö in the south of Sweden and a letter to Alice Miller about this.
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