My professional experience in internationalization and multiculturalization

My name is Jyrki Välimäki. I’ve been the principal of Vasaramäki School in Turku since 1991. Our school  offers basic education from the 1st grade on to the 9th grade. And the age range is from 7 to 16.  We also offer preparatory education classes to young students who have recently immigrated in Finland.

Another special feature is our program for young athletes. We offer them training possibilities  and additional Physical Education lessons during the school day.  The program is organized under  the Sports Academy of Turku region.

All in all there are 670 pupils in Vasaramäki comprehensive school. 

My own professional  internationalization started in 1995 by participating the Comenius program project meeting in Bonn, Germany.

Back then my English language skills were very rusty. I managed to order my glass of beer and buy the train ticket, but discussing  professional issues was more than difficult. The situation was frustrating, because I felt that I had lots to give but  couldn’t make it.

My first personal learning objective was to refresh my school English and learn to discuss  educational issues.

So – from that point of view – year 2015 is  the 20th anniversary to me: I have been on the Road to Europe for 20 years.

I have  four tools for carrying out the internalization and multiculturalization  in Vasaramäki school.  Next I’ll try to introduce those tools by showing some examples of our school projects.

I am very fortunate with everything  I have met on the European road.  But nothing comes for free.  Everything we have accomplished has demanded lots of work.

International co-operation isn’t a one-man’s-show. You have to get your whole staff involved and committed in the process. And that’s a big challenge.

Back in 1995 we wrote letters our partners, sent faxes and made phone calls. Today we have more convenient tools: the internet, e-mail and social media. Communication can take place on-line and face-time.

To keep up a network  takes its time. But our profession as school principals or head teachers is more than just a job. At least for me it’s a way of living.

Facebook is a place to discuss with international and national colleagues, teachers and youth workers  about professional themes:

School inclusion, development of the school environment and school culture, empowerment of young people, entrepreneurship and personal leadership are very important themes.

Big and important professional topics, but most important is to get to know each other, to obtain personal relationships. To be able to ask: How are you, my Friend?

In this profession you feel very lonely every now and then. It’s very meaningful to find out that you have friends abroad dealing your challenges.

Eu-programmes – the current Erasmus+ and the previous programmes: Socrates, Socrates II and  Lifelong  Learning Programme – have offered our school  possibilities to multilateral school projects between European schools and  opportunities to in-service training to me and my staff.

 

Job-shadowing is in-service training.

 In Belgium I was shadowing Mr. Johan Bossuyt who was working in Flanders as an advisor. We visited quite many schools. During that week the focus was on how classroom walls were utilized for learning.

That was very inspiring because I realized that in our school we’d covered the walls often without any deeper deliberation.

Last year I was job-shadowing  my colleague, Mr. Jeremy Hallum in Colchester, UK. 
From these kind of mobilities you can build and strengthen your network for  further co-operation on the institutional level and you can bring home many new practices.

I don’t know if this school door sign is one of the best practices but

 – in my school it made our secondary level students aware of a current problem in our school.

Me and my staff  - we have taken part in  many European in-service training courses. These pictures are from an outdoor education -course in Scotland.

Experiences and course connections helped in defining and creating our latest school project:

Fit, Fair and Successful

 

 I have hosted and organized  one  study visit here in Turku and participated in three study visits: first in Germany, then in Austria and latest in Southern France where the picture is from.

In the picture on the right there’s me and my German colleague Marc. We are listening  to a student’s business idea in  a sort of simulation game.

Latest visit focused on entrepreneurship and initiative and for me that was an interesting topic, because we had just created in Vasaramäki School an alternative program for those students who had to take an additional year of basic education before attending future studies.

Our focus was in completing the formal education through non-formal education with the co-operation with different stake-holders.

Empowerment of young people, the spirit of initiative and entrepreneurial learning were key words in our model.

We have participated  in  four Comenius –school projects since 1995.  This picture was taken in Nicosia, Cyprus, during  a meeting of the Healthy lifestyle – jump for Europe –project.

As you know , there are huge differences between teachers what it comes to teaching filosophy and parctices. And I think, that it’s more than just acceptable. But nobody can hide behind the pedagogigal freedom and say no to a whole school project, when the decision to join in has been made by the majority.

Finally – it’s up to me as a responsible adult and principal of the school that the pupils  are in equal situation. It’s not fair  that one pupil can’t take part  in the project, because his or her teacher doesn’t want to do join in.

In this picture pupils and staff of our hosting partner school are building a garden on the school yard with the help of the pupils’ parents.

I think it’s a good example of children’s participation, parents’ involvement in the school life, group work and learning by doing, which all are  key concepts in our new national curriculum 2016.

In these EU projects sharing among the participants is most important. That brings the added  EU-value to learning. Dissemination outside the school is very important as well.

Vasaramäki School has a NGO of its own, a sports and well-being club. Through this association we have been involved in the Youth in Action program–activities.

We organized an exchange in Athens with a Greek youth group called Human City  in November 2011.

I am grateful for that project for many reasons. Biggest achievement is that the student group really understands better than most Finnish people do what the situation is like and what kind of challenges ordinary Greek people meet now.

 

I have participated in several Youth in Action –training courses. 

These courses have really inspired me  in my profession, because I really think that we need methods of non –formal learning  in completing  formal education in order to avoid drop out and  early school leaving among our students.

What is actually difference between formal and non-formal learning?  I have found that we here in the north use a lot of methods which in some other countries are seen as methods of non-formal learning and seen as extra-curricular activities.

It means that it has been difficult to us  organize for example  exchange for pupils during the school days, because the day offs from formal education are not possible in the partner school.

 

We have had a lot of visitors during last ten years; from other European countries, Japan, South-Korea, South-Africa, Australia, New Zealand and USA.

That’s obviously because of Finland’s good results in PISA-program.

For me people visiting our school gives an opportunity to a self-evaluation and to evaluate the school. Visitors’ questions and thinking out loud  help me in that.

I can still remember the time when we at our school could decide weather we are international or not and when would we like to pick it up like a topic to study.  But times have changed now and every community, school and work place is international.

Internalization and multiculturalization are really present in today’s school, so in Vasaramäki School too.

Internationalization  at home  in this context means that we have a big number of pupils whose roots are somewhere else other than in Finland.

These pupils and their parents are a resource that we haven’t utilized enough, yet. This is our challenge.

 

In the project, Story of Anni and Fadumo, we have intended to create equal and  mutual co-operation with two African schools during the past two years. This project was coordinated and funded by the Finnish National Board and Ministry of Education.

So far we have produced a movie about Anni and Fadumo. Anni is  15 years old student in Vasaramäki School and Fadumo goes to school in the school of Tubluk in Somaliland.

The film is to foster global education in Finnish schools as well as in other countries.

 In Finland many things are well and we consider them as granted. We also tend to criticize things rather than appreciate them. This documentary

makes us think  about the real values of life. During the film making process the students’ awareness on humanitarian aspects grew remarkably.

Our latest venture is a movie project with Chepyuan Primary School in Mogotio, Kenya.

The film will be ready  this year and it will be published through internet; You can find it  - as well as Story of Anni and Fadumo –  on our school’s web site.

Presently I’m looking forward to creating partnership project with Chepyuan Primary School about Life skills, even if the current political and economical situation in Finland doesn't encourage us to that.

This was my presentation in a workshop on Tuesday the 4th.