According to the national core curriculum for basic education, schools should support the development of students’ worldview and identity, and strengthen their feeling of participation. They should be supported in building their own values. It is also important to create the experience for students of feeling like they can influence their own and shared issues. Attitudes that respect the lives and human rights of students and staff are important factors in fulfilling the objective of equality and extensive principles of equality. The Together Without Racism training supports schools in achieving these objectives. The training provides diverse support for promoting basic education’s wide-reaching skills.
The Together Without Racism training offers participatory education for children in basic education. The general objective of the training is to increase children’s and the school community’s awareness of racism, our own prejudices and privileges, to prevent racism, and to improve methods of intervention. Anti-racist action can make society better for Finns of all ages, and promote the integration of immigrants.
The training offers participants – children and adults alike – ways to deal with anti-racist topics. The process-like nature of the training provides a deeper learning opportunity than an individual lesson. The education also offers classroom teachers tools to make the topic an active part of teaching.
Description of the process
The teaching module begins with a kick-off lesson, which is held remotely. Key racism-related concepts are introduced with methods that motivate the children and encourage them to participate. The kick-off lesson expounds upon the topic at hand through an examination of equality and diversity.
After the kick-off lesson and under the teacher’s supervision, the children can then complete tasks that examine racism-related topics and surrounding factors in more depth. The teacher has material to guide the orientation and act as a motivator for the process.
The shared end to the training is carried out as a workshop led by the project worker and it examines what has been learnt in more depth. The workshop is functional and participatory for the children, and makes use of various methods, such as drama education.
The duration of the entire training process from kick-off to workshop is around 2-4 weeks, but the material can be used also by the classroom teacher after the process, so it is easy to include anti-racist topics in other teaching in the future.