Current Challenges and Possibilities for the Future for the Craft Education in Finland
In the February’s Engage with Ideas online session, Professor Mia Porko-Hudd will discusses the Craft Education in Finland. She will explore current challenges; such as subject’s tradition with a focus on development of individual skills acquisition (Garber, 2002) and envisaging new pedagogical models that facilitate development of technological literacy skills within design and innovation processes in the digital era (Porko-Hudd, Pöllänen & Lindfors, 2018). She will also suggests future possibilities how craft subjects may contribute towards skills development which are increasingly needed to navigate today’s complex world.
Although, the craft has long traditions as a compulsory subject in the comprehensive school in Finland, at times, the status, content and methods for teaching and learning the subject is questioned. In her talk, Mia will reflect on how the craft subject in the Finnish comprehensive schools has developed over the past decades with an aim to prepare the students to meet challenges of the 21st century. She will be arguing that the changed in the curricular and how the craft subjects are taught make them highly relevant for introducing future citizens to activity contributing in current complex technological and global society.
Crafts has been a compulsory subject separate from art in Finnish schools since 1866. At that time the subject was divided by gender into handicrafts for boys and handicrafts for girls. However, in practice, the implementation of craft education mostly involved the development of skills needed to maintain agricultural and household equipment and tools. Thus, during the early years, it was also important to produce and repair the artefacts needed in daily life. In the 1970s, the subject was renamed to Crafts, Textile Crafts, and Technical Crafts with the aim to diminish the gender-related aspects of the subjects (see Figure 1).
Event recording:
Mia is Professor in Sloyd/Craft Education at Åbo Akademi University in Finland. Mia’s research interest concerns the pedagogical and didactic aspects of crafts from pre-primary education to basic education, teacher education and further education. Her recent publications have dealt with issues of sustainability and well-being, documentations of craft processes, and craft education during and after the pandemic.
References
Garber, E. (2003). Craft Education in Finland. Definitions, Rationales and the Future. Journal of Art and Design Education (JADE), 21(2), 132–145. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5949.00308
Porko-Hudd, M., Pöllänen, S., and Lindfors, E. (2018). Common and holistic crafts education in Finland. Techne A, 25(3), 26–38. https://journals-stage.oslomet.no/index.php/techneA/article/view/3025
Porko-Hudd, M., and Hartvik, J. (2021). “Coronaslöjd”: Lärares omställning till ofrivillig distansundervisning [“Covid Craft”: Teachers’ transition to involuntary distance education]. Techne A, 28(4), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.7577/TechneA.4722
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.