My Thoughts on AMOK International days, March 2014

My thoughts and a video on the first day at AMOK International days, 25th of March : http://amokinternational.blogspot.fi/2014/03/aleksandra-amok-international-days.html


26^th of March 2014,

The second day of the AMOK International days started with a visit to the IB international school in Oulu. This was an interesting insight for me into a slightly different IB school as I am currently working in one.

We had to focus on few questions:

1. What does the network competence mean to the target of the visit?

Most of our discussion focused on what does Multiculuturalism vs Interculturalism mean in the context of the International school. Multicultural meaning that something is represented by many different cultures and Intercultural means that there is an interaction between two or more cultures.

So the difference implies that there is interaction versus representation. The school encourages this interaction between cultures by individual effort of teachers who facilitate events and learning opportunities in the curriculum context.

2. What existing networks does the school already have?

The school has a limited international network of teachers and parents but it does function in the IB framework where teachers participate in training sessions organised abroad by IB providers. Also it collaborates with City of Oulu, National Board of Education and University of Oulu training school.

3. How to build and maintain international networks?

Perhaps the school can organise some student exchange programmes with the help of City of Oulu and other European and international organisations.

I have to say I was impressed with some of the information that the school provides for the students that have just arrived in Finland. Some of the psychological support is based on work of Dutch psychologist Ruth E. Van Reken and the book Third Culture Kids : Growing up among the worlds.

Our next guest speaker was Nijole CiuCiulkiene, associate professor at the Department of Education of Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania. Her presentation was focused on Mentoring aspects in International classes.

This was an interesting presentation with some new insights in the use of terminology related to mentoring for example Acculturation, Scaffolding mentoring, Judge mentoring, Reverse mentoring. These are all the terms that I would like to look into more and find concrete examples.

Also the video on Generational differences: Millennials, Gen x and Boomers was very relevant to where we are at the moment since education has this multigenerational context; in companies for example this may not be so as their focus is on employing young people.

27^th of March 2014,

The day started with some worm up exercises by Janne Länsitie which was fun and this proceeded with the lecture by Yrjö Mikkonen, PhD. Multicultural researcher. The main focus of the lecture was the difference between Internationalism and Multiculturalism. We had an example of an International school where there is usually one standard language and common working culture for the staff and the culture of the individual staff members is private. So International schools may not be multicultural, although there are situations where these might overlap. Bringing Internationalism and Multiculturalism together is a challenge for groups and institutions. The danger is that this can create a division between “we” and “they”.

Multiculturalism implies differences, there is also the danger that one can try to make the person feel that they belong but in an indoctrinated way.

Yrjö proposes to see this as a system, explaining things and phenomena through systems is very useful. If we have connections we must have parts. Parts are not enough connections must be there. Connections between the components are very clear. School is a system, there are other kinds of systems. Complex, intertwined with many different parts components.

If we take an international language, it does not matter what religious orientation the speakers have, they use the same language. So it is an example of unity in sameness. Originally internationalisation started with violence, we must not forget that.

The lecture proceeded with the Panel discussion which consisted of a social worker Annu Holappa , Lecturer of OUS,  Tomi Huhtamäki, teacher at Ruuki, Agricultural Institute, Pirkkko Kukkohovi, Coordinator of multicultural work, Shahnaz Mikkonen and a student V-P Kultanen, studying  at OUS's school of Vocational Teacher Education. 

The discussion was interesting and insightful from the point of view of immigrants and refugees in Finland. I have to say these issues always stir some difficult memories and times from my life in UK where I had to face a lot of challenges in my work and life generally in relation to multiculturalism. I think that teaching profession generally suffers from the lack of funding and support in UK and perhaps some other European countries with high intake of immigrants and refugees. Teachers in state schools have to provide extra care in language support or generally child support for families. I think that this is not as nearly as demanding in Finland as it is in UK. 

Some students have expressed negative attitude towards Internationalisation, I can see how there can be a danger also in overemphasising Internationalisation without giving any expression of multiculturalism. This has to be balanced somehow especially in International schools. 

As discussed in Yrjö Mikkonen's presentation we must look at the individual first and then perhaps get to know the culture where they come from.