Getting to know international contacts- Part 1

Hello colleagues, I would like to introduce my international professional contact to you all.  In a previous blog assignment in another course, we were asked to learn more information about the education system in a different country.  I had heard a lot about Finland so that is what I chose to share.  Impressed with the education system and the economy there I decided to continue to learn more about the country and was able to contact a Kindergarten teacher * and project planner of the Playful Learning Center in association with the University of Helsinki.

I asked her to tell me more about the issue of poverty in Finland and have learned a lot of information from her responses.  These are some things she had to say:

• In Finland poverty is not that big of an issue as it is in many other countries. We do have people and families who struggle with small incomes and are under our national poverty line and live a quite modest life but our social service system gives money to everyone who either has small or no income at all. Benefits like no kindergarten fees and some free hobbies for children are also made available.

• The tax system is a bit different than in USA.  We pay quite big amounts of taxes but with that money we make sure that our public services are free or demand only a small payment.

• In Finland pre-school (4 hours per day) and everything that children do there including materials, trips and lunch are free. So the poverty doesn't always occur in a child’s everyday life in kindergarten or in pre-school and as a teacher we don't have to deal with poverty as often as in some other countries.

• Still it doesn't mean that we don't have poverty in Finland. You notice it from poor quality clothes and toys. But usually you don't even notice it. Sometimes families from other cultures don’t work but I found that children don’t suffer from low incomes in kindergarten.
  
  
• In bad cases poverty and it's side effects like tattered clothes or old toys can cause bullying and mistreatment from peers. In this case teachers and other workers play a big role. Especially in kindergarten children are so small and are not that aware of poverty or other issues in society. Children may not even notice if someone is poor if all children are treated the same way by adults. In general, teacher's good behavior towards poor children and their families gives a good example to other children how to treat people. This kind of issue may sound small when thinking about poverty and children who don't get food and water every day but that is because in Finland we don't deal with those kind of problems.  This is quite an important and general issue that we have to think about as teachers.
  
  
• Some children come to kindergarten with tattered, dirty or unsuitable clothes for prevailing weather conditions or you can see that a child hasn’t showered for a week. Usually these kind of families do get help for social services and if we notice any neglect of children we call immediately to child welfare inspector and they start helping the child and the family.

• When it comes to learning and development, too often I have seen children from poor families who get only little support or hardly any on learning. Parents who struggle with money don't have time or energy to read books to their children, play with them, have good long conversations or explore and wonder about the world with their children. Luckily in Finland children have to go to school or get home education and soon they have to go to preschool as well (amendment coming soon) where children get high quality education, care and support.

• Sometimes children are referred to kindergarten as a child welfare action. Our education system supports children from every background. Still this isn't always enough and children suffer from their parents low incomes. But because this isn't that simple either, poverty is not automatically the reason for this.
  
  
• Universally I think that poverty is a really big obstacle what comes to education and learning and children welfare. The more people are educated and able to learn new things and aware of what's going on in the world the more they are able to control their lives and feel well.
  (personal communication, 7/16/14)
  
  

One insight I have learned about the issue of poverty is how it fluctuates throughout areas, cities, counties, states and countries.  It seems that poverty has been overcome in some places and that gives hope that there are effective ways to help people who are dealing with poverty.  

*To keep student identities and specific references unrecognizable and private I will not be publishing the teacher's name