Ira Vihreälehto & Kari Nurmi Living heritage in the Nordic countries konferenssissa 31.10.2019 Hanasaari/Hanaholmen

1. How to inspire children, young people
and teachers to work with intangible
cultural heritage?
Ira Vihreälehto & Kati Nurmi
Association of Cultural Heritage
Education in Finland

2. • We work nationwide and also with
2 EU-projects
• We work in cooperation with
culture, education, youth,
environment, and sustainable
policy sectors
• We develop methods and tools for
cultural heritage education
📍We are located in Helsinki at the
House of Nobility

3. 🔉We talk about
learning, not
teaching
🔉 Every child has the
right to experience
culture and to visit
cultural sites; the right
to interpret, shape and
produce culture
🔉 We concentrate on
things that unite us, not
the differences between
cultures

4. Pick a card that is
meaningful to you

5. Our work in the field
of intangible cultural
heritage
• We produce
learning materials
for schools
• We organize
workshops in
Finnish schools

6. Some of our recent
projects at national
and international level

7. Teacher training and seminars
”Practical workshops and exercises
have been significant, and I now
have ideas how to vitalize my
lessons, also I have more confidence
when it comes to cultural heritage
education” - teacher, 30 years old
Teachers practising capoeira at the Suomenlinna
World Heritage Site

8. • We have an online material bank
(kulttuurinvuosikello.fi) for teachers
and educators to use. So far the bank
has over 500 ideas for teaching
materials and it has over 80 000
visitors/year.
• www.kulttuurinvuosikello.fi
• Heritage Hubs materials for cultural
heritage education, out in January
2020
• https://heritagehubs.eu

9. Group exercise:
Collecting Your
Best Practices
• Divide into groups of 3-4 people
• Write down what you already do with
children, young people and teachers in
the field of intangible cultural heritage?

10. What are our Best Practices for working with children and young
people in the field of intangible cultural heritage?

11. Example: classroom learning
• Divide into groups and
answer the following
question
• Which Finnish cultural
tradition would you like to be
included in the national
inventory of intangible
cultural heritage? Why?
• Possible outcomes: video,
word cloud, different types of
presentations

13. Example: cooperation with
museums
• Pupils create ”mobile routes” in local
heritage sites and reveal their most
important places of cultural heritage
• Routes are under museum collections and
everybody can download them and ”walk
with the makers”
• ”The best part of the project was to be able
to work independently and nobody came
to tell you that this needs to be done in this
way and that needs to be done in that
way.” - pupil

14. Example: outdoor learning and
utilising local heritage sites
• Visiting world heritage sites or other local
heritage sites
• Important to include pre-visit materials and
follow up work at the school
• ”It is easier to learn by going to places and
everything than writing on paper.” Atti, 12
years

15. Example: videos
• We encourage children and young
people to express their expertise
in cultural heritage by producing
their own videos
• Children reported that they felt like
they were "acting as teachers” and
they are ”happy that children and
young people around Finland (and
the world?) can watch their video”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=AfPB3S5hll8&t=137s

16. Example: Gamification

17. Example: Heritage Hubs
Identifying, sharing, practising, and interpreting cultural heritage

18. How?
 11 schools from Finland, Spain and Serbia
chose an important tradition to share
 Pupils made videos, calendars, re-enactments
etc. to present their heritage
 Shared on YouTube and an online platform
 Each school was given a heritage from
another school to familiarise themselves with
 Practicing and interpreting the heritage of
others during school visits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQpULylCHb
w

19. Cross-cultural dialogue, cultural sensitivity
and empathy
”The pupils noticed that one can share and enjoy also the culture of others and that cultural heritage
is something common to humanity even though it may seem different on the surface.” - Teacher

20. Critical points
for discussion
• Who defines what cultural heritage is?
• Whose stories matter?
• Who is ”we”, when discussing about ”our
cultural heritage”?
• Young people’s own voice and vision of
cultural heritage
 contemporary, living, versatle,
renewable
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1_f-GqaHHo

21. Cultural Education Plan
• Is a local agreement between
educational and culture services
• Is always written in cooperation with
education and culture sector
professionals
• Is integrated with different subjects
• Guarantees that all children and
young people have equal
opportunities to experience and
participate in their local culture
• Applies to all grades (in Finland 1–9,
sometimes also daycare)
• Includes art in all forms, culture
services and institutions, cultural
heritage and art education

22. Exercise: Create a new concept for
spreading intangible cultural heritage
amongst children and young people
Main principles:
• All ideas are good
ideas!
• No self-criticism but
positive pedagogy!
• Create an idea for a
project
• Write
• What?
• Why?
• How?
• With whom?
• Where?
• Pass on the paper to
the next group

23. @KuPeKasvatus @heritagehubs_project
@KuPeKasvatus @HeritageHubs
Suomen Kulttuuriperintökasvatuksen Heritage Hubs
seura
Kulttuuriperintökasvatuksen HeritageHubs
Seura
#kulttuuriperintökasvatus #HeritageHubs
Follow us on social media

24. Contact
Association of Cultural Heritage
Education in Finland
Hallituskatu 2 B, 00170 Helsinki, Finland
info@kulttuuriperintokasvatus.fi
www.kulttuuriperintokasvatus.fi
www.heritagehubs.eu