Values education day – “Värdegrundsdag” - March 26, 2020

This is about a collective ethical foundation or values of a collective; example of collective is a nation, institution, association or popular movement. The term may also have the broader meaning of referring to the most basic principles of a political ideology or religion. The Swedish concept of value-based work has no connection to international discourse. Neither value foundation nor value foundation work is used as terms outside Sweden (an exception is Norway, where similar terms, ”verdigrunnlaget” och ”verdiplattformen” are used in the Lærplansverket for the 10-year primary school, 1997, but with some meaningful differences). Instead, in the international context, the terms "values education", "moral education", "character education", "citizenship education" and "civic education" are usually used.

This day started with Musse Hasselvall giving lectures to all the students at the school about what exactly the "PK man" means. It was about how he embodies the PK man. He lives in the notion that he is an open person with few prejudices. At the same time, he is in many ways the norm. He is white, straight, Stockholm, middle class, male and has no disabilities. The PK man makes mistakes in meeting people who in various ways are norm breakers and makes them feel vulnerable. He does not do so out of malice but as a consequence of never having belonged to any vulnerable group himself. The purpose of the series is to be used in the school's work with value foundation and to promote the equal value and equal rights of all individuals.

With this day we wanted to make our students aware that the "normal" is not always the best for everyone - we exclude many of our students who do not fit in with the normal, which can thus lose the motivation for the school and their education and thus jump off the same. This lecture ended the project we started at the beginning of the fall 2019. The student, together with the teachers, has seen six sections of the "PK-man" and discussed and wrote down how we can make our school more inclusive for all students, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and so on.

1. Life as macho

Section 1 · Season 1 · 15 min

https://urplay.se/program/198740-pk-mannen-livet-som-macho

Musse Hasselvall tries to explain to his friends at the boxing club what norm criticism is and that a male norm prevails among them. For example, is it okay for them to call each other for banter or gay when things go bad? To better understand how male norms can affect Musse meets Anton Hysén, who is one of the few openly gay guys in the football world. He talks about how he was influenced by constantly being able to hear gay as a scolding. But what exactly are male or masculine norms? Luis Lineo explains.

2. Can you say disabled?

Section 2 · Season 1 · 14 min

https://urplay.se/program/198741-pk-mannen-far-man-saga-handikappad

Musse Hasselvall will find out how people with norm-breaking functional variation are treated in society. He visits the Association of Young Disabled People and Chairman Björn Kellerman Häll tells Musse what words and concepts he should use and what questions he should avoid asking. Musse meets Samsey Saine to talk about his experiences of living with a disability. In addition, the researcher Christine Bylund explains what the functional norm is and what can happen if you do not fit into it.

3. What does a Swedish look like?

Section 3 · Season 1 · 15 min

https://urplay.se/program/198742-pk-mannen-hur-ser-en-svensk-ut

Musse Hasselvall meets some of his friends who have experienced having their Swedishness questioned. Also, Musse has pointed out to them that they do not belong to the Swedish norm. That made Senan, Sascha and Tonton angry. To compensate them, Muse invites them to dinner. Musse also meets stand up comedian Shanthi Rydwall-Menon, who tells us what it was like to grow up in Värmdö in the Stockholm archipelago and be the only person to be razed. And the author Qaisar Mahmood works out the concept of Swedish norm.

4. 
   Sometimes I laugh at gay jokes

Section 4 · Season 1 · 14 min

https://urplay.se/program/198743-pk-mannen-ibland-skrattar-jag-at-bogskamt

Musse Hasselvall visits his friend Apollo to sort out an old conflict. Apollo wanted to start training MMA and Musse thought he would come out as gay at the club before he started training. Apollo did poorly and Musse tries to understand why. He also goes to Gothenburg and meets Caroline Eriksson who is a funk activist and queer. They talk hetero norms and how it also limits gays. Anna Adeniji explains what hetero norms are.

5. Is thick equal to ugly?

Section 5 · Season 1 · 14 min

https://urplay.se/program/198744-pk-mannen-ar-tjock-lika-med-ful

Musse Hasselvall talks to Cassandra Klatzkow, who uses social media to counteract body hate. Something she herself has suffered from almost her entire life. According to Cassandra, the pressure on girls to meet appearance standards is still stronger than it is for guys. Media researcher Anja Hirdman gives us the history of women's body fixation and analyzes why social media is overflowing with women's bodies.

6. Should I tell they or that?

Section 6 · Season 1 · 15 min

https://urplay.se/program/198745-pk-mannen-ska-jag-saga-hen-eller-den

Musse Hasselvall suffers from norm-critical fatigue and is beginning to find it difficult to do the right thing all the time. Prior to an interview with a trans person, he becomes nervous and seeks support from his friend Isabelle who works with trans issues at RFSL. Mice greets Robin Aronsson, who is trans guy. They talk about the feeling of being born in the wrong body and that more positive depictions of transgender people are needed. Sex educator Zafire Vrba explains the concepts binary, cis and transsexual. We also visit The Cis-office where everyone is extremely fixated on showing their gender.

(“They” is a Swedish gender-neutral personal pronoun that is used in the same way as the words he and she. The word can be used when the gender affiliation is unknown, unimportant or must be made clear. The word can also be used if people do not want to be called - a pronoun for a third gender. In the latter use, they are not really gender neutral at all according to Anna-Malin Karlsson, professor of modern Swedish. It can also be seen as an expression of norm criticism. The word has received a lot of attention and both positive and negative criticism

Conclusion:

These exercises, conversations and lectures are a way to increase the motivation of the students that we see "do not fit" in the norm and thus do not come to school and thus become unsuccessful and eventually leave school. It is also a way for us "normal" to work with how we treat each other, how we speak and thus exclude some of our students in the conversation, in the business and so on. Just because we have had exercises, talks and lectures does not mean that we are done with this. This is a job that we must constantly work on in order to make a school that is welcoming to everyone, regardless of origin, sexuality, gender, ethnicity or religiosity.

This is what a student said to me after we had worked on these issues:

“The point of norm criticism itself is not so a lot about what you learn, but about seeing what one does not learn otherwise. All invisible boundaries set we do not otherwise learn to see become clear. Type `to become vision`".

Final words from one of our curators:

“A very good way to work with students in a group / class based on the school's values, where students first get to see a section (one section per occasion) and from the different sections discuss how, for example, the macho norm looks like Nobel. The purpose of all the sections is that students get to think individually and in groups, that they think about how they behave, how they express themselves and develop any negative ways of thinking about, for example, homosexuality and functional variations. The founding day was meant to tie together all the sections shown, that Musse would come here and tell about his own journey, how he himself was and developed. Unfortunately, many students thought he was using difficult language and did not understand the purpose and how his lecture could be linked to the sections. This is something we should follow up in the classes, which I think is good as we can summarize the lecture and discuss based on it, and thus get an end to the work with the PK man”.

So the idea with the whole set of value education da is as follows: We need to understand what we didn't understand better understand and if needed – change!