This year Culture United had the opportunity to make some videos to document and show what we have been doing. From the Enchanted Words Festival and other events, we are putting written and video material together to continue with the IO2. Below is an interview from Tatu Hakunti, a 5th grade teacher who participated in the Enchanted Words Festival.
The school view Tatu Hakunti, 5th grade teacher at Oulu International school
The workshops were great. The whole process started even before the workshops when I went to the City Library and said “Hey, we are going to read books on dreams, can you give me some” and they gave me a massive bag of books and we just read for the next few weeks. I’m more of a pragmatic teacher, but now the whole idea of word and literature art has started to click for me.
In schools we talk about having more literature and reading more because literature skills are dropping. Oftentimes we are falling into the trap that we need to read full novels and we need to work on learning the structures, but especially in the workshop we were able to focus on these tiny little moments, little glimpses. We had the chance to really think about the small moments, and at first I didn’t expect the children to get into these things so much but the things they wrote and the things that we talked about, it was quite amazing how much they were able to open up and be vulnerable with their thoughts. What I got from this is not that we are excellent at reading but more that we are given tools, that we can now focus on the smaller moments and to appreciate the art that is in the books.
As a process we were working with our first grade buddies as much as we could. It was limited of course, but we have been reading books for the first grade buddies and recommending books. And now we had the opportunity to come here and the 9th graders gave us the tour, it has all come together.
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You can watch the "Enclish class at Enghanted Words" video below.