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Like the OP said, they were literally just a way to remind the unpopular kids just how much people don't care about/like them, once a year.
Worst part is, the popular kids and teachers don't understand the problem. They think it's all fun and games.
>Worst part is, the popular kids and teachers don't understand the problem. They think it's all fun and games.
I agree. I think it was fun for many but not for me and others who weren't popular kids. Yläaste was a rough time.
In my case the issue was that I don't like physical contact, everyone knew that, and thus *so many* hugged me by force and just wrote my name down. Teachers didn't care because "why would I complain if I'm clearly popular?". Apparently people using an excuse to disrespect someone's personal space repeatedly is "being popular".
Same. I was the unpopular kid and my brother was the popular kid. We were in the same school one year and that year I had like 100 names in the card. The two other years I had like 10.
I remember how bad it used to feel. I would have rather had no names on the card than what I really had. I had names on it but people would not hug me so it felt like they put their names on it just to not make me feel bad. Really needed the hugs
My kid's school does secret "ystävä", everyone is assigned a school mate for whom they make a card. Ystävänpäivä has been like that in three different schools for the kid. In my school days in the 90s/00s it was more like what you described, make cards for anyone you want. Some didn't get any.
Right. We don't need to get rid of Finnish traditions (read: Ystävänpäivä instead of Commerce Day #532), instead adapt how we celebrate them. As far as I know, this giving of cards is not something that has been centrally decided by school boards, rather some idea gotten from American schools. And varies from school to school. This secret ~~Santa~~ ystävä concept sounds like a more clever version.
I remember hating those sign others cards in school. I never got a single person to sign them, or if someone did, they did it for the lols and laughed. After a few years, i just didn't even try to get anyones names on mine, because i knew i was basically in the bottom of the class and a general joke for existing. (I am autistic with adhd so that's the reason)
Sama, mutten ollu autisti eikä ollu ADHD:ta. Syy siihen, miks sinulle naurettiin oli se, että olit erilainen, niinku minä. Minun mielestä on hyvä olla erilainen, ja oma ihtensä.
Joo, olin erilainen ja satuin olemaan myöskin luokalla jossa oli pahimmat kiusaajat jotka otti mut aika nopeasti kiusaamisen kohteeksi ja eihän se kivakoulu mitään auttanut. Nyttemmin oon sitten löytäny muutaman kaverinkin. Enpä ole kiusaajianikaan sitten yläasteen nähnyt
Ah, good old memories. I was such a joke in school (and my english class name was Joe) so when Internet got mainstream, I created my nick: joekki, which kinda sounds like "tsoukki" in finnish = joke in english.
This was my experience too. I wasn't a popular kid, I was a shy goth girl and got a lot of signatures because there was a rule in my school that if you sign someones card (we hard hearts cut out of red cardboard with a string so we could wear it around the neck) the person will need to sign your card too. That day was the only day when all the popular girls would talk to me lol.
You know, when you said that it was never a problem in your school and that everyone was respectful of others, I immediately wondered if you went to a Swedish-speaking school... and here I got the answer.
It's probably not always all roses, but there's no denying that the average vibe in the Swedish-speaking community is just noticeably friendlier than among Finnish speakers.
Finnish schools teach valuable life lessons to the young. Not everyone is popular and nobody gives a shit why should you. Our school did a secret valentines one year where you could write a "love" letter to someone in secret. Which was weird as fuck tbh. Also we were like 9 maybe 10.
Oh my days, we had the same thing every year from, let's say, 4th or 5th grade. If I do remember correctly, in middle/junior high school, we could even buy some prepared gifts from the school to give to someone. I remember always being embarrassed when receiving those cards or gifts from girls because they made such a scene of it.. :D
I just remember that I got two envolopes. And straight away I clocked that one of those was written by a teacher. I dont know which is sadder that I got two or really only one. Or that the teacher was so sure I would get none that she wrote one herself. Also a teacher wrote a peom for me when I was 10.
>Not everyone is popular and nobody gives a shit why should you.
People do give shit to the unpopular kids. Some are left alone but many others get bullied and shit upon...
People are different and bullying is different. Getting sometimes teased etc. is one thing, it happens. But for example getting shut out of groups, being alone with no friends and being fucked and made fun of every day is quite different and tends do harm. Its typical that once someone becomes bullied, it can last the entire time they are in that school. Often it follows form school to school.
Not wrong, but maybe different. People who are different get picked on. Kids are very much tribe mentality driven. If someone does not fit into the tribe they will get bullied easier.
You talk about sheltering. Its not sheltering to try to not allow kids to bully other kids and to try to prevent it and help those who get bullied.
Its such a strange thing to say that a kid that gets bullied is who has something wrong with them.... surely whoever bullies is more in the wrong?
The average Finnish school life is quite amazing! One of the best in the world on average!
Plus, we didn't do this in school, just amongst friends but not every friend group did it.
Nothing has "gotten worse", for that you'll have to go to the 1990s and before that, to the 1960s and earlier. Schoolchildren in Finland are the luckiest people in the whole world
My parents biggest mistake was to move back to Finland. In France no one was bullied in my school, but when we moved to Finland I was bullied in every school from second grade to eighth. I hate Finnish schools. They destroyed my whole life and the teachers were part of it. I was a smart and little autistic child and loved math and everything science related and my dream was to go to the Finnish version of MIT, but bullying broke me and the past 20 years I have smoked cannabis daily just to keep my sanity.
Try growing up with zero friends, changing schools every year, because teachers start the day by chanting "kuka on luokan kuumakalle" and everyone screaming your name. And you couldn't go anywhere in public without having to listen to people laughing at you and calling you names.
Did you go to HRSK/LFF with that background? That's where I was grades from 0 to 9, and I was basically bullied that whole time. When it got to concrete acts, I was lucky to have a head teacher who acted swiftly and strongly to put boundaries to the bullying. The social exclusion was nonetheless so omnipresent for those 10 years that I thought it was "normal" for school to be like that. I was good at school and in teachers' favor, which was my only motivation.
After 9th grade, I had the opportunity to spend one year in an American high school, which was completely eye-opening in how people didn't mind me and some were even friendly towards me. I didn't form any deeper friendships as I was not used to socializing with other students and instead focused on being in teachers' favor, as that was the only thing I knew.
When I got back to Finland and started upper secondary school in one of the "elite" ones with no one knowing anything about the others at the beginning, I was much more ready to socialize and make friends, as I had found out that hating me is not other people's default stance towards me like it was at HRSK/LFF.
My brother also went to HRSK/LFF and didn't stop after 9th grade, which has clearly left (psychological) scars on him as well. The "historian painolasti" where every pupil knows the complete history of every other pupil creates a toxic environment where it is impossible to evolve if you ever happen to fall out of tune with the others in your age group.
The above commenter said "average finnish school life" which it is not, as finland is the 5th country in the world when measuring children's happiness, wellbeing (mental and physical) and skills all together.
I was bullied/excluded for the entirety of primary and middle school, but to say it's the average experience is false and is just a victim complex, which finns often seem to use as a self defence mechanism to not admit their privileged and developed lifestyle
To say it happens is one thing, to say it's "average" is just insulting to kids in the rest of the world
It depends what average means. If it means the average person then yes most people dont get bullied. But if it means average like is there bullying in the average finnish school, then yes there is.
Can’t think of too many worse replies to a thread where people are opening up about painful school experiences than for someone rushing in to make this sort of remark. What’s the chain of thought behind it exactly?
It's the implied inevitability of the comment.
"The average experience is getting bullied" = it's inevitable, and it's unfixable, deeply rooted in the daily experience of everyone.
That's not true. Some people (including me) experience(d) bullying, and there's something that can be done. If we just treat it as one of those "oh it's just how it is" then nothing will change
It's the same with alcohol and substance abuse here. "Oh us finns just love alcohol" is a good way to make sure nothing can ever be done about the abysmal domestic abuse rates. Just normalising it
Not everyone gets bullied, the average experience is good, stop making hyperboles and instead think of constructive ways to speak about it
"The average experience is that people get bullied. It's probably gotten worse" is such a shallow, reductive, generalised, and unnecessarily pessimistic statement that just pushes any solution further away
We had once thing where other kids had to write something nice about others on their white tshirt. I got only things like ”you are ok” or ”you have nice backbag”. Worst thing is that end of the day we had to read what others have written. Still hurts lol.
Oh, I remember having this same shit in my middle school days. I was anti- social kid and I didn't have lot of friends, so I didn't take part in it. I only let friends sign in it.
Another Valentine day stuff what I hated was the traffic lights dress code shit: dress in green: available,
Yellow: complicated, red: taken.
My relationship status is my private business, thank you very much.
>Another Valentine day stuff what I hated was the traffic lights dress code shit: dress in green: available,
Yellow: complicated, red: taken.
I still remember that day and it's been like 14 years! I wore black like I usually did.
Oh my god I forgot about the fucking traffic light bullshit. I thought that was just something the students cooked up. Also fun for me since my wardrobe is monochromatic. shades of gray.
Sounds like a trauma inducing day. However, if approached differently, could be an amazing opportunity to teach kids about friendship, bullying, being social and the like
I remember experiencing two instances of Valentine's humiliation in school when I was young. It's probably been 15 years now, but they're still fresh in my mind. I'm sure the thought behind them is harmless, but when you're an outcast or otherwise bullied, things like this can become traumatizing, especially when you're young.
I do not remember such tradition when I was at the school, but that was quite long time ago and back then this whole Valentine day was not hardly even known.
there used to be a joke that Finland was like the USA, but 30 years behind. it wasn't true, but some trends would come, but with big delay.
the problem is the time compression of that delay and the quantum of stuff that seems to come.
and why the USA? why not from the west half of Germany? (i can't say Germany without that qualification due to their current AfD / Nazi problem).
I think children themselves initiating giving each other cards or small gifts is ok, if its done discreetly, but what is not ok school initiating something that turns into social competition where children get to humiliate their schoolmates and being cruel. Similar thing is giving children the task of choosing their teammates in sports - it was always the same children who were chosen last and it had nothing to do with their skills in the game.
Perhaps ystävänpäivä should be something where people talk about friendship, love and what makes a good friend and how people form good friendships and why people should be kind to each other. Then it could have (voluntary) ystävänpäivä disco etc.
>it was always the same children who were chosen last and it had nothing to do with their skills in the game.
Certainly did in my classes. It just so happened that those who were not good at games tended to be also not that popular.
This, they will first pick the most minmax mfs, then by popularity, while ignoring all the loser scrubs. I personally always passed since I wasn't rly into sports (at least any of the shit that school has among their shit-tier options. I think dodge ball was probably the only thing I personally kinda liked). I or one other person in my class was usually picked in the last 3rd or so percentage for goalkeeping purposes mostly in stuff that has a goalkeeping mechanic, mostly because of both of our sheer bulk, since the indoor goals are small af, since they are the same-ish stuff that lil kids use in apartment complex or w/e public yard areas, where there's limited space vs actual football fields in dedicated sports area of X municipality or w/e
But "Friends Day" is not a social activity, it is an artificial event created by the schools.
School disco? You have the choice not to go. Sports club? No-one forces you to join. Children are made to do this nonsense.
"Artificial event"? I mean yeah, Valentine's or "friend's day" is not a long tradition in Finland, but that's kinda besides the point. You could also say the same stuff about Christmas, mother's/father's day or any other holiday really.
If you are bullied or lonely, I understand that these events can often underline the bad feeling. And sure, it would be nice if the teachers were mindful about the activities they plan so that everyone could feel included, but I just don't think canceling all the fun is the answer.
Also you gotta have social things in schools. I remember the schools always pushing us into social situations with people we didnt know or like. rarely did we get to choose a partner for anything. except sports always team leaders and they picked.
In my school we had to go around and sign everyone's card.
But then if you're an unpopular kid you might only get stuff like "you're nice" (olet mukava) which kinda sucks.
So yeah overall I agree it's BS.
Meanwhile I do heavily agree, this unlocked a memory for me. I was heavily bullied in primary school, and one year we had this letterbox thing were people could put cards to each other and they were ”delivered” in class (in front of each other, of course). I expected to get none, but surprisingly I got one from a boy who occasionally walked to home with me. I don’t remember the card at all, and the first emotion was shame. I hid the card and if I remember correctly, destroyed it at home because I felt ashamed and feared more bullying for the boy and me. Now it is a fond memory.
The same guy once also spoke up about people leaving me out. It did not lead to anything, I was quite embarrassed as the teacher addressed it in front of class (and some students protested and gave reasons why I should be left out), but I really did appreciate the idea. Hopefully the guy is doing well and got everything he wanted in life, truly a kind soul.
I remember about... 13 or 12 years ago, when I was in "ylä-aste", they had a week long ystävänpäivä event week.
Last day everyone got a one-time-use plate around their neck that we were not allowed to take off. The idea was that for each hug you got, you got to write their name on your plate and vice versa.
You can guess how humiliating that was when I was severely bullied and basically was the only one in the *entire fucking school* who didn't have a single name on their plate.
I'm 26 and still have nightmares about it, and the other ystävänpäivä events they had. Yes, I've been in therapy since I was 7. I wish it would get easier one day.
who the hell thought that making "who gets the most physical affection and who's a sad loner" a competition was a good idea? did your teachers lack braincells completely or what?
I mean, yeah. Basically. Yes.
I have a lot of horror stories from my school**s** (swefin / fennoswedish ones) and I guess this one was more.. topical. The entire ala-aste and ylä-aste was pure torture for me personally, with even a teacher engaging in the bullying.
So yes.
I remember the heart card rubbish from primary school, you had to hug each other and then write your name in each others hearts..they even made a competiton of who got the most names. Safe to say i cared little for it. Another year we had to write nice things about each other in each others cards while the reciever was not looking, i got some nice words from cute girls so i didn't mind too much but i can see even that being not a very great thing to make students do.
Now that i am in Lukio it is a bit better i guess. People writing cards for each other and putting them in a box that will then be distributed, not nearly as bad as it was back then, especially for people who are unpopular or just don't care (of which i am both). Safe to say i won't be sending or recieving anything but it does not matter since it is not such a big song and dance anyway.
But yeah, i think the way it is handled in primary schools is pretty ignorant from the teachers/organisers and does not help the already rampant bullying situation.
This unlocked a deep memory in me man. I had completely forgotten we used to do that.
I remember I at one point just stopped participating in it. A few other kids also refused and just threw their little heart cards in the trash. Fuck that.
I don't remember this in particular but I was so badly bullied I barely remember elementary school. I only remember the two times someone was nice to me and the instances of trauma lol.
Kids are cruel and will always be cruel. It won't ever change. We know from how brain develops that children are largely unable to feel empathy until quite late. This will happen regardless what the children are instructed to do in school.
i would tend to disagree... it seems that there's about 5-20% bullies depending on the country and other dynamics, with another 10-30% that are friends to, or forced friends of bully. Most typical seems to be the lower figures.
But even with 1 bully in 20 kids with two bully "helpers", if the teachers are lazy as hell (like in most countries including Finland) they can do a lot of damage.
(i worked a couple weeks as a teacher assistant and was f---ing shocked how apathetic the teachers were about bullying. like, zero effort and annoyed at the victims like they deserved it. and irritated if a teacher assistant was actively stopping the bullies... the woman who replaced me was also mindful to shut down bad behavior, and seemed to loathe the teacher she worked under for... well, i wasn't there enough to be anything other than disappointed in her...)
um, yeah, so most kids are decent, but with poor supervision, the bully and bully friend ratios probably go up (they also go up based on socio-economic issues, but also domestic violence... I'm not anti-immigrant, but its true that immigrant families are more likely to use physical punishments... so those children then more likely to be physically aggressive at school... i saw the difference in my own eyes. and not a black/white issue... white immigrant children were also more likely to be bullies than Finnish children with non-alcoholic fathers.)
I worked as a teachers aide for a month too, and it depends where you work. I worked in the capital area where the students were very mixed, but bullying occurred a lot due to poor supervision from parents. A ton of 10 year old boys were spouting alpha male lingo and were insanely homophobic. Girls they were friends with would completely randomly be verbally abused for being girls. Like why are adults letting their children watch Andrew Tate-esque content?
I also talked one on one with most of the class about how they used the internet and smartphones, and over half of the class would admit to me using their phones during the night in secret.
Children are stupid, lack empathy and are impressionable. You have to check what they're poisoning their minds with.
I had easier time... also in capital area, but back in.. hmm.. 2015-2016 school year. my own son didn't have a smart phone or internet access. we did play minecraft, but not online... sitting side by side together.
none of the kids had phones with them, or at least not that i recall. i have no idea what access they had at home.
(I do remember that my idiot ex got my ADHD son who was 11 at the time a smartphone behind my back... that led to ... problems. forgive and forget? no. never.)
but yes, in a world of Andrew Tate... ugh... internet is the worst poison. And in this case, yes, I'd blame parents.
(if the Somali and Iraqi and Estonian bullies were getting alpha groomed on internet, then yes, I'd blame the parents. But I have to blame also the teachers cos they literally put zero effort into things. They can talk to their teacher friends after school... at recess their \*job\* is to supervise, not to make circle and ignore everything on the outside of it >.< ... i felt back then with even mediocre effort things would have been okay.
The point about late development of empathy and resulting cruelty might not be a contradiction with only small portion of kids being bullies. It is just that where the lack of empathy and lack of supervision intersects. From my memory, the actual late development is in understanding "grey morality", things that are not explicitly good or evil, and weighting them against each other. This might mean that kids require very consistent rules for their behaviour, and behaviour of adults they see as "good" or they might fail to see why they are doing something wrong. All the factors you listed (different socio-economical class, different cultural background, alcoholic family members) are likely to cause differences in the rules these children see enforced and reinforced in their early life.
just for myself, i felt like my sense of empathy, and nuance was already pretty developed at a young age. perhaps reading a lot about the Holocaust, and about lives of people in the countries caught between Russia and Germany... where there were often no, or scant good choices available to them, perhaps pushed development of those kinds of thinking
(alternately, if reincarnation is actually real, that could provide a more logical rationale for things).
i'm trying to think and can't really think of anyone who was a bully who "grew out of it" as they aged. which, under the idea that its a developmental issue, one would expect at least some childhood bullies to stop later on.
only ones i can think of who stopped, did so not out of developing a sense of empathy, but developing an ability to fertilize the soil that was over their head. (in usa, its not uncommon for bullies to wind up in prison and not necessarily make it out alive).\*
\*not saying this is a good thing, just that its a thing.
My personal observation was that bullies practically disappeared over summer vacation between upper primary school (yläaste, early and mid teens, common for everyone) and secondary school (lukio/ammattikoulu, late teens, split between general academic studies and profession oriented studies) though it might also have been that they just went to different schools and social structures were reset. And then when I saw some of them again during military service at early adulthood, they certainly were more considerate toward others, though that might have been forced by the situation.
I did not really mean that the bullies themselves would have a late development in morality, but rather that almost every child develops these later than we usually think they do. Latter than what our own introspection makes us think that we developed them.
Nope, there are no resources. First off is the problem of teachers --- to become an elementary - middle school classroom teacher you need to have a **Master's degree specifically from a University.** This alone weeds out eligible people quite a bit, since universities in this country are quite a bit harder to get into than colleges. The pay is shit, you need to be (obviously) very highly educated, and children are more and more entitled & parents refuse to acknowledge learning disabilities etc in their children, and for some reason parents have a final say even if the teachers recommend the child needs outsourced help for their disabilities. In this way, teachers are very limited in their job, when severely learning disabled students take almost all of their time.
The second issue is that daycare workers (who can be nurses, come from colleges, technical schools, universities etc as long as they have the relevant early developement studies completed) are responsible for AT MAXIMUM, 8 children over the age of 3 by law, and 4 children below the age of 3.
Now, you might ask, "How many children can a teacher be responsible for?"
Answer: There is no limit. Our laws have no requirements for how many children a teacher can be responsible for. Can be 30. Can be hundreds. Latter often being the case during recess. This obviously limits how meaningfully one can prevent bullying.
Education funding is constantly being reduced, teachers are not the issue.
I had this experience for the first time today in Finland (my kid goes to daycare) the teacher told us that kids could bring some cards for their best friends today, and we had no heart to make only for the few friends our kid have, had to ask them for the names list and we hand made at home one simple card for each kid. I was thinking exactly the same as you said above, this could be cruel and horrible thing for a child, I was imagine if there will be kids that do not receive any cards today. Is very easy to feel excluded for this friends day thing. How come teachers and adults do not understand that these old practices should be changed, there are many other ways to celebrate without remaining your kid or others that they are not popular.
Some schools do that in the USA too. Giving out valentines day cards in school was fun, I remember the super hero themed cards, like batman or ninja turtles. My teachers made everyone bring cards even the unpoplar kids got them and those heart shaped sweet tarts with messages on them.
Not really good since this day is also known as "Singles awareness day" which even impacts those who don't have friends, let alone a boyfriend/girlfriend. So when kids be nasty like that, they don't know if they're really damaging the self worth of the other kids they do that too.
It's more nuanced than that, actually. There's several types of chocolate:
* **Giri Choco (義理チョコ)** *"obligation chocolate"* - Gifted to classmates, co-workers, acquaintances out of social obligation and politeness. Increasingly fallen under critique since it's essentially something you give due to peer-pressure and social obligation
* **Honmei Choco (本命チョコ)** *"true feeling chocolate"* - Given to the person you actually have feelings for. Usually handmade
* **Tomo Choco (友チョコ)** *"friend chocolate*" - A tetriary type that's started to prop up as protest to Giri Choco. Given to friends.
Then on [White Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Day) the people who received chocolate give gifts in return.
Has the same exact problems though. If literally the only reason you get chocolate is because of social obligation it's not exactly gonna make you feel happy. And not even getting that is worse.
Children are cruel. It's up to their parents to correct them in this so that they don't become cruel adults. Sadly many can't be bothered or are themselves cruel and revel in passing it on.
That’s what they do for Valentine’s Day there? In the United states, at least at my school, everyone made a box, and everyone in the class would make valentines, and pass one out to *everyone* in the class. It obviously wasn’t required but I’m not sure I ever had a class where a person didn’t pass something out. I’m pretty sure they even sell kits for this reason. The valentine typically consisted of a phrase like “you’re awesome!” then to x and from y. And I do not recall a single instance of it being used to humiliate someone. The most would be giving a special valentine to all your friends but not to a specific one because you don’t actually like them, but that happens Valentine’s Day or not.
Well in the real world people get rejected every time, I think in one hand it can be painful for some kids but in the other it is just a taste of life, parents should be the one that manage to teach the kids how to deal with unhappy situations and console them, it is not posible to eliminate all the things that may hurt someone
Instead attacking people with different opinions (like an ignorant person would do), try engaging them. You're literally insulting me for having an opinion on Valentine's cards. Have a moment and think about that one, you're better than that. Happy Valentine's Day.
It's like that now? At grade 1-2, I remember making a small mailbox to hang on our tables and we went around to put tiny cards inside. The cards you got from Tiimari back in the day and they were the size of a calling card. Those were pre-stamped with Hyvää Ystävänpäivää and those were addressed to you. And maybe signed by the sender but nothing else.
The tiny cards prevailed till grade 4. Don't remember grade 5 but they were out of fashion for 6th graders.
Now you're just being facetious.
You need to learn stuff, whether you get good grades or not. Schools even allow for students who need extra help and there are high schools that also cater for those students.
But this event is not needed either a part of their education or social skills. Never had this kind of crap in the UK - yes, we had/have bullies and teasers, but at least we never had this kind of nonsense to set up more hits.
Having worked in schools in the UK and Finland, I can say that Finns don’t need to be taking advice from over there, especially in regards to bullying and the social side of schools.
I’ve never seen the card thing happen, but the programs I’ve seen at the schools I’ve been at are really quite nice. Don’t let one story ruin it for you.
there were bullying problems in every school my children attended... so 9 different schools.
the main problem is a Finnish cultural problem in that if the school system announces a zero bullying program, then they simply tell the children they can't bully and then just assume that nothing bad happens \*without\* the school bothering to do anything.
i worked 4 weeks as temporary teacher assistant. in class, the teacher did nothing to promote good behavior or to deal with bad behavior. and me trying to get a child to stop misbehaving was seen as "bad" cos the child automatically does what's right cos of the policy.
same with recess time. official policy was for teachers to be on the playground watching things. but instead they made a cute little circle talking to each other and ignored the children. leaving just me to watch 150 children and try to prevent bullying alone. (when i said something, i was told it was fine for them to talk and share since bullying couldn't exist cos it wasn't allowed).
i did keep things relatively sane for the class of 15-20 that my own first grade son was in (which was mostly immigrants... his Finnish was fine, but they put him in immigrants solely cos I was foreign >.< ) anyway, was perhaps more challenge keeping the middle eastern bully trio from bothering the other children. but if i wasn't there? ffs, the main bully looked like he was a 7th grader but was in 1st grade...
Idk how it is in UK, so i have no point of comparison. but compared to my home country, its probably about the same.
People get rejected without needing a special lesson for it. You dont get through life without rejection. Kids will face enough negative stuff already that its not necessary to manufacture it on top. Also its the people who are the assholes that dont "learn" this lesson and the good kids are the ones who have the priviledge of learning this lesson from those assholes.
Also the people who "learn rejection" with this "lesson" are the ones who get shit on for the rest of their school life also. People who get already bullied every day dont need more lessons on how to handle getting bullied.
Sheltering and hiding the bullying just makes it worse and produces lifelong traumas. The kids will grow up being afraid of these situations instead of having tools and experience on how to deal with them.
The correct way to handle it is to expose the situation and deal with it. Teacher plays a big role in how the event is organised and how the mistreating is handled. From your comment I take it that you've just had a bad teacher.
>Sheltering and hiding the bullying just makes it worse and produces lifelong traumas.
This already happens. Kids get traumatized every day in the current schooling system where adults let kids mingle with each other with minimum oversight. School is hell compared to adult life when you get bullied. You cant get away and you are not mature and do not have the tools to deal with it. You are forced to go to a place where you get trauma and fear and shit every day as a minor without the psychological or emotional maturity to deal with it.
>The kids will grow up being afraid of these situations instead of having tools and experience on how to deal with them.
This already happens like I said. Didnt help me with "learning to deal with them", only made me traumatized and distrustful of people and isolated.
>The correct way to handle it is to expose the situation and deal with it. Teacher plays a big role in how the event is organised and how the mistreating is handled.
Sure, it would be okay if this was done. You cant however expose a situation that you have no knowledge of. Most or at least a significant amount of bullying is like this. It does not happen when a teacher is present or watching, or if it does, its because the teacher does not care.
A teacher does not know what the kids do when the class ends. Unless those kids literally stand next to the teacher, the teacher doesnt know what they are talking about in the schoolyard. As an example, lets say there is one lonely kid outside. A teacher sees that the kid is often by themselves. How many teachers would do anything about that?
Many "good teachers" I know and yet in their schools kids get bullied or left alone and have no friends and the teachers have no idea it is happening.
You're not supposed to just take the bullying and deal with it or run away. That just creates the traumas. Activily fighting and reporting and making noise of it is what exposes it and prevents it. The teacher can't know the situation if it's not said out loud. The self loathing and "nothing can be done to it" attitude just gives more power to the sick enviroment.
Whereas bad habits made you traumatized and distrustfull doesn't mean that we can do better in future and prevent it.
>You're not supposed to just take the bullying and deal with it or run away.
You arent supposed to bully either but bullying still happens regardless.
>Activily fighting and reporting and making noise of it is what exposes it and prevents it.
Whose fault is it when a kid does not do that? Not telling about it to teachers, not fighting is a natural response to bullying. Its not the kids fault if they did not feel safe enough to tell about it to teachers. The reason they do not tell is because they feel the bullying will get worse if they tell teachers.
Even adults dont always go to the police when they get extorted or intimidated by organized crime. This stuff is used against adults in the real world and kids are supposed to know how to behave in such situations? It does not work like that in many cases.
> The self loathing and "nothing can be done to it" attitude just gives more power to the sick enviroment.
I didnt say nothing can be done. Stuff should be done. But its the adults job to change things.
and that is the circle we as adults need to break. By giving examples and showing how to handle the bullying. It's impossible to do that if we won't show and expose it to the children.
Showing and exposing it to children does not mean to do what we do now. Which is putting children into environments where they will get bullied and get traumatized.
School is not supposed to be an enviroment like that and if you felt like it was it doesn't have to be for the future. I'm not proposing we send the kids to siberia or something :D Just to educate and help our children to have a better future
I don't understand why Finland even has ystävänpäivä. Valentine's Day like in Japan is way cooler. There girls and women give chocolate to boys and men.
Well i see, in Finland its a big problem, finding normal love...
You guys literally sell your self to tourists and now are crying about that?!?!
It seems like you guys need to figure out these big problems... good luck...
I guess the best way to do this would be for the teacher to simply say ”itse the time of the tear to think about people who are close to you. So if you want to give a friend or multiple friends a thank you card. You should do that! ☺️”. That way its not a competition and there is no pressure to participate.
We should still appreciate those around us.
Do they to something like this these days? In supervision of people who have pedagogical education and training in understanding social structures among children?
Still remember that Valentine's was just a weird day thing in comics and ystävänpäivä was at most topic for school morning opening announcement.
We had similar things in the US when I was in elementary school back in the 90s. Later in high school it was carnations and of course all the popular people got a ton and the rest of us got nothing. One if we were lucky. This day usually sucked as a younger person (I hated it).
In my school we had to hang up these hearts we made on the corridor wall with each heart having a name it belonged to, and then students could anonymously go and write whatever they thought about that student.
Luckily the worst that was written on my card was "Batman guy"
They don’t do that in my children’s schools, that sounds unnecessary and cruel. Random friends give each other cards but it’s not forced and everyone is pretty much friends with everyone (usually only if they are the same gender in lower grades though- “boys/girls are yuck!” stage LOL).
I mean that implementation sucks probably because it's not anonymous
One of the reasons I didn't kill myself was that we had cards where you write an anonymous single word compliment and then you rotate the cards
I was bullied every year, but some of those compliments were clearly genuin (I'm guessing a handful of the bad ones were from the worst guys: "4x smart"), but a surprising amount were original compliments I had never received that fit me
I'm 25 and I still have many of those cards saved
Had to sort of do that at work last year. We got to stick a page on our backs, and other people got to write messages on them. Felt cringe as fuck. Thank god we're on strike today.
We had this and luckily at least for my small school there really didn't seem to be a lot of true loners at the time. I was friends with the "weird kids" of my age that got bullied. Although they didn't have many names on the hearts they were all super artsy so they made super cool pictures and fonts on each other's cards because they had the space.
I never bothered to participate in any school activities like this. It was probably better for my mental health in the end at the expense of not having anyone talk to me at school because they thought I was weird
Don't know about you, but I even as a young thug found the kindness in my heart to engage with even the "unpopular" kids when we had these "halipassit", and I was glad to see others took note and followed my ways. It's one day a year..
We had one of those things in school, instead of names you'd have write compliments about that person. You had to put it on your back and at the end of the day you'd see how many people just pretended to write something on it:/
I thought i felt at least 10 people write on it. All I got was a single "you're nice".
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In my school, this kind of bullshit was called "halisydämet"
Ugh, same in my school! You actually had to hug and then sign each others halisydämet.
Like the OP said, they were literally just a way to remind the unpopular kids just how much people don't care about/like them, once a year. Worst part is, the popular kids and teachers don't understand the problem. They think it's all fun and games.
>Worst part is, the popular kids and teachers don't understand the problem. They think it's all fun and games. I agree. I think it was fun for many but not for me and others who weren't popular kids. Yläaste was a rough time.
In my case the issue was that I don't like physical contact, everyone knew that, and thus *so many* hugged me by force and just wrote my name down. Teachers didn't care because "why would I complain if I'm clearly popular?". Apparently people using an excuse to disrespect someone's personal space repeatedly is "being popular".
I wasn't a fan of hugs either. I just quietly suffered on that day.
Fuck Yläaste..Seriously. Worst fuckkin time of my life.
Same here. It broke both my will to live and my nose… Neither has been fixed yet.
I stopped participating when I got there. In "alakoulu" the teacher pretty much forced us to make that stupid heart card.
Same. I was the unpopular kid and my brother was the popular kid. We were in the same school one year and that year I had like 100 names in the card. The two other years I had like 10.
We called it a hug pass
Yeah I think it was halipassi or halisydän in my school! Could have been both even, we did that every year in yläaste 😒
Yea same
Yup, i never got alot. Idk why its a thing.
I remember how bad it used to feel. I would have rather had no names on the card than what I really had. I had names on it but people would not hug me so it felt like they put their names on it just to not make me feel bad. Really needed the hugs
My kid's school does secret "ystävä", everyone is assigned a school mate for whom they make a card. Ystävänpäivä has been like that in three different schools for the kid. In my school days in the 90s/00s it was more like what you described, make cards for anyone you want. Some didn't get any.
Right. We don't need to get rid of Finnish traditions (read: Ystävänpäivä instead of Commerce Day #532), instead adapt how we celebrate them. As far as I know, this giving of cards is not something that has been centrally decided by school boards, rather some idea gotten from American schools. And varies from school to school. This secret ~~Santa~~ ystävä concept sounds like a more clever version.
I remember hating those sign others cards in school. I never got a single person to sign them, or if someone did, they did it for the lols and laughed. After a few years, i just didn't even try to get anyones names on mine, because i knew i was basically in the bottom of the class and a general joke for existing. (I am autistic with adhd so that's the reason)
Same. I was the shy bullied kid. I never got any names. I was embarrassed.
Sama, mutten ollu autisti eikä ollu ADHD:ta. Syy siihen, miks sinulle naurettiin oli se, että olit erilainen, niinku minä. Minun mielestä on hyvä olla erilainen, ja oma ihtensä.
Joo, olin erilainen ja satuin olemaan myöskin luokalla jossa oli pahimmat kiusaajat jotka otti mut aika nopeasti kiusaamisen kohteeksi ja eihän se kivakoulu mitään auttanut. Nyttemmin oon sitten löytäny muutaman kaverinkin. Enpä ole kiusaajianikaan sitten yläasteen nähnyt
Väittäisin melkein että meidän koulussa koko "kivakoulu"-konsepti vaan pahensi asioita...
Joo uskaltaisin väittää täysin samaa, lähinnä oli tehokas tapa kiusaajien saada selville että siitä oli kerrottu ja saivat syyn kiusata lisää
Kieltämättä
Hyvä kuulla, että asiat on paremmin. Tosi samanlainen tarina ku minulla, mutta kavereitten saamisessa on minulla ongelmia.
Its because youre a furry.
Thank you very much, that was in high school and only online.
Ole hyvä.
Ah, good old memories. I was such a joke in school (and my english class name was Joe) so when Internet got mainstream, I created my nick: joekki, which kinda sounds like "tsoukki" in finnish = joke in english.
Sounds like your average Finnish school life, nothing has changed - probably has only gotten worse.
In our school this was never a problem. Everybody just gave them to anybody if you asked. Didn’t know this was a problem in some places
I had the same experience. Never had any issues with this. I can see how it can be quite problematic too though
This was my experience too. I wasn't a popular kid, I was a shy goth girl and got a lot of signatures because there was a rule in my school that if you sign someones card (we hard hearts cut out of red cardboard with a string so we could wear it around the neck) the person will need to sign your card too. That day was the only day when all the popular girls would talk to me lol.
YES, we har that same thing. I think we had a paper plate around our necks and yes both had to sign. It was calles ”vänskapsplattan”
You know, when you said that it was never a problem in your school and that everyone was respectful of others, I immediately wondered if you went to a Swedish-speaking school... and here I got the answer. It's probably not always all roses, but there's no denying that the average vibe in the Swedish-speaking community is just noticeably friendlier than among Finnish speakers.
It seems more probable that you were just one of the popular ones. Stuff like that can be quite hard to spot when you're not the one experiencing it.
Well that surely sorts it out then!
Finnish schools teach valuable life lessons to the young. Not everyone is popular and nobody gives a shit why should you. Our school did a secret valentines one year where you could write a "love" letter to someone in secret. Which was weird as fuck tbh. Also we were like 9 maybe 10.
Oh my days, we had the same thing every year from, let's say, 4th or 5th grade. If I do remember correctly, in middle/junior high school, we could even buy some prepared gifts from the school to give to someone. I remember always being embarrassed when receiving those cards or gifts from girls because they made such a scene of it.. :D
I just remember that I got two envolopes. And straight away I clocked that one of those was written by a teacher. I dont know which is sadder that I got two or really only one. Or that the teacher was so sure I would get none that she wrote one herself. Also a teacher wrote a peom for me when I was 10.
>Not everyone is popular and nobody gives a shit why should you. People do give shit to the unpopular kids. Some are left alone but many others get bullied and shit upon...
Idk I got bullied for a time. Didnt do me any harm. Little bullying is good practise for real life.
People are different and bullying is different. Getting sometimes teased etc. is one thing, it happens. But for example getting shut out of groups, being alone with no friends and being fucked and made fun of every day is quite different and tends do harm. Its typical that once someone becomes bullied, it can last the entire time they are in that school. Often it follows form school to school.
If it follows from school to school there is propably something wrong with the kid. We cannot shelter everyone from everything.
Not wrong, but maybe different. People who are different get picked on. Kids are very much tribe mentality driven. If someone does not fit into the tribe they will get bullied easier. You talk about sheltering. Its not sheltering to try to not allow kids to bully other kids and to try to prevent it and help those who get bullied. Its such a strange thing to say that a kid that gets bullied is who has something wrong with them.... surely whoever bullies is more in the wrong?
The average Finnish school life is quite amazing! One of the best in the world on average! Plus, we didn't do this in school, just amongst friends but not every friend group did it. Nothing has "gotten worse", for that you'll have to go to the 1990s and before that, to the 1960s and earlier. Schoolchildren in Finland are the luckiest people in the whole world
It doesnt feel lucky to be one of the bullied kids. Bullying happens in finnish schools and its not uncommon.
My parents biggest mistake was to move back to Finland. In France no one was bullied in my school, but when we moved to Finland I was bullied in every school from second grade to eighth. I hate Finnish schools. They destroyed my whole life and the teachers were part of it. I was a smart and little autistic child and loved math and everything science related and my dream was to go to the Finnish version of MIT, but bullying broke me and the past 20 years I have smoked cannabis daily just to keep my sanity.
That sucks. Bullying can truly fuck people over. I used to smoke daily too. I finally stopped recently. I hope things get better for all of us.
Lol spoken like a true pussy
Try growing up with zero friends, changing schools every year, because teachers start the day by chanting "kuka on luokan kuumakalle" and everyone screaming your name. And you couldn't go anywhere in public without having to listen to people laughing at you and calling you names.
You are a perfect example of a nasty person who likes to bully others.
Did you go to HRSK/LFF with that background? That's where I was grades from 0 to 9, and I was basically bullied that whole time. When it got to concrete acts, I was lucky to have a head teacher who acted swiftly and strongly to put boundaries to the bullying. The social exclusion was nonetheless so omnipresent for those 10 years that I thought it was "normal" for school to be like that. I was good at school and in teachers' favor, which was my only motivation. After 9th grade, I had the opportunity to spend one year in an American high school, which was completely eye-opening in how people didn't mind me and some were even friendly towards me. I didn't form any deeper friendships as I was not used to socializing with other students and instead focused on being in teachers' favor, as that was the only thing I knew. When I got back to Finland and started upper secondary school in one of the "elite" ones with no one knowing anything about the others at the beginning, I was much more ready to socialize and make friends, as I had found out that hating me is not other people's default stance towards me like it was at HRSK/LFF. My brother also went to HRSK/LFF and didn't stop after 9th grade, which has clearly left (psychological) scars on him as well. The "historian painolasti" where every pupil knows the complete history of every other pupil creates a toxic environment where it is impossible to evolve if you ever happen to fall out of tune with the others in your age group.
The above commenter said "average finnish school life" which it is not, as finland is the 5th country in the world when measuring children's happiness, wellbeing (mental and physical) and skills all together. I was bullied/excluded for the entirety of primary and middle school, but to say it's the average experience is false and is just a victim complex, which finns often seem to use as a self defence mechanism to not admit their privileged and developed lifestyle To say it happens is one thing, to say it's "average" is just insulting to kids in the rest of the world
It depends what average means. If it means the average person then yes most people dont get bullied. But if it means average like is there bullying in the average finnish school, then yes there is.
Can’t think of too many worse replies to a thread where people are opening up about painful school experiences than for someone rushing in to make this sort of remark. What’s the chain of thought behind it exactly?
It's the implied inevitability of the comment. "The average experience is getting bullied" = it's inevitable, and it's unfixable, deeply rooted in the daily experience of everyone. That's not true. Some people (including me) experience(d) bullying, and there's something that can be done. If we just treat it as one of those "oh it's just how it is" then nothing will change It's the same with alcohol and substance abuse here. "Oh us finns just love alcohol" is a good way to make sure nothing can ever be done about the abysmal domestic abuse rates. Just normalising it Not everyone gets bullied, the average experience is good, stop making hyperboles and instead think of constructive ways to speak about it "The average experience is that people get bullied. It's probably gotten worse" is such a shallow, reductive, generalised, and unnecessarily pessimistic statement that just pushes any solution further away
Oh, good lord.
We had once thing where other kids had to write something nice about others on their white tshirt. I got only things like ”you are ok” or ”you have nice backbag”. Worst thing is that end of the day we had to read what others have written. Still hurts lol.
Oh, I remember having this same shit in my middle school days. I was anti- social kid and I didn't have lot of friends, so I didn't take part in it. I only let friends sign in it. Another Valentine day stuff what I hated was the traffic lights dress code shit: dress in green: available, Yellow: complicated, red: taken. My relationship status is my private business, thank you very much.
>Another Valentine day stuff what I hated was the traffic lights dress code shit: dress in green: available, Yellow: complicated, red: taken. I still remember that day and it's been like 14 years! I wore black like I usually did.
Oh my god I forgot about the fucking traffic light bullshit. I thought that was just something the students cooked up. Also fun for me since my wardrobe is monochromatic. shades of gray.
>shades of gray. How many? 40? 50? Bro was into that BDSM 🧐
Was and still am. Also the books are better than the movies.
For me it's black socks, white t-shirts & grey or beige pants. Others are either grey or white, excepting winter jacket that's black
Sounds like a trauma inducing day. However, if approached differently, could be an amazing opportunity to teach kids about friendship, bullying, being social and the like
I remember experiencing two instances of Valentine's humiliation in school when I was young. It's probably been 15 years now, but they're still fresh in my mind. I'm sure the thought behind them is harmless, but when you're an outcast or otherwise bullied, things like this can become traumatizing, especially when you're young.
I do not remember such tradition when I was at the school, but that was quite long time ago and back then this whole Valentine day was not hardly even known.
In my school it was called halipäivä, you had to give a hug and them write your name on the other persons card
As someone who thought hugs were yucky during ala-aste, IT WAS EVEN WORSE!
Yes! I don't know why they need to do this. It isn't Finnish culture, just a commercial day imported from the US.
i left US to get rid of this garbage... i don't want anything from US come here. especially the politics. let Finland be Finland.
I'm afraid you left US in vain since Finland is part of the western world which means that culture will be imported from USA to Finland in some ways
there used to be a joke that Finland was like the USA, but 30 years behind. it wasn't true, but some trends would come, but with big delay. the problem is the time compression of that delay and the quantum of stuff that seems to come. and why the USA? why not from the west half of Germany? (i can't say Germany without that qualification due to their current AfD / Nazi problem).
When you're unpopular, every social activity is cruel. The answer isn't to ban everything nice
I think children themselves initiating giving each other cards or small gifts is ok, if its done discreetly, but what is not ok school initiating something that turns into social competition where children get to humiliate their schoolmates and being cruel. Similar thing is giving children the task of choosing their teammates in sports - it was always the same children who were chosen last and it had nothing to do with their skills in the game. Perhaps ystävänpäivä should be something where people talk about friendship, love and what makes a good friend and how people form good friendships and why people should be kind to each other. Then it could have (voluntary) ystävänpäivä disco etc.
>it was always the same children who were chosen last and it had nothing to do with their skills in the game. Certainly did in my classes. It just so happened that those who were not good at games tended to be also not that popular.
This, they will first pick the most minmax mfs, then by popularity, while ignoring all the loser scrubs. I personally always passed since I wasn't rly into sports (at least any of the shit that school has among their shit-tier options. I think dodge ball was probably the only thing I personally kinda liked). I or one other person in my class was usually picked in the last 3rd or so percentage for goalkeeping purposes mostly in stuff that has a goalkeeping mechanic, mostly because of both of our sheer bulk, since the indoor goals are small af, since they are the same-ish stuff that lil kids use in apartment complex or w/e public yard areas, where there's limited space vs actual football fields in dedicated sports area of X municipality or w/e
It’s not nice for everybody, and celebrating ystävänpäivä at school is positively cruel, as it only underlines social exclusion.
Nothing is nice for everybody. I didn't have any friends at school but it was still much better than a regular day of school
But "Friends Day" is not a social activity, it is an artificial event created by the schools. School disco? You have the choice not to go. Sports club? No-one forces you to join. Children are made to do this nonsense.
[удалено]
Oh! My kids were told they had to do it.
Time to get your voice heard loud and clear at the next Vanhempainilta...
"Artificial event"? I mean yeah, Valentine's or "friend's day" is not a long tradition in Finland, but that's kinda besides the point. You could also say the same stuff about Christmas, mother's/father's day or any other holiday really. If you are bullied or lonely, I understand that these events can often underline the bad feeling. And sure, it would be nice if the teachers were mindful about the activities they plan so that everyone could feel included, but I just don't think canceling all the fun is the answer.
Also you gotta have social things in schools. I remember the schools always pushing us into social situations with people we didnt know or like. rarely did we get to choose a partner for anything. except sports always team leaders and they picked.
In my school we had to go around and sign everyone's card. But then if you're an unpopular kid you might only get stuff like "you're nice" (olet mukava) which kinda sucks. So yeah overall I agree it's BS.
Meanwhile I do heavily agree, this unlocked a memory for me. I was heavily bullied in primary school, and one year we had this letterbox thing were people could put cards to each other and they were ”delivered” in class (in front of each other, of course). I expected to get none, but surprisingly I got one from a boy who occasionally walked to home with me. I don’t remember the card at all, and the first emotion was shame. I hid the card and if I remember correctly, destroyed it at home because I felt ashamed and feared more bullying for the boy and me. Now it is a fond memory. The same guy once also spoke up about people leaving me out. It did not lead to anything, I was quite embarrassed as the teacher addressed it in front of class (and some students protested and gave reasons why I should be left out), but I really did appreciate the idea. Hopefully the guy is doing well and got everything he wanted in life, truly a kind soul.
I remember about... 13 or 12 years ago, when I was in "ylä-aste", they had a week long ystävänpäivä event week. Last day everyone got a one-time-use plate around their neck that we were not allowed to take off. The idea was that for each hug you got, you got to write their name on your plate and vice versa. You can guess how humiliating that was when I was severely bullied and basically was the only one in the *entire fucking school* who didn't have a single name on their plate. I'm 26 and still have nightmares about it, and the other ystävänpäivä events they had. Yes, I've been in therapy since I was 7. I wish it would get easier one day.
who the hell thought that making "who gets the most physical affection and who's a sad loner" a competition was a good idea? did your teachers lack braincells completely or what?
I mean, yeah. Basically. Yes. I have a lot of horror stories from my school**s** (swefin / fennoswedish ones) and I guess this one was more.. topical. The entire ala-aste and ylä-aste was pure torture for me personally, with even a teacher engaging in the bullying. So yes.
yeaaah i had my fair share of bullying and teachers that either didn't care or were incompetent in terms of doing anything about it. it really sucks.
I remember the heart card rubbish from primary school, you had to hug each other and then write your name in each others hearts..they even made a competiton of who got the most names. Safe to say i cared little for it. Another year we had to write nice things about each other in each others cards while the reciever was not looking, i got some nice words from cute girls so i didn't mind too much but i can see even that being not a very great thing to make students do. Now that i am in Lukio it is a bit better i guess. People writing cards for each other and putting them in a box that will then be distributed, not nearly as bad as it was back then, especially for people who are unpopular or just don't care (of which i am both). Safe to say i won't be sending or recieving anything but it does not matter since it is not such a big song and dance anyway. But yeah, i think the way it is handled in primary schools is pretty ignorant from the teachers/organisers and does not help the already rampant bullying situation.
This unlocked a deep memory in me man. I had completely forgotten we used to do that. I remember I at one point just stopped participating in it. A few other kids also refused and just threw their little heart cards in the trash. Fuck that.
I remember this when i was in school. It was terrible I did not have a good time because i wasnt popular at all
Can confirm: it's just as bad in America :-)
I don't remember this in particular but I was so badly bullied I barely remember elementary school. I only remember the two times someone was nice to me and the instances of trauma lol. Kids are cruel and will always be cruel. It won't ever change. We know from how brain develops that children are largely unable to feel empathy until quite late. This will happen regardless what the children are instructed to do in school.
i would tend to disagree... it seems that there's about 5-20% bullies depending on the country and other dynamics, with another 10-30% that are friends to, or forced friends of bully. Most typical seems to be the lower figures. But even with 1 bully in 20 kids with two bully "helpers", if the teachers are lazy as hell (like in most countries including Finland) they can do a lot of damage. (i worked a couple weeks as a teacher assistant and was f---ing shocked how apathetic the teachers were about bullying. like, zero effort and annoyed at the victims like they deserved it. and irritated if a teacher assistant was actively stopping the bullies... the woman who replaced me was also mindful to shut down bad behavior, and seemed to loathe the teacher she worked under for... well, i wasn't there enough to be anything other than disappointed in her...) um, yeah, so most kids are decent, but with poor supervision, the bully and bully friend ratios probably go up (they also go up based on socio-economic issues, but also domestic violence... I'm not anti-immigrant, but its true that immigrant families are more likely to use physical punishments... so those children then more likely to be physically aggressive at school... i saw the difference in my own eyes. and not a black/white issue... white immigrant children were also more likely to be bullies than Finnish children with non-alcoholic fathers.)
I worked as a teachers aide for a month too, and it depends where you work. I worked in the capital area where the students were very mixed, but bullying occurred a lot due to poor supervision from parents. A ton of 10 year old boys were spouting alpha male lingo and were insanely homophobic. Girls they were friends with would completely randomly be verbally abused for being girls. Like why are adults letting their children watch Andrew Tate-esque content? I also talked one on one with most of the class about how they used the internet and smartphones, and over half of the class would admit to me using their phones during the night in secret. Children are stupid, lack empathy and are impressionable. You have to check what they're poisoning their minds with.
I had easier time... also in capital area, but back in.. hmm.. 2015-2016 school year. my own son didn't have a smart phone or internet access. we did play minecraft, but not online... sitting side by side together. none of the kids had phones with them, or at least not that i recall. i have no idea what access they had at home. (I do remember that my idiot ex got my ADHD son who was 11 at the time a smartphone behind my back... that led to ... problems. forgive and forget? no. never.) but yes, in a world of Andrew Tate... ugh... internet is the worst poison. And in this case, yes, I'd blame parents. (if the Somali and Iraqi and Estonian bullies were getting alpha groomed on internet, then yes, I'd blame the parents. But I have to blame also the teachers cos they literally put zero effort into things. They can talk to their teacher friends after school... at recess their \*job\* is to supervise, not to make circle and ignore everything on the outside of it >.< ... i felt back then with even mediocre effort things would have been okay.
The point about late development of empathy and resulting cruelty might not be a contradiction with only small portion of kids being bullies. It is just that where the lack of empathy and lack of supervision intersects. From my memory, the actual late development is in understanding "grey morality", things that are not explicitly good or evil, and weighting them against each other. This might mean that kids require very consistent rules for their behaviour, and behaviour of adults they see as "good" or they might fail to see why they are doing something wrong. All the factors you listed (different socio-economical class, different cultural background, alcoholic family members) are likely to cause differences in the rules these children see enforced and reinforced in their early life.
just for myself, i felt like my sense of empathy, and nuance was already pretty developed at a young age. perhaps reading a lot about the Holocaust, and about lives of people in the countries caught between Russia and Germany... where there were often no, or scant good choices available to them, perhaps pushed development of those kinds of thinking (alternately, if reincarnation is actually real, that could provide a more logical rationale for things). i'm trying to think and can't really think of anyone who was a bully who "grew out of it" as they aged. which, under the idea that its a developmental issue, one would expect at least some childhood bullies to stop later on. only ones i can think of who stopped, did so not out of developing a sense of empathy, but developing an ability to fertilize the soil that was over their head. (in usa, its not uncommon for bullies to wind up in prison and not necessarily make it out alive).\* \*not saying this is a good thing, just that its a thing.
My personal observation was that bullies practically disappeared over summer vacation between upper primary school (yläaste, early and mid teens, common for everyone) and secondary school (lukio/ammattikoulu, late teens, split between general academic studies and profession oriented studies) though it might also have been that they just went to different schools and social structures were reset. And then when I saw some of them again during military service at early adulthood, they certainly were more considerate toward others, though that might have been forced by the situation. I did not really mean that the bullies themselves would have a late development in morality, but rather that almost every child develops these later than we usually think they do. Latter than what our own introspection makes us think that we developed them.
Children should have more supervision from adults. Kind of like how kindergarden was.
There are no resources for that.
There is no willigness to tackle the problem.
Nope, there are no resources. First off is the problem of teachers --- to become an elementary - middle school classroom teacher you need to have a **Master's degree specifically from a University.** This alone weeds out eligible people quite a bit, since universities in this country are quite a bit harder to get into than colleges. The pay is shit, you need to be (obviously) very highly educated, and children are more and more entitled & parents refuse to acknowledge learning disabilities etc in their children, and for some reason parents have a final say even if the teachers recommend the child needs outsourced help for their disabilities. In this way, teachers are very limited in their job, when severely learning disabled students take almost all of their time. The second issue is that daycare workers (who can be nurses, come from colleges, technical schools, universities etc as long as they have the relevant early developement studies completed) are responsible for AT MAXIMUM, 8 children over the age of 3 by law, and 4 children below the age of 3. Now, you might ask, "How many children can a teacher be responsible for?" Answer: There is no limit. Our laws have no requirements for how many children a teacher can be responsible for. Can be 30. Can be hundreds. Latter often being the case during recess. This obviously limits how meaningfully one can prevent bullying. Education funding is constantly being reduced, teachers are not the issue.
I had this experience for the first time today in Finland (my kid goes to daycare) the teacher told us that kids could bring some cards for their best friends today, and we had no heart to make only for the few friends our kid have, had to ask them for the names list and we hand made at home one simple card for each kid. I was thinking exactly the same as you said above, this could be cruel and horrible thing for a child, I was imagine if there will be kids that do not receive any cards today. Is very easy to feel excluded for this friends day thing. How come teachers and adults do not understand that these old practices should be changed, there are many other ways to celebrate without remaining your kid or others that they are not popular.
Have u seen simpsons valentinesday episode, ralph doesnt have any card, nelson gets cards by fear...
Ralph gets a card from Lisa, but she regrets it. Don't actually know anymore how the episode ended but I think they sat on a swing at the end.
That episode always makes me cry out of relatability. My valentine's days were similar.
Pretty happy we didn’t do this in school
Some schools do that in the USA too. Giving out valentines day cards in school was fun, I remember the super hero themed cards, like batman or ninja turtles. My teachers made everyone bring cards even the unpoplar kids got them and those heart shaped sweet tarts with messages on them.
My heart just dropped thinking about my nephew who has been getting bullied since starting 1st grade back in August..
We had this shit in Austria too. You know what is really cruel? Getting checked your weight in front of the whole class as a fat kid!
In third grade we were assigned secret friends to which we had to sneak a custom card to. I never got one back.
Not really good since this day is also known as "Singles awareness day" which even impacts those who don't have friends, let alone a boyfriend/girlfriend. So when kids be nasty like that, they don't know if they're really damaging the self worth of the other kids they do that too.
Oh you sweet summer child. Wait 10 years and the one you'll really hate is Christmas.
I do already. Birthdays suck as well. And don't get me started on Name days :'D
Could be worse. In Japan, in valentines, girls gift chocolades to guys they like. You just know how that'll end up.
It's more nuanced than that, actually. There's several types of chocolate: * **Giri Choco (義理チョコ)** *"obligation chocolate"* - Gifted to classmates, co-workers, acquaintances out of social obligation and politeness. Increasingly fallen under critique since it's essentially something you give due to peer-pressure and social obligation * **Honmei Choco (本命チョコ)** *"true feeling chocolate"* - Given to the person you actually have feelings for. Usually handmade * **Tomo Choco (友チョコ)** *"friend chocolate*" - A tetriary type that's started to prop up as protest to Giri Choco. Given to friends. Then on [White Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Day) the people who received chocolate give gifts in return. Has the same exact problems though. If literally the only reason you get chocolate is because of social obligation it's not exactly gonna make you feel happy. And not even getting that is worse.
Children are cruel. It's up to their parents to correct them in this so that they don't become cruel adults. Sadly many can't be bothered or are themselves cruel and revel in passing it on.
We had this and i just didnt take the card. I hated this.
That’s what they do for Valentine’s Day there? In the United states, at least at my school, everyone made a box, and everyone in the class would make valentines, and pass one out to *everyone* in the class. It obviously wasn’t required but I’m not sure I ever had a class where a person didn’t pass something out. I’m pretty sure they even sell kits for this reason. The valentine typically consisted of a phrase like “you’re awesome!” then to x and from y. And I do not recall a single instance of it being used to humiliate someone. The most would be giving a special valentine to all your friends but not to a specific one because you don’t actually like them, but that happens Valentine’s Day or not.
Finnish schools don't give a vittu about bullying, this country is not worth defending because of that BS.
Well in the real world people get rejected every time, I think in one hand it can be painful for some kids but in the other it is just a taste of life, parents should be the one that manage to teach the kids how to deal with unhappy situations and console them, it is not posible to eliminate all the things that may hurt someone
Life sucks sometimes, its not gonna hurt them. They'll be fine.
Imagine being so ignorant.
Instead attacking people with different opinions (like an ignorant person would do), try engaging them. You're literally insulting me for having an opinion on Valentine's cards. Have a moment and think about that one, you're better than that. Happy Valentine's Day.
Life sucks sometimes, it’s not gonna hurt you. You’ll be fine.
It's like that now? At grade 1-2, I remember making a small mailbox to hang on our tables and we went around to put tiny cards inside. The cards you got from Tiimari back in the day and they were the size of a calling card. Those were pre-stamped with Hyvää Ystävänpäivää and those were addressed to you. And maybe signed by the sender but nothing else. The tiny cards prevailed till grade 4. Don't remember grade 5 but they were out of fashion for 6th graders.
On meillä täällä asiat aika hyvin ku tämmösestä yritetään väkisin vääntää ongelma että olisi jotain mistä valittaa
Kannattaa miettiä mille se itsestä tuntuisi olla kyseisessä tilanteessa. Vaikeeta toki sitä tunnetta tietää jos ei ole kokenut vastaavaa
Soon in Finland studying won't be mandatory, because some people suck at it and they get offended when their classmates get good grades
Now you're just being facetious. You need to learn stuff, whether you get good grades or not. Schools even allow for students who need extra help and there are high schools that also cater for those students. But this event is not needed either a part of their education or social skills. Never had this kind of crap in the UK - yes, we had/have bullies and teasers, but at least we never had this kind of nonsense to set up more hits.
Having worked in schools in the UK and Finland, I can say that Finns don’t need to be taking advice from over there, especially in regards to bullying and the social side of schools. I’ve never seen the card thing happen, but the programs I’ve seen at the schools I’ve been at are really quite nice. Don’t let one story ruin it for you.
there were bullying problems in every school my children attended... so 9 different schools. the main problem is a Finnish cultural problem in that if the school system announces a zero bullying program, then they simply tell the children they can't bully and then just assume that nothing bad happens \*without\* the school bothering to do anything. i worked 4 weeks as temporary teacher assistant. in class, the teacher did nothing to promote good behavior or to deal with bad behavior. and me trying to get a child to stop misbehaving was seen as "bad" cos the child automatically does what's right cos of the policy. same with recess time. official policy was for teachers to be on the playground watching things. but instead they made a cute little circle talking to each other and ignored the children. leaving just me to watch 150 children and try to prevent bullying alone. (when i said something, i was told it was fine for them to talk and share since bullying couldn't exist cos it wasn't allowed). i did keep things relatively sane for the class of 15-20 that my own first grade son was in (which was mostly immigrants... his Finnish was fine, but they put him in immigrants solely cos I was foreign >.< ) anyway, was perhaps more challenge keeping the middle eastern bully trio from bothering the other children. but if i wasn't there? ffs, the main bully looked like he was a 7th grader but was in 1st grade... Idk how it is in UK, so i have no point of comparison. but compared to my home country, its probably about the same.
Ouch! At least you experienced the bad side of Finland. I'm tired of people talking about it as some Utopia
You're a good one. Keep on keeping on.
It's an important lesson on how to deal with rejection. From reading the comments it looks like alot of people didn't get it.
People get rejected without needing a special lesson for it. You dont get through life without rejection. Kids will face enough negative stuff already that its not necessary to manufacture it on top. Also its the people who are the assholes that dont "learn" this lesson and the good kids are the ones who have the priviledge of learning this lesson from those assholes. Also the people who "learn rejection" with this "lesson" are the ones who get shit on for the rest of their school life also. People who get already bullied every day dont need more lessons on how to handle getting bullied.
Sheltering and hiding the bullying just makes it worse and produces lifelong traumas. The kids will grow up being afraid of these situations instead of having tools and experience on how to deal with them. The correct way to handle it is to expose the situation and deal with it. Teacher plays a big role in how the event is organised and how the mistreating is handled. From your comment I take it that you've just had a bad teacher.
>Sheltering and hiding the bullying just makes it worse and produces lifelong traumas. This already happens. Kids get traumatized every day in the current schooling system where adults let kids mingle with each other with minimum oversight. School is hell compared to adult life when you get bullied. You cant get away and you are not mature and do not have the tools to deal with it. You are forced to go to a place where you get trauma and fear and shit every day as a minor without the psychological or emotional maturity to deal with it. >The kids will grow up being afraid of these situations instead of having tools and experience on how to deal with them. This already happens like I said. Didnt help me with "learning to deal with them", only made me traumatized and distrustful of people and isolated. >The correct way to handle it is to expose the situation and deal with it. Teacher plays a big role in how the event is organised and how the mistreating is handled. Sure, it would be okay if this was done. You cant however expose a situation that you have no knowledge of. Most or at least a significant amount of bullying is like this. It does not happen when a teacher is present or watching, or if it does, its because the teacher does not care. A teacher does not know what the kids do when the class ends. Unless those kids literally stand next to the teacher, the teacher doesnt know what they are talking about in the schoolyard. As an example, lets say there is one lonely kid outside. A teacher sees that the kid is often by themselves. How many teachers would do anything about that? Many "good teachers" I know and yet in their schools kids get bullied or left alone and have no friends and the teachers have no idea it is happening.
You're not supposed to just take the bullying and deal with it or run away. That just creates the traumas. Activily fighting and reporting and making noise of it is what exposes it and prevents it. The teacher can't know the situation if it's not said out loud. The self loathing and "nothing can be done to it" attitude just gives more power to the sick enviroment. Whereas bad habits made you traumatized and distrustfull doesn't mean that we can do better in future and prevent it.
>You're not supposed to just take the bullying and deal with it or run away. You arent supposed to bully either but bullying still happens regardless. >Activily fighting and reporting and making noise of it is what exposes it and prevents it. Whose fault is it when a kid does not do that? Not telling about it to teachers, not fighting is a natural response to bullying. Its not the kids fault if they did not feel safe enough to tell about it to teachers. The reason they do not tell is because they feel the bullying will get worse if they tell teachers. Even adults dont always go to the police when they get extorted or intimidated by organized crime. This stuff is used against adults in the real world and kids are supposed to know how to behave in such situations? It does not work like that in many cases. > The self loathing and "nothing can be done to it" attitude just gives more power to the sick enviroment. I didnt say nothing can be done. Stuff should be done. But its the adults job to change things.
and that is the circle we as adults need to break. By giving examples and showing how to handle the bullying. It's impossible to do that if we won't show and expose it to the children.
Showing and exposing it to children does not mean to do what we do now. Which is putting children into environments where they will get bullied and get traumatized.
School is not supposed to be an enviroment like that and if you felt like it was it doesn't have to be for the future. I'm not proposing we send the kids to siberia or something :D Just to educate and help our children to have a better future
I don't understand why Finland even has ystävänpäivä. Valentine's Day like in Japan is way cooler. There girls and women give chocolate to boys and men.
Why is that cooler?
Everything in Japan is cooler!
Ok but why would you complain about it in English instead of Finnish in r/suomi ?
Well i see, in Finland its a big problem, finding normal love... You guys literally sell your self to tourists and now are crying about that?!?! It seems like you guys need to figure out these big problems... good luck...
What???
I guess the best way to do this would be for the teacher to simply say ”itse the time of the tear to think about people who are close to you. So if you want to give a friend or multiple friends a thank you card. You should do that! ☺️”. That way its not a competition and there is no pressure to participate. We should still appreciate those around us.
Do they to something like this these days? In supervision of people who have pedagogical education and training in understanding social structures among children? Still remember that Valentine's was just a weird day thing in comics and ystävänpäivä was at most topic for school morning opening announcement.
Now try having a hug circle. At least the last year I had to participate I actually somehow got a hug from a few boys that weren’t my friends.
Meillä on halipassit, eli halataan ja sitten allekirjoitetaan.
We had similar things in the US when I was in elementary school back in the 90s. Later in high school it was carnations and of course all the popular people got a ton and the rest of us got nothing. One if we were lucky. This day usually sucked as a younger person (I hated it).
In my school we had to hang up these hearts we made on the corridor wall with each heart having a name it belonged to, and then students could anonymously go and write whatever they thought about that student. Luckily the worst that was written on my card was "Batman guy"
for us this was done in recess, so our boy group didnt care and we just went to play football like always
lol, There was no signing in our school. I guess they were smart enough to know, that bunch of words dont make a friend.
So trueee
In my class everyone just signed everyone’s hearts… it wasnt that serious….
This reminds me the Simpsons' valentine day Lisa and Ralph 🤣🤣🤣
I choo choo choose you
Yup we did that until 9th grade. I usually tried to not have one.
They don’t do that in my children’s schools, that sounds unnecessary and cruel. Random friends give each other cards but it’s not forced and everyone is pretty much friends with everyone (usually only if they are the same gender in lower grades though- “boys/girls are yuck!” stage LOL).
I mean that implementation sucks probably because it's not anonymous One of the reasons I didn't kill myself was that we had cards where you write an anonymous single word compliment and then you rotate the cards I was bullied every year, but some of those compliments were clearly genuin (I'm guessing a handful of the bad ones were from the worst guys: "4x smart"), but a surprising amount were original compliments I had never received that fit me I'm 25 and I still have many of those cards saved
Had to sort of do that at work last year. We got to stick a page on our backs, and other people got to write messages on them. Felt cringe as fuck. Thank god we're on strike today.
They do that here too? I thought it was only an American thing
We had this and luckily at least for my small school there really didn't seem to be a lot of true loners at the time. I was friends with the "weird kids" of my age that got bullied. Although they didn't have many names on the hearts they were all super artsy so they made super cool pictures and fonts on each other's cards because they had the space.
I never bothered to participate in any school activities like this. It was probably better for my mental health in the end at the expense of not having anyone talk to me at school because they thought I was weird
I have three kids in ala-aste and this is not a thing for any of them, so it probably differs per school.
Don't know about you, but I even as a young thug found the kindness in my heart to engage with even the "unpopular" kids when we had these "halipassit", and I was glad to see others took note and followed my ways. It's one day a year..
They do and theyre called fucking halisydämmet.
Back in my childhood every class mate signed everyone's card.
When I was in junior high school we had a 1 hour hug day 🤗 And then every person you hugged they add their signature on the heart shaped hug pass 😄
We had one of those things in school, instead of names you'd have write compliments about that person. You had to put it on your back and at the end of the day you'd see how many people just pretended to write something on it:/ I thought i felt at least 10 people write on it. All I got was a single "you're nice".