If the performance of physical education were measured as a business process, it would have been dug up a long time ago, writes HS Vision columnist Henrik Dettmann.
Biblical the story tells how a carpenter from Nazareth fed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. The same metaphor comes to mind when watching how small sums the state invests in afternoon hobby activities in schools. It is spending EUR 3.5 million to make up for the stagnation of citizens three billion euros annual costs.
Every government has tried to patch this problem. Badly I’m afraid this project will be a breeze too. There was no place for cheering when the doctor of medicine Tommi Vasankari presented the results of the autumn Move! survey.
According to recent figures, one in ten high school students move to the recommended minimum, with only three per cent of high school students. As many as two-thirds of high school students do not participate in any kind of physical activity outside school.
If the performance of physical education were measured as a business process, it would have been dug up a long time ago. The reason for the situation is not to be found in teachers in the field who have to clear the jungle with a knife.
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Hundreds of thousands of young Finns grow into alienated adults.
Politicians no matter the interest, because the election tip does not win the election – better to riot about the price of gasoline or caregiver sizing. I have been following media election machines since 2008 without finding any questions on the subject.
It’s hard not to laugh cynically at the debate about prolonging careers when, based on facts from Vasankari’s barns and on a steady pace, the 45-year-old in the 2050s is in the condition of the 55-year-old today and far overweight.
We act like an ostrich pushing its head into the sand and imagining itself safe when it sees no threat. The third year of the ongoing pandemic is child’s play compared to what has been happening in complete silence for over thirty years.
They sit at school and work, lying at home. Even small trips are made by car. There is a candy bag and a smart device all the time. Yard games, block soccer and family sports will become extinct, old sports clubs will disappear and new ones will not be born.
Hundreds of thousands of young Finns grow into alienated adults. The understanding of the interplay and exercise of body and mind as a maintainer of holistic well-being is lost.
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The model doesn’t have to be more bizarre than listening to an audiobook on a brisk walk, as long as it happens every day.
Problem Attempts have been made to solve it for several decades by calling on club members who maintain hobbies to help. The outsourcing of hobby and physical education to club members did so in the 1970s, but it no longer works in today’s society where technology giants dominate not only our free time, but our entire lives.
There are many good sides to the traditional club model, and without clubs, society will come to a standstill, but it is still a product of the time when color television made its income.
Courses to change, we need to introduce a daily right to exercise in primary and secondary schools. Students are allowed to exercise their freedom of choice when deciding on a form of exercise, but they must exercise the required number of hours in a guided manner during the school day. The model doesn’t have to be more bizarre than listening to an audiobook on a brisk walk, as long as it happens every day.
In order to maintain holistic growth and well-being, a daily non-physical hobby right must be linked to school afternoons, which, like the right to a sports right, is financed from public funds. The public sector is responsible for guiding the content and providing services in collaboration with the private sector. It is essential that the schoolchild receives nutrition for body and mind during the school day.
Wild and expensive? In the past, there was a controversy over primary school reform, which made Finland an international model country for learning.
For far too long, the Finnish school system and young people have suffered from the shock effects of consultants, unjustified cuts and efficiency demands, pinching of health care and family and mental health work, the constant increase in group sizes, nonsensical digital rage and, last but not least, the reassurance of panicked adults.
The most significant problems cannot be solved through political passions or cow-trading, but for the common good. It would seem that adults understand that if children and young people are deprived of lunch, the future will not be strange in either the nation or the individuals.
When an adult sees how well a young person is doing as the movement increases, he or she can take the risk and fall in love with the movement. There is no good life without movement – is there even life?
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