The city of Helsinki’s video presents an “incredibly cool” school building. The teacher tells how harsh everyday life is without walls.
If additional walls would not have been obtained, some of the teachers would certainly have stopped working at Kankarepuisto school.
This is what a teacher working at a primary school in Jakomäki says. His workplace is Kankarepuisto elementary school, whose school building, which was completed three years ago, was recently forced to be improved by the city of Helsinki for nearly one million euros.
HS reported on the changes that cost 900,000 euros on Monday. Among other things, additional walls were built in the “open office” school when it was found that the brand new school building did not “sufficiently support the school’s functional goals”.
Although there was still room for improvement even after the changes, the teacher interviewed by HS is extremely grateful that after pressure from the staff they tried to solve the problem.
HS does not publish the teacher’s name because it might make his position as an employee of the City of Helsinki difficult. The identity of the teacher is known to the delivery.
Teacher had worked at the school even before Jakomäki elementary school became Kankarepuisto elementary school in its new building, called the heart of Jakomäki.
Now, in addition to nearly 600 schoolchildren in Kankarepuisto, the same building houses a daycare center, playground activities and a youth center.
The school’s employees were indeed included in the planning work, but according to the teacher interviewed by HS, the wishes of the staff were not implemented in practice.
You are afraid the problems started as soon as the school moved to the current premises in autumn 2020.
“It was found, for example, that there are not enough teaching spaces for all groups,” sighs the teacher.
The teachers have been able to use creativity to solve the situation: Sometimes lessons have been held in the premises of the youth center, while teachers who master “forest pedagogy” were encouraged to hold as many lessons as possible outside.
The working spaces intended for teachers were used for small groups and special education. The 20-square-meter rooms are quieter, but on the other hand, the atmosphere is so tight that it has led to fights.
Particularly the situation has felt bad for the children, says the teacher.
The school has many students who need special and enhanced support. According to the teacher, children’s concentration is tested even harder in open study spaces.
“The school’s acoustics are at a good level, but there are enough visual stimuli: You walk through the teaching spaces to the bathroom or from one teaching space to another,” sighs the teacher.
In addition to spaces for teaching music, crafts and home economics, the school has 28 spaces intended for teaching use, according to the teacher’s invoices. Ten of these spaces are ones that lead to many different doors or are on a passageway – so not traditional classrooms.
Thanks to the renovations, four more small “retreat spaces” were added to the school. There, schoolchildren can do group work, for example.
There are still not enough shoe shelves and coat racks to meet the needs of schoolchildren.
In summer the changes made receive praise from the teacher.
According to the teacher, making improvements required contacting the occupational health and safety representative and the chief shop steward, but now the working conditions are at least a little more humane.
The spaces are delimited by glass walls and movable screens. The facilities still do not adequately support the students’ needs, the teacher believes.
“I would like to know whose idea it was to design these open learning spaces. The school building itself is insanely great, but taxpayers will have an additional bill when the design did not take into account the daily life of the school,” says the teacher.
Read more: The old school collapsed into a vision of the end of the world in Helsinki: “The police and rescue services have had to run on the spot”
Read more: Is this a serious precedent? Walls began to be built for the new “open office school” in Helsinki
Read more: A “Heart of Jakomäki” service center is being built in Jakomäki, Helsinki
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