VITTA - Infonet 21.2

The Swedish Model:
Innovative learning, innovative spaces
& innovative technologies.
Polly Graham reports
on her visit to a hightech mobile learning
school in a poor, crimeridden outer suburb of
Stockholm, which
breathes fresh life into
the futures of
disadvantaged youth
Ross Tensta Gymnasium is situated in a very
poor area of Stockholm, populated by
families of immigrants, mostly from North
Africa. The school itself is very
multicultural, with 95% of its students of
non-Swedish ethnicity. Half of these were
born in Sweden, but are still mostly
considered foreign by the Swedish people.
Despite the uneasiness on the streets
outside, the school is a light filled
emporium of the high tech. An electronic
security pass is required by teachers and
students to get through the many heavy
glass doors and I am immediately aware
that little security cameras are trained on
my person. The wide, open-plan halls and
lobbies are strangely absent of bookshelves
and paper, but replaced by small clusters of
students working on laptops, around little
tables, as if they were in a cafe. It is warm
and quiet and beautiful. My vision of
School with thirty little people behind
desks, lined up in rows, all eyes on the
teacher, the School with shelves and shelves
of musty books and piles and folders of
paper, the School of chalk and whiteboards,
the School of shouting and jostling in the
cold narrow hallways, suddenly dissolves
before my eyes.
The Swedish Education Act outlines the
fundamental democratic values in
education and aims to reflect the Swedish
values of egalitarianism. While the
government has in the last five years
developed a new inspection system and
grading system, the pedagogies, learning
tasks and assessments are negotiated by
each teacher according to the input of the
students in each class. Shawn Mendes of
Skolverket, the Swedish national agency for
education, believes it is exactly this flexibility
in providing education to suit students,
which best explains the success of the
Swedish school model. Another reason
might be the 8% of its GDP the Swedish
government spends on education, which is
around twice that spent by Australia.
The School hosts 700 pupils, 64 teachers
and 40 support staff and provides two
national theoretical programmes including
Social Science and Natural Science and two
vocational programmes including
Nursing/Care and Business. Students from
the Science pathway are expected to go on
to attend university. All students learn
Swedish, English and Mathematics. The
similar base education between the
different courses makes it easier for
students to change courses if they so desire.
The school also creates contacts with
industries offering internships for students
in the hope that they may continue to work
for the company upon completion of their
schooling. 100% of students get a job upon
completion of their studies at this school.
According to the school, this is because
teachers tell them to believe in themselves.
The Ross Tensta Gymnasium is unique
compared with any other school in Sweden
because it is based on the organisational
model and vision of the exclusive Ross
School on Long Island, New York. The
educational philosophy of the Ross schools
is a holistic approach to education, with a
focus on integration, the history of each
discipline and history as a shared narrative.
The school employs a hands-on approach
to learning, according to Gardner's
Multiple-Intelligences theory in teaching
and learning. As well as sharing the
school's vision statement and philosophy,
Tensta receives extra funding from its
American cousins.
According to the Ross model, the school is
organised into 6 interdisciplinary teacher
teams, one for each year level, of which
there are 6 team leaders. In this way the
focus for learning is not on the subject
matter, but on the learning needs of the
students. Teachers regularly prepare units,
which share the same theme as other
subjects so as to help students negotiate
between subjects and develop an
interdisciplinary understanding of
knowledge and learning. The teachers
report that by sitting together in this
organisational model, they have learnt
more about teaching, because each
discipline offers a different perspective on
pedagogy. In addition to this, there is also
a limit of twenty pupils per class, so as to
maximise the student to teacher interaction.
Students' development is followed through
weekly meetings with their Team (class)
Leaders and their Domain (subject) Leaders.
Teachers, meanwhile, receive in-service
training, attend team meetings and
continually assess the goals and
assignments they set for their students. The
team teaching approach creates links
between disciplines, as well as aiding the
continuity of ideas.
This new model has meant that teachers
have had to study more to work to this
system and participate in yearly professional
development. The school works around
helping the teachers to help the students,
rather than forcing teachers to conform to
time-consuming bureaucracy, as happens in
most Australian schools. This new vision for
the school has lead to decentralisation of
the organisational management and fewer
meetings; the Vice Principal Kristin Friborg
refers to it as 'The Social Efficiency Model'.
The school in fact has become a kind of
community centre for these students who
may otherwise feel they have little place
within the fabric of Swedish society.
Although there are critics of this model, Ms
Friborg believes that 'we need to look at the
possibilities, because the obstacles will
show up anyhow'.
Ross Tensta has a very strong focus on
mobile learning. The school is fitted out
with a wireless network throughout the
campus and numerous lounge areas where
students may study and surf the Internet
between classes and after school. Using an
online portal, teachers set tasks for
students, upload resources, and track
students' academic progress, while students
also submit their assignments paper free.
Each student at the school is provided with
a laptop, which they are not allowed to
take home until the final year of school, so
as to avoid theft. Students leave their
laptops in special recharging lockers,
housed within high-security rooms. In fact
a huge amount of money has been spent
on security, including Close Circuit Television
cameras installed throughout the school.
The Swedish media and some authorities
disagree with the ethics of this surveillance
system, but the school believes it is the only
way to maintain such a high-tech school in
such an impoverished area. For Ross
Tensta, the most important issue is building
the computer literacy of disadvantaged
students. The school also believes that it is
important to give students a sense of
accountability. The video surveillance instils
the sense that if they do something wrong,
they will be accountable for their actions
and that the students, in turn, will be safe
and protected from violence and theft.
Ultimately, the building of cultural
familiarity with technology will give these
young people the edge as citizens of the
21st century.
Another main focus of the Ross model is its
focus on wellness. Breakfast and lunch are
provided at the school for the students at
no cost. The food is prepared on-site and is
nutritious and organic. Around 100-150
students have breakfast at school and all
students have lunch. According to the
Vice-Principal Kirstin Friborg, many poor
students come to school without breakfast
and therefore cannot fully participate in
learning. The school also provides more
physical education classes than the
standard hours prescribed by the national
curriculum, as well as access to school
sports teams and other sporting activities.
The school feels that a healthy satisfied
body feeds a healthy satisfied mind, which
is, therefore, better primed for learning.
In order to recreate the Ross model, Tensta
had to undergo a transformation of its
premises to create study halls, spacious
interactive classrooms with lots of light,
group rooms that create a sense of home
and teacher office spaces that favour
mobile learning, conversation and the
sharing of ideas and resources. Many of
the walls in the school were removed and
replaced with glass so as to bring in more
light and provide greater 'transparency' to
build a sense of community, ownership of
the space and accountability. Classrooms
have glass panelling rather than solid walls
and are arranged around central circular
lounge style spaces, much like a town
square. Here, the ceilings are ten meters
high with skylights to watch the clouds
passing overhead and to allow the
maximum amount of natural light in during
the long dark winters. From an
architectural point alone, I would love to be
a teacher or a student at this school - it is
beautiful, creative and functional and
creates a sense of calm and productivity. I
can see that many students are happy to
spend the whole day here, hanging out,
doing their homework in groups in the
light-filled lounges, rather than return
home to a noisy, overcrowded flat where
doing homework may be a challenge.
The Ross Tensta Gymnasium has gone
beyond implementing mobile learning in
the classroom. By changing the
organisational structure within the school
and the syllabus, together with changing
the physical spaces within which students
can work freely, students really do become
central to the learning experience and direct
their own learning.
Polly Graham