Towards Well-Being at School with Integrative Pedagogy

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to consider intervention for developing school well-being and preventing bullying. Intervention is realized with the Integrative Pedagogy [1] [2] and viewed from the perspectives of the school community and the professional development of the school staff. Finnish comprehensive school teachers are highly educated and motivated for their jobs. This has seen as one of the reasons for the good learning results in the academic skills of pupils. There is, however, a need for improvement the well-being of pupils. Bullying in schools is also a common issue. The teachers together with other school professionals need training, both as individuals and as a community, to develop their expertise in creating a culture of well-being. Based on earlier research, certain factors need to be taken into account in effective interventions: 1) Development and intervention should cross the boundaries between different subjects and professionals. 2) Intervention should be long enough. 3) Both the intervention and its implementation should be research-based. 4) The action of the intervention should be critically considered as both an evaluator tool and a tool for development. 5) Intervention should be evaluated from the viewpoint of both individual and community levels. This qualitative interventionist case study examined how teachers and other professionals in school community prepared working methods for improving school well-being in everyday schoolwork. The formal knowledge of the intervention is based on the Balanced Well-Being Promotion Model® [3] [4]. The data is composed of focus groups, interviews, memos and observations in intervention during three semesters 2009-2010. The results show that teachers experienced pedagogical discussions to be the most important working method in the development process. Through pedagogical discussions, school professionals built a shared understanding and shared practices in the complex phenomenon of school well-being. That also reflected occupational well-being and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the results indicate that when trying to advance school well-being, it is important to take the time for pedagogical and reflective discussion in the whole work community. There is also a strong possibility that target-oriented and holistic understanding of school well-being in the school community effectively prevents school bullying. Overall the creation and development of individual and collective expertise presumes innovative thinking of teachers’ in-service training. The intervention for school well-being also presumes more research and evaluation of its impacts.