Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

http://www.memycity.org; http://www.wise-qatar.org/me-and-mycity-finland

In September 2014 Finnish education innovation Me & MyCity, developed by the Economic Information Office TAT, has been named as a 2014 World Innovation Summit for Education Awards Winner. Me & MyCity is one of six projects chosen by WISE for providing a compelling, innovative solution to one of today’s most pressing challenges in education. Each year, the WISE Awards recognize and promote six successful innovative projects that are addressing global educational challenges. Winners receive global visibility along with a prize of $20,000 (US) and are honored at the annual WISE Summit.
 
WISE praises Me & MyCity for its unique work on behalf of Finnish society and acknowledges it for its innovative way of teaching social contents to primary school children. The key innovation identified by the assessors was that Me & MyCity is free of cost for the schools and integrated into the national curriculum. The program is designed to have high impact on both 6th grade students as well as indirect beneficiaries such as teachers, companies and university students. Me & MyCity was seen to be implemented with quality, consistency and scale.
 
One of the goals of Me & MyCity is to prevent social exclusion and unemployment by offering a study module that supports school education, offering pupils hands-on experience in working life and the role of a citizen in society. As part of the study module, the pupils, among other things, write a job application and go to a job interview, work, earn money and pay taxes on it and learn to manage their spending and consumption. The learning environment is a miniature town that motivates and encourages pupils to be active. They are extremely motivated: after studying the themes in theory they experience them in a simulated society. Built of mobile wall elements, the MyCity learning environment can reach pupils in all parts of the country. Partnerships with real companies ensure that the roleplay is comparable to the real world.
 
Like many other societies, in Finland the number of socially excluded youth has increased and business life is facing a skills gap as many members of the workforce retire in the coming years. Business life is facing the fact that many members of the workforce retire in the coming years and it will have difficulty finding people with the right kinds of skills. Pupils in schools are suffering from lack of motivation because school subjects are only weakly linked to outside realities of society. Me & MyCity aims to provide young people with much-needed 21st-century skills. The study module links the school subjects to real life through an innovative learning method.
 
This is not the first time that the Me & MyCity concept receives international recognition. Last year, for example, the European Commission rewarded it as a promoter of entrepreneurial thinking. It received its most recent award last week, when the international education sector organization International Partnership Network (IPN) elected Me & MyCity as the best innovative partnership project in the world.
 
The Me & MyCity learning concept is a unique curriculum-based study module on entrepreneurship, economy and society in elementary school for sixth-grade pupils (12 to 13 years of age). The Me & My City study module includes training for teachers, learning materials based on the national curriculum and a visit to the MyCity learning environment. The MyCity learning environment is a 500-square-meter miniature town built with movable wall elements and a roleplay for companies. The MyCity learning environment includes business premises for 15 companies and has its own banking system: sales, purchases and salaries are updated in real time in the virtual banking system. The mobile wall elements of MyCity and the flexible pedagogical script means that MyCity can be introduced in different regions while also responding to local business life in different parts of the country. The 70 professions of the pupils always reflect the actual employers' needs in the area.
 
For one day, the visiting pupils work in a profession, earn a salary and act as consumers and members of their own society. The pupils, among other things, write a job application and go to a job interview, work, earn money and pay taxes on it and learn to manage their spending and consumption. Each regional MyCity reflects the features of local business life. It already reaches half of Finland's sixth graders, i.e. over 30,000 pupils in a year. In addition, the project involves teachers, university students and companies.
 
The Me & MyCity concept is also being developed further. A functional and innovative me & MyCity model targeted at ninth-graders is currently under construction. The learning concept will also be developed to be suitable for different learners and for older pupils. Me & MyCity has the potential to become an education export product, to expand into different cultures and societies.