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Sloyd education in Sweden – current trends and future possibilities

With the school subject ”sloyd” means work in mainly textiles, wood and metal in elementary and lower secondary levels. The subject is still one of the most popular compulsory subjects among the students, while some parents ask why such ”old fashioned” subject is needed today. Other asks for education in computer knowledge instead of Sloyd and Home Economics. It seems that even if the subject has changed both aims and teaching and learning methods, from focusing mainly craft techniques to stress creativity and problem solving, people in general base their opinion on their own memories from the past. The pedagogical idea behind sloyd teaching seems to be more or less forgotten.

Another problem is that also teachers have a wage idea about the basic philosophy of Sloyd.  Some sloyd teachers seem to prefer to rely on personal memories and ideas than the national syllabus. It is common that they have chosen their occupation because of their own interest in craft. As teachers they just change their focus from making craft themselves to teach others the same thing. They follow their own intuition with the explanation that the syllabus is difficult to understand or that it is so wage that any activity could fit. Next problem is the lack of commonly used scientific and professional language for sloyd knowledge and sloyd science. When it comes to assessing the students, the teachers find it hard to put into words what is required and preferable.

On the other hand there are important values embedded in the Sloyd subject. Young persons are very interested in sloyd activities. They feel very proud when they have finished a sloyd project, they learn a lot and they enjoy the activity very much. Through sloyd lessons they learn about material, craft techniques and tools through exploration, experience and reflection, instead of being taught facts before hand. The society need people who are creative and inventive and have the initiative to act, which is practised during sloyd lessons. There is a growing interest in creating a sustainable society and recycling, which is also trained in sloyd. 

The sloyd subject in Sweden need to get a solid scientific base through research results, the subject also need be redefined and explained not only as cultural heritage, but also as a very useful subject in a modern society. New possibilities (and other problems?) will come with a new national plan for teacher education and a new national syllabus for all school subjects in 2011.