Taksvärkki at Långvik

During Taksvärkki a few weeks ago most people were either collecting money to go to Amnesty International or enjoying a 15€ day off, meanwhile I was among a few students from the student council, equally as busy tagging along with the teaching staff to their planning conference in Långvik. We were there to contribute a student perspective to the discussion, which was largely focused on student welfare and the return to in-person teaching. The day started when we were picked up around 8 am, we were carpooling with teachers to the conference center. At the center, we took advantage of the breakfast buffet on offer while waiting for the scheduled program to start. When it eventually became time to start we gathered in a large conference room with desks and seats for us and the teachers. As a student on the IB side it’s sometimes easy to forget how big of a school we actually are, with only about 50 people and 2 form groups per grade, the IB can feel quite cozy in size. The number of teachers in the conference room at Långvik really brought home how big our school really is. 

In any case, after some welcoming words, we got to hear the results from the student welfare forms we students had all been asked to fill out during GHT some time ago. The answers were somewhat to be expected, many students felt that distance teaching had affected them negatively, some people felt that the general atmosphere among students could be a lot healthier, and the social divide between the national and IB side was still an ongoing issue. Although I personally couldn’t relate to all the views expressed, I definitely understood where most of them were coming from and it was nice to see these sorts of things brought to the school’s attention. I think I speak for many students when I say that there were times when it felt like very little was being done to address student concerns, especially during distance teaching. And while discussion and action are two very different things it was reassuring to see that there were attempts being made to come up with concrete solutions to issues of student welfare. 

The teachers split into smaller groups after the presentation of the survey results to discuss and come up with possible solutions. I joined one of these groups and contributed my own perspective as a student to the best of my ability. After some discussion, we all returned to the main conference room and took turns presenting our ideas to the room. As far as I could tell there were some decent ideas floating around, hopefully, the school will be able to turn this discussion into an effective policy for addressing the current issues the student body is experiencing. We returned to our groups and did some further brainstorming before once again returning to the main conference room, where a rather freeform discussion of some of the policies proposed took place. I found the proposals to institute a house system and to turn the student council into a bicameral body to be two of the more interesting proposals discussed.

We eventually broke for lunch which was being served at the conference center, after lunch the main focus was on planning the subject syllabuses in individual subject groups. This wasn’t something that I, nor any of the other students present, felt we needed to contribute a vital student perspective to. Therefore we elected to go for a walk outside around the conference center, eventually going back inside and hanging out until the teachers were done planning their syllabuses. By this time it was around 3 pm and the planning conference was coming to a close, some conclusionary remarks were made, and finally, it was time to head home. Many of the teachers were staying the night at the conference center, but we got to carpool with some of the teachers heading home after the conference like us. 

In conclusion, I’m glad I went to the planning conference, even if paying 15€ to Amnesty International and getting a free day off sounded good too. Getting to participate in the discussion surrounding student welfare made me cautiously optimistic regarding student welfare at Mattliden. There’s still the question of how much will actually be done at the end of the day, and I don’t think that we would solve all of Mattlidens problems even if we were able to realize all the proposals put forward at the conference, but suffice to say, there is a will to have something done and a genuine concern for the student body. Here’s hoping that we'll see some good stuff come out of this conference.

Alec Lindqvist