Please read the original news article on the University of Tampere website
University of Tampere: An online lecture on Moomin and Finnish education reached 200,000 Chinese parents
Adjunct Professor Mr. CAI Yuzhuo from the University of Tampere and Mrs. Muranen Jin from the City of Tampere gave an online lecture titled “Finnish Education through Moomin Stories” to more than 200 000 Chinese parents on 9th December 2016. It sets off a boom of learning the Finnish ways of raising up children in China.
The idea of such a lecture originated from the newly published series of Moomin Stories in Chinese by the Tsinghua University Press. Together with Yourbay Growth Club, which has a sizable member group of 250 000 Chinese parents, a “micro-class” was organized and aired via the largest Chinese (as well as the world’s) social media channel WeChat at Peking time 20:30 – 21:30 (Finnish time 14:00 – 15:30) on 9th Dec. 2016. And the lecture transcript was published by Tsinghua University Press also via its official WeChat channel on 12th Dec.
The lecture was presented in the form of “casual” discussion between Mr. Cai and Mrs. Muranen. It started from Moomin Stories, the relationship among Moomin characters, extended to current Chinese family education, Finnish National Core Curriculum for Pre-primary Education and what can be learnt by Chinese parents and educators.
With his solid and profound research background on Chinese and Finnish Education, Mr. Cai led the discussion with a systematic and theoretical trail added with vivid life stories. Mrs. Muranen, with her own experiences of received Finnish higher education and raising up two children with her Finnish husband, she drew a real and lively life story picture for the audiences to comprehend well the differences between Chinese and Finnish school and family education.
This was the first time yet exciting experience for both lecturers to broadcast live via Social Media channel. The lively questioning time and feedbacks given in the end and days after have proven that it was a success. It also showed to the two lecturers (can be also a lesson for all Finnish education promoters) that Social Media, in this case, WeChat can be a very efficient and powerful channel for promoting Finnish Education.
The last but not the least, the Finnish national treasure, Moomin stories that reflect very much of the Finnish values, national education concept and family growth ideology, can be an already successful brand for Finnish pre-primary education cooperation with China.
Mr. CAI is serving the University of Tampere as senior lecture, also guest professor of Beijing Normal University, the Director of Sino-Finnish Education Research Centre, one of the six centers under the Sino-Finnish Joint Learning Innovation Institute.
Mrs. Muranen is leading the Global Tampere Education under the City of Tampere, Education, Competence and Economic Development Services.
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