“I’m just so scared of how I’m affecting the students.” Challenges and Possibilities of introducing Public Health and Life Mastery in the Norwegian Language Arts

Abstract

In the new curriculum for all school levels in Norway, the interdisciplinary topic public health and life mastery was introduced. This study investigates the understanding of the topic, the value of fiction and the didactics. In the spring of 2019, 13 Norwegian language arts teachers from five high schools were interviewed, with the use of a semi-structured guide. Thematic analysis shows the difficulty of operationalizing concepts which lack clear definitions in the white papers. Meanwhile, the interviewed teachers stated life mastery as already existing in the subject and they addressed that the restrictive function of exams could confine the opportunities to thematize the topic. The teachers identified fiction as a tool to highlight life mastery through guiding the students towards finding a balance between closeness and distance while reading, a phenomenon that Nussbaum (1995) describes as the judicious spectator. The teachers suggested that fiction could be personally relevant, historically important and that it could promote empathetic responses. The use of fiction to teach difficult topics inspires conversations that are not private, but this demands pedagogical intention. The teachers expressed the need for more pedagogical and didactic knowledge on how to create this balance, especially concerning sensitive topics. We argue that there is a need to promote and develop the Norwegian language arts’ own discourse and didactics in the understanding and dissemination of the interdisciplinary teaching of public health and life mastery. The study focuses on high school-level teaching, but we consider it relevant for all grades.

Keywords: public health and life mastery, teachers of Norwegian language arts, literature didactics, fiction, Norwegian language arts