Sloyd

Sloyd (Slöjd), also known as Educational sloyd, is a system of handicraft-based education started by Uno Cygnaeus in Finland in 1865. The system was further refined and promoted worldwide, and was taught in the United States until the early 20th Century. It is still taught as a compulsory subject in Swedish and Norwegian schools.

The word "sloyd" is derived from the Swedish word Slöjd, which translates as crafts, handicraft, or handiwork. It refers primarily to woodwork but also paper-folding and sewing, embroidery, knitting and crochet.

Otto Salomon, with the financial support of his uncle, started a school for teachers in Nääs (now a part of the Swedish municipality of Lerum) in the 1870s. The school attracted students from throughout the world and was active until around 1960.

Educational sloyd's purpose was formative in that it was thought that the benefits of handicrafts in general education built the character of the child, encouraging moral behavior, greater intelligence, and industriousness. Sloyd had a noted impact on the early development of manual training, manual arts, industrial education and technical education.

Sloyd (Slöjd) has been a Swedish school subject since the 1870s and compulsory since 1955. In the present national curriculum for Swedish elementary schools, students have classes in Slöjd every semester, normally between the ages of nine and fifteen.

In most schools, the course is still divided traditionally in two parts: soft materials (textiles) and hard materials (woodwork and metalwork). Each semester, students switch between the two different classrooms. Differences in what kind of tasks are selected, and how the subject-specific content is handled, depend on the teacher's training.

The present aims of the Slöjd curriculum in Sweden are:

Sloyd also aims to develop the student's practical knowledge, and their ability to solve practical problems through knowledge of different working processes, as well as how to evaluate the results of their own work during the production process by trying out different ways to handle specific tools or materials or by choosing alternative tools and materials.

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Wikipedia