Clarence Thomas has said that good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. But how can we define good manners or what we understand by good manners? In broad terms, they are said to be well-established standards of proper conduct in social life and in all human interaction. Luckily manners and etiquette are not out of reach for anybody as they can be learnt, acquired and cultivated by each one of us. Good manners, however, are not uniform as at least to a certain extent they vary across generations, regions, countries and cultures; an observation and experience that most of us have definitely made already.

But is it a must always to know exactly what the etiquette, the code of behavior, that delineates expectations for social behaviour, is saying about the contemporary conventional norms and standards within a society? Is it even possible to learn all these rules and master them perfectly without ever making any mistakes when interacting with other people in our everyday life? Don’t we all sometimes violate these behavioural rules and don’t we all every now and then misbehave ourselves? Indeed we do and still we are usually forgiven by the others for our occasionally not-so-elegant or polite conduct!

Exactly this was the starting point for the Finnish National Board of Education (FNBE) when it set up an expert group a year ago to produce a publication on good manners for 13-19 year old pupils and students at educational institutions in Finland. The idea with the publication was neither to emphasise “this is correct and that is incorrect behaviour”, nor to list what are the “dos” and the “don’ts”. A slightly different approach was chosen to discuss from a teenager’s perspective the topic of good manners, proper behaviour and not grossing people out.

The booklet contains seven stories where young people face problems, challenges and difficulties that they have to deal with, such as teenage pregnancy, shoplifting, bullying, emerging homosexual identity, death of a family member, job interview, excess drinking and partying. The booklet with its Finnish and Swedish titles (FI: Pientä säätöö!!; SE: Lite koll!!) conveys a positive message that although sometimes mistakes occur to all of us, it is not the end of the world, but we can fix them and learn from them. The questions and exercises after each story help youngsters (and their teachers and parents) to reflect on behavioural aspects presented in the text. In summary, people who know how to handle themselves in social situations feel confident about themselves and can act as role models to the rest of the gang.

The booklet in Finnish is available in hardcopy since November 2014 (orders can be placed through this link), and the Swedish language version since December 2014 (orders through this link). (Publisher: Finnish National Board of Education; Author: Mika Launikari). N.B. The Finnish and Swedish titles of the publication (FI: Pientä säätöö!!; SE: Lite koll!!) translated into English would mean more or less “An eye for manners”, although the word “manners” is not explicitly highlighted in those two language versions.