ÓSCAR PARADA MAROTO (IES Peñalba, Moral de Calatrava)- FINLANDIA
From 8th to 15th April, I, together with a group of three teachers from Castilla-La Mancha, have had the great opportunity to see at first-hand how Finnish education works by spending a week in Nousiainen. As it is widely believed, education in Finland is deemed to be one of the best in Europe due to the excellent marks Finnish students used to get in PISA exams whereas education in Spain is said to have lagged behind. Armed with this knowledge, we started our stay with the hope of picking up new ideas and new methodologies. In a nutshell, we were willing to make inroads into this so-called excellent system in order to convey every detail to our colleagues in our mainstream schools in Spain. Here is a brief summary of our experience.
From the very first moment, all the staff extended a warm welcome to all of us. We have shared nice talks with many teachers and students, including the headmasters of both primary and secondary schools, the social worker, the president of the association of students, the coordinator of the project at school and many other teachers who kindly answered all our questions and provided an insight into the Finnish educational system.
Regarding the educational system, children start with pre-primary school at the age of 6, following with primary education, which lasts six years, and lower secondary education, for the next three years. All those who get good marks continue in general upper secondary schools for three years before going to university. On the other hand, if their marks are not that good, students have the choice of attending vocational institutions, being also entitled to study at University of applied sciences in this latter case.
There are remarkable differences between lower secondary school and upper secondary schools. While in lower secondary schools classes last for 45 minutes, in upper secondary schools it is very usual to join classes, so that the class duration is 75 minutes. In both lower and upper secondary school the subjects correspond closely to ours, even though their system includes subjects which are no longer taught in Spain, such as “History and culture of religions” and “Cooking and home”, which are compulsory for all the students.
In lower secondary schools, it is not usual that students drop out of the course, as it sometimes happens in our system. What is more, they don’t normally repeat the course if they are not capable of achieving the objectives of the course, even though this measure could be adopted in some cases. Needless to say, not all the students are eager to learn or self-motivated, so all these students who are not doing well in a specific subject are provided with the chance of attending support classes at the first hour of the morning, before ordinary classes start.
In upper secondary schools, both the curriculum and the classes are focused on preparing the students to take the national exams at the end of the 9th year. Each one of this exam lasts for 6 hours, and from this year on, they will be computer based, which is obviously a technological challenge for the schools. Nowadays, important innovations are being introduced regarding these exams, not only because of the change from paper based to computer based exams I have just mentioned, but also, and much more significant in my opinion, because the mark the students get in these national exams is the only one which is going to be taken into account to apply for a specific degree at university.
The way the timetable is scheduled is also different in lower and in upper secondary schools. While in lower secondary schools students have six classes a day, in upper secondary schools they just have four classes. At midday, or even earlier, depending on the age, students have lunch at school (This is free of charge, so all the students, love it or loath it, take it for granted that they must eat at school).
In upper secondary school they have five terms every year, each one of them consisting of six straight weeks of classes followed by a week where there are no classes and the final exams of the term take place.
The staff doesn’t hold regular meetings throughout the year, not even to evaluate the students after each term. As a matter of fact, teachers work very autonomously and they don´t have to withstand pressure from parents, as they are usually well-considered and they have the feeling that parents back them up.
Classrooms, both in lower and upper secondary school, are well-equipped, much better than in our schools, and most of the teachers use many apps for education in their classes. Indeed, in the last decades the Finnish governments haven’t hesitate to pump great amounts of money into the educational system and this, along with the support of the society, has turned out to be one of the keys of their success. Nonetheless, technology itself doesn’t enable students to get good results. It is a question of striking a balance between new technologies and motivating methodologies to achieve good results in the long term.
During our stay in Nousiainen Lukio in Finland we have had the chance to attend several classes with different teachers. Particularly, I could see science and maths classes. I found it very interesting to compare Finish and Spanish curricula, and regarding the contents I could say that they are very similar. The four of us also attended the Spanish class, and we delivered a presentation on the most typical Spanish traditions and festivities. The students really enjoyed the photos and the explanations about “Los Sanfermines”, “Las Fallas” or “El camino de Santiago”.
On the last day of our stay, I was kindly asked to give a lecture about “lines and linear dependence” to the 8th year students. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did! And last, but not least, we taught Finnish students to cook Spanish omelette and at the end of the morning we were invited to take part in a sport event where students played against teachers.
There are some aspects which I would like to highlight because they really drew my attention. To start with, students in lower secondary school take off their shoes before entering the classroom and they are barefoot inside. Secondly, a teacher or a member of the local Parish delivers a talk on different topics over the loud-speaker system three times a week. But what still strikes me is the behaviour of the upper secondary students during the classes. While the teacher was explaining next to the blackboard, many students made the most of their time not paying attention to the teacher. What is more, they were surfing the internet, playing video games on line, using their mobile phones, buying clothes, listening to music with earphones, drinking coke or even preparing sandwiches on the spot and eating them. It is obvious that students in Finland are given much more freedom than in Spain. It would be interesting to weigh up the pros and cons of giving them such a high level of “autonomy”, but I honestly think that this doesn’t help to the effectiveness of the class.
To sum up, and with the benefit of hindsight, in the whole I found that, irrespective of the brand new computers and other technological items in the classrooms, the differences between the methodologies and the ways of teaching are not that different. Further to our visit, we haven’t been able to find a satisfactory answer to the question: Why is Finnish education said to be the best in Europe and why do Finnish students get so good marks at PISA exams? Being this a sensitive issue, perhaps the answer is in the society, and not so much in the teachers’ responsibility. My intention is not so much to undermine Finnish system as to enhance our own system and our own teachers whose effort and enthusiasm shouldn’t be overlooked.
And lastly, I would like to thank Laura Kinnunen and the rest of Finnish teachers, who have been really kind as to share their professional background with us, and above all, I would like to thank Alicia Díaz (IES Alonso de Orozco in Oropesa), Miguel Ángel Escudero (IES San Juan del Castillo in Belmonte) and Eva Pérez (IES Don Juan Manuel in Cifuentes) for the wonderful trip we have enjoyed together. It has been amazing to exchange experiences with educators with a real love for teaching. Thank you all!