0. Until the exam, I intend to practice reading for learning within my areas of interest for the time being. The very first book among those is this book about 'Finnish education.' I've written about Finnish education on this blog twice before. One was an older book called 'The Finnish Education Revolution,' and the other was a recently translated book written by Pasi Sahlberg, while 'The Finnish Education Reform Report' that I read this time is older than the latter but more recent than the former. The timing isn't enormously important, but since this book includes Pasi Sahlberg — the same author as the latter — as a partial author, it was suitable in its role of comparing the materials that have come out. I structured this piece by mentioning only one part of the book's content that I thought was important, and organizing my personal thoughts.
1. The Main Text
The biggest reasons Finnish education drew attention can be summarized as the 'PISA' results and high national competitiveness. Among these, since I covered 'PISA' sufficiently in my book review of 'Finland's Endless Challenge,' I'll exclude that and bring in some understanding of other aspects of Finnish education. Education reform can be seen as one of the endless concerns for any country, and Finland was no exception. However, its results were more successful than other countries', and among the directions of interpreting those results, it mentioned some 'stereotypes.' The book mentioned four social myths commonly used to explain the past success of Finnish education. (See the main text below.)
1) Finland is a small country - It has been argued that excellent educational outcomes can be achieved more easily in small-scale countries than in large-scale ones. In such cases, scale may become an issue, but it isn't an important factor. A good example is that countries of similar scale, like Norway, Denmark, Ireland, or Luxembourg, are producing entirely different outcomes.
2) Finland is a homogeneous single-ethnic nation with cultural homogeneity - This may significantly affect learning outcomes. But since single-ethnic nations similar to Finland have not achieved results in international assessments as good as Finland's, it's hard to link cultural homogeneity with learning outcomes. For example, the international student achievement assessment results of Denmark, Norway, Hungary, and Poland — which are similar to Finland in terms of social and cultural structure — are very different. Here, it's worth noting that Finland is a bilingual nation using two official languages.
3) The international student achievement assessment exam suits Finland well - Observers argue that the test items administered in the international student achievement assessment were particularly advantageous to Finnish students. This is because Finland's current curriculum fits the international student achievement assessment exam better than many other countries' curricula. (This belief may perhaps be true. And if it is true, then that very curriculum is the factor we should pay more attention to in order to understand Finland's success. But we must note that all countries have to accept the test items used in the international student achievement assessment, and therefore we must make sure the test items are connected to some extent with what schools should teach.
4) Finland is a cold country located on the periphery
The most extreme explanation educational commentators have offered is the claim that, because they live in a cold, dark Arctic country, Finnish youths become bookworms. Since there's little of interest besides home, the reasoning goes, youths spend a lot of time on educational activities indoors. This is absurd. According to international surveys, Finnish students spend far less time on homework compared to their peers in other countries. Also, the climate of the region where most of Finland's population lives is not greatly different from that of other Northern European countries or of Canada and the northern United States.
The achievements of an education system must be examined in connection with society's other systems — that is, health, environment, rule of law, administration, economy, technology systems, and so on. It is not education alone that produces high performance in Finland. School is part of a properly functioning democratic welfare state. Therefore, to make the Finnish education system successful, it must be discussed in the broader context of the comprehensive functioning of all such institutions within a democratic civil society. Schleicher, in a policy report submitted to the Lisbon conference, explained as follows.
"One of the factors in Finland's success is the ability of policymakers who steadily pushed the reforms forward." (Schleicher 2006 : 9)
Economists are interested in uncovering why Finland was able to build the world's most competitive economy after 1990. It is nearly impossible for a society to produce outstanding results through any single factor alone. The entire system must function evenly.
Summary of main text pp. 85–88
I couldn't find the source of which research piece Schleicher (2006 : 9), mentioned in the main text, refers to. Since the book didn't provide a separate reference, I didn't want to go to the trouble of hunting down the piece. In any case, I wanted to mention that Korean people's views on Finland's education policy also had many points similar to the above. I've seen quite a lot of people say that education reform was able to succeed because it's a 'small-scale country.' I rarely heard the part about being a 'cold country' located on the periphery, and in the case of 2), since there's much room to interpret Korea too as a country with the particularity of a single ethnicity to some degree, people don't mention it much. 3) is a difference of perspective on 'exam results,' which is also intertwined with the sociology of education. It could be seen as interpreted from the perspective that all educational content has the value standards of the mainstream class internalized within it. However, I didn't think Finland showed high achievement levels on 'PISA' because of these four reasons. I'll mention that reason after I cover the success factors below.
1. The same comprehensive basic school for everyone - mostly small schools, signifying that investment in primary education is recognized as important
2. Capable teachers - the work of teachers is regarded as an autonomous, high-status profession
3. Sustainable leadership - regardless of political faction, the government respects 'education' as a public service for all citizens. Also, teachers are granted professional discretion to develop pedagogical knowledge and skills according to their own needs.
4. Recognition and stabilization of existing innovations - helps develop professional learning communities or networks so that knowledge about diverse education and achievements can be shared.
5. Flexible accountability focused on genuine learning rather than assessment - through a flexible accountability different from the accountability of Anglo-Saxon countries (holding schools and teachers responsible for learning outcomes), it lowers the pressure regarding exams. This increases curriculum discretion and makes possible education for 'learning' rather than education for exams.
6. A culture of trust - trust in school principals, parents, and teachers; trust in public institutions.
Summary of main text pp. 88–101
The success factors of Finnish education mentioned in the piece were listed with the above elements. Among these, the parts I think need to be compared with Korean reality would be about 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. I'll examine the reasons in the next paragraph as well. The reason I specifically excluded 4 is that I think current Korean society is at a stage of activating networks in various areas. There already exist various educational networks easily found through Facebook. Such networks are not 'official' but informal, and they have a bottom-up form of communication rather than a top-down form. The group's decision-making may certainly be partly top-down, but the in-house training content, symposium content, and activity content conducted there must fundamentally be seen as 'bottom-up,' arising from teachers' own efforts.
2. Implications
I can't mention all the elements, but compared with current Korean education, there were several important points this book implies.
1) Perception of exams
I can't help but mention the 'CSAT' (College Scholastic Ability Test). But in Korea's educational reality, there are various exams besides the CSAT. I think there are far too many exams that exist for ranking purposes rather than exams that exist simply to assess ability itself. Finnish education emphasizes the part about having reduced exams to a minimum. Exams have various effects on both teachers and students: for teachers, it was impressive that, because of the existence of 'exams,' they had no choice but to consider being bound by the pace of progress needed to administer the exams; and for students, it was impressive that, with 'exams' disappearing, they could form a positive attitude toward learning. Given that the recent trend emphasizes the restructuring of curricula by teachers and schools, it seemed not easy to improve this in Korean society, where pressure regarding exams still exists.
2) Capable teachers
Teacher training is an 'issue' in today's teaching community too. There are certainly many teachers nationwide who lack 'teacher qualifications.' Those qualifications may be 'cognitive' qualifications, or they may be 'affective' qualifications, and teachers' competence needs strengthening in these two aspects. This isn't talk of expelling low-quality teachers, but of needing improvement through re-education, quality enhancement, and so on. Their experience is certainly past experience, but combined with new knowledge and experiences, it can produce creative and realistic results. Even if they're lacking in terms of teaching expertise, I think they can be more excellent in terms of communication with parents. In any case, most experienced teachers, more than newer teachers, are generations who have experienced parent-child relationships, so they can be seen as having a higher understanding of the various problems that can arise at home.
3) Sustainable leadership
This is a difficult matter. Finland mentioned that, by setting major positions as lifetime appointments, policy was able to continue regardless of the gains and losses of political factions, and this is one of the things most lacking in current Korean society. Because of political parties and various groups, Korea's education policies tend to undergo large-scale overhauls every time the regime changes. This part certainly must be improved, but improvement isn't being achieved. Cross-party policy consistency and consensus are needed, but I don't know when this will become possible. Even if ideologies differ, a social process of deliberation is needed — one that can draw out consensus and protect, maintain, and develop that consensus.
4) A culture of trust
As can be seen in the recent public-institution trust survey conducted jointly by the Seoul Shinmun and Seoul National University's POLLAB, distrust of and indifference toward Korea's public institutions and ministries is quite high. Though it was 10 years ago, in a comprehensive survey on the state of social capital conducted by the Korea Development Institute, the National Assembly — the legislative body — also showed the lowest level of trust. The fact that this atmosphere of 'distrust' has taken root throughout society is a considerable obstacle to carrying anything out. Trusting and supporting one another and carrying out decided policies is already a daunting task, and the inefficiency arising because of an inability to trust is far too great. This is the biggest part that must be improved. Trust between parents and schools and teachers, and trust among teachers within an organization, can be seen as the most fundamental and biggest part Korean society should set as its goal.
3. In Closing
I've read four-plus books on Finnish education by now, and most of the content converges on the following:
1) It pursues universal education rather than excellence-oriented education; cooperation over competition; and assessment for learning over learning for exams.
2) A social atmosphere that trusts teachers' professionalism has been formed.
3) Based on policy consistency, continuous improvement of education policy has been achieved.
4) It wasn't built in a single morning.
I always end up summarizing it to about this. This time was the same. The next book I read will probably have similar content, but I decided to read it again, hoping there might be content from a different perspective.
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