Education Review Issue 5 July-August 2021 | Page 13

industry & reform

In teachers we trust

Lessons from the Finnish approach to education and teacher autonomy .
By Michael Lawrence

While many Australian schools have spent the last few decades admiring the old school tie , tightening standardisation and rubrics while chasing NAPLAN and ATAR scores , Finnish educators have been told to study best practices , and then try and improve on these .

When the GFC occurred in the ‘ 90s , Finnish government cuts in the education budget were applied at the top , rather than in schools and curriculum inspection , and development was handed to teachers . The national school inspectorate was abolished and all assessment of students was left to teachers .
This trust in teachers continued to grow , particularly as the priority given to equity in education raised the level of public trust . The system transitioned from a bureaucratic era of micromanagement and control to a new culture of professionalism where schools and teachers would have the expertise to say how they should achieve the best possible outcomes .
In Australia , we were moving in the opposite direction . While we thought we were making improvements by teaching in a way that was aligned to standardised tests and mandated , grade-level content , we were in fact moving away from allowing students and teachers to have any say in the content and its delivery .
Students have started to sense that they are ‘ receiving ’ an education and teachers that they are delivering it . Neuroscience tells us that when choice and freedom is removed , the same happens with interest and ownership ; they are also removed .
Students therefore ‘ receive ’ the content , and do the required ‘ work ’ to get it out of the way . Some may decide that school is not a place where they feel comfortable and play the game of doing the bare minimum until they can put school behind them permanently .
It ’ s no surprise that Finnish schools are two years ahead of ours by Year 10 ( as PISA testing tells us ), despite starting two years later . That ’ s a 30 to 40 per cent improvement in effectiveness .
The Finnish education system creates independent , passionate , autonomous learners who become lifelong learners and successful , responsible citizens . When I recently asked a Finnish educator how they had coped with remote learning , the response was , “ Students have made sure that it doesn ’ t affect their education .” This was in stark contrast to my observations in Australia .
Whilst researching my book I read about a 16-year-old American who had gone to Finland as an exchange student . “ Finnish teenagers can be rebellious ,” she said , “ but , unlike in America , school is not one of the things they rebel against .”
By making education a partnership between the teacher and the student , many of the things students see as needless constraints and compliance are removed and students and teachers are working together .
In 2012 Pasi Sahlberg surveyed teachers there , asking what it would take to make them leave the profession . The most common response was the loss of their professional autonomy . Finnish teachers develop the curriculum as they see fit ; same for assessment . There is no evaluation of teachers ; they are asked how they can be supported . They are trusted professionals .
When told about our NAPLAN , they ask why Australian teachers are not trusted . When asked about our standardised curriculum , they ask if our students are all the same and why don ’ t we trust teachers to develop a curriculum suitable for the students ?
According to Stapleton ( 2019 ), over half of Australian teachers suffer from anxiety and nearly one fifth are depressed – and around 18 per cent have had symptoms that meet the criteria for moderate to severe depression . As Couros ( 2015 ) observed : “ Many teachers are bored with the profession because they know there is a lot more to learning than schools have to offer today . Those teachers want to be innovative , but … they spend their time in staff meetings that often seem irrelevant to the heart of teaching .”
I was recently asked by an international education company if I thought Australian teachers were of a world-class standard . My response was that they are definitely so , however , like many Australian students , they often feel like they are delivering a prefabricated , standardised product and assessments .
This is where the collaboration with Finland ’ s Tampere University of Applied Sciences Educational Sciences Faculty came from . Rather than simply pointing out the problem , I was able to provide an avenue for schools to access one of the best teacher education universities in the world . Schools can now hear directly from Finnish educators , and interact with them in real time in an ongoing manner , cherry-picking from the decades of innovation the Finnish have done and making immediate changes which don ’ t require major changes to Australia ’ s systems . ■
Michael Lawrence is an experienced educator and the author of Testing 1 , 2 , 3 : What Australian Education Can Learn from Finland .
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