EB-2018.[Yongjian_Li,_Fred_Dervin]_Continuing_Professionalof Teachers in Finland

Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Finland Yongjian Li and Fred Dervin

Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Finland

Yongjian Li · Fred Dervin Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Finland

Yongjian Li Fred Dervin School of Education Department of  Teacher Education University of Helsinki University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland Helsinki, Finland ISBN 978-3-319-95794-4 ISBN 978-3-319-95795-1  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95795-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947630 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © WLADIMIR BULGAR/Getty Cover design by Tom Howey This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG part of Springer Nature The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To our family in China and Finland

Contents 1 Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher Continuing Professional Development in the ‘Miracle’ of Finnish Education 1 2 Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context 29 3 Finnish Initial Teacher Education and CPD 43 4 Data and Methodologies 83 5 Providers: Offerings and Critiques 89 6 Teachers’ Views on CPD 115 7 Paratexts to CPD: Decision Making, Leadership, Teacher Education and Project Work 129 8 Conclusions 157 vii

viii    Contents Afterword: Learning with Each Other in Comparative and International Education 171 Bibliography 195 Index 211

List of Figures Fig. 1.1 Finland’s system of education, from the National Agency 5 Fig. 1.2 for Education 8 Fig. 8.1 Continua of Finnish education 161 CPD organisation and funding ix

List of Tables Table 4.1 Types and sources of data 84 Table 5.1 List of funders for CPD 90 Table 5.2 Profiles of interviewees: providers 98 Table 6.1 Profiles of interviewees (teachers) 117 xi

1 Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher Continuing Professional Development in the ‘Miracle’ of Finnish Education Finland is known for its equal basic education. We are proud of it. The centenary of the Finnish story is a narrative of a nation that, throughout its history, has expanded access to education and built equal opportunities. (Finnish Minister of Education Sanni Grahn-Laasonen 28 February 2018) – Now I want to live in Finland… – I should have gone to school in Finland. – The education system there is also brilliant, we have so much to learn from a society that places importance on equality and happiness. – I am tired of hearing about the Finns. (Comments on Finnish education found randomly online in 2017) When the Greek hero Achilles, who was the bravest, handsomest and greatest warrior, was born, it was foretold that he would die young. His mother dipped him in a magic river that would offer him invulnera- bility to counter the spell. However, she held Achilles by the heel, pre- venting it from being protected by the river. One day, he was killed by a poisonous arrow lodged in his heel. Today the expression “Achilles’ heel” refers to “an area of weakness, a vulnerable spot” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2016). © The Author(s) 2018 1 Y. Li and F. Dervin, Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Finland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95795-1_1

2    Y. Li and F. Dervin This book examines the Achilles’ heel of one of the top perform- ing countries in education, according to such world rankings as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies, the OECD Better Life Index Education, the Global Competitiveness Report 2016–2017 of the World Economic Reform, and the cur- rent doxa (commonsense ) on international and comparative education: Teacher Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the small Nordic country of Finland (population: 5.4 million, 2017). According to Olli Luukkainen, Director of the only Teachers’ Trade Union in Finland (Opetusalan Ammattijärjestö, OAJ), which represents over 120,000 teachers from early childhood teachers to university lecturers: Our system of continuing education and professional development for teachers is not good enough. It differs too much from one part of the country to another and one group of teachers to another. Teachers in vocational schools, for example, have much better support for continuing education than do primary teachers. (OECD 2011: 126) The country has been revered worldwide for its ‘miraculous education’ (Niemi et al. 2012) and has become ‘mythical’ (Dervin 2013), being presented in somewhat simplistic ways. For example, this is how one company, attached to several Finnish universities and selling Finnish education to the world, talks about it: All over the world, people are talking about “the Finnish phenomenon”. People wonder how Finland can consistently top international student performance rankings, while placing an unwavering focus on every child’s well-being. The Finnish education system is a diamond that has been carefully ground and polished for decades. It began with the zeal and determina- tion of Finnish people to push themselves to succeed – a dream that gen- eration after generation worked at until it came true. One thing Finns realised is that success in education can only be achieved by working together and making the most of everyone’s resources. This is how an equal education system was created.

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    3 The resounding success of Finnish education is evidenced by superb inter- national results such as high PISA rankings. The wonders of this ‘diamond’ are often attributed to Finnish teachers, who are said to be the ‘best teachers in the world’—even if one cannot agree universally on what this actually means. In her answers to parlia- mentary questions to the Finnish government about education in early 2018, the Minister of Education put it this way: We have the best, highly educated teachers in the world who are appreci- ated by society and who, compared to other countries, have an exceptionally broad pedagogic freedom. (…) Our teachers do an excellent job in schools. As we shall see in this book, teachers’ CPD in the Nordic country is somewhat a victim of contradictory discourses amongst decision makers and practitioners. In many cases it appears to be a mystery and a problem- atic aspect of education, although it should be central to teacher prepara- tion. While working on this study, we have had to do ‘detective work’ as information about CPD is scattered and often inconsistent in Finland. Motivated by the mantra of ‘the best education system in the world’, hundreds of ‘pedagogical tourists’ have visited Finland in search of the ‘miracle of education’ (Niemi et al. 2012), especially in relation to Initial Teacher Education (ITT) at university, which lasts for 5 years, leading to a Master’s Degree. Overly positive discourses on ITT have led to the establishment of ‘Finnish education export’ to the world (Dervin 2013; Schatz 2016a). Finland’s Miracle? In international comparison, according to surveys by the World Health Organization, WHO, Finnish schoolchildren are not very enthusias- tic about going to school (…). Salmela-Aro and her research team have found that many young people experience a lack of meaning concern- ing school and their own studies (Salmela-Aro 2017). According to their research, almost one half of schoolchildren do not see school as meaning- ful at the end of elementary school. (Huhtala and Vesalainen 2017: 60)

4    Y. Li and F. Dervin According to Egginger (2013) the current interest in Finnish educa- tion is not new if one looks back in history. As such, during the World Fairs of 1889/1900 Finland, which was then a Grand Duchy of Russia before its independence in 1917, was already presented as some sort of a ‘miracle’. A Finnish school had been set up in Paris with a teacher and Finnish pupils enacting reading activities for the audience (Egginger, ibid.). Finnish education was already said to be efficient, modern, and equalitarian at the time. These ideas are still reflected in Finland’s top position in many world rankings: The Sustainable Society Index (2016), first in human wellbe- ing; The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report (2015, World Economic Forum), safest country in the world; The Global Gender Gap Index (2016, World Economic Forum), one of the most equal countries. The Fourth of December 2001 marked an important date for Finland. This is when the results of the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the OECD were released. Finland came first, which put the country on the world map for many years and earned the country the status of ‘educational utopia’. According to the ‘global ambassador’ and ‘guru’ of Finnish education, Pasi Sahlberg, who started working in Australia in 2018: This [was] a very new situation for Finns. Ten years ago, before 2002, we were very rarely asked to go anywhere so now if somebody wants to hear stories from Finland we… you know I wanna go… because I also understand that this is not gonna last forever that at some point we will be taken over by somebody else then all these things will be nice memory. (Pasi Sahlberg, Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, March 2012, our transcription) The triennial international survey, PISA, aims to evaluate education sys- tems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old stu- dents in reading, mathematics and science at the end of basic education. Around 510,000 students from 65 countries participate in the assess- ment. PISA has managed to establish an increasingly strong and media- tised ‘comparative turn’ amongst educational systems around the world, where top systems attract attention and become models for others (Grek 2009).

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    5 According to the OECD (2013: 6) Finland is among the most equi- table countries as far as PISA performance of 15-year-olds is concerned. System-level policies are said to assure equity for students. And the Nordic country has both a large percentage of top performers and a smaller-than-average proportion of low performers. Finnish Basic education (see Fig. 1.1) includes nine years of compul- sory schooling with a voluntary tenth year. Education is free, and text- books and a daily meal are provided. Early intervention and individual Fig. 1.1  Finland’s system of education, from the National Agency for Education

6    Y. Li and F. Dervin guidance and support are seen as keys to ensuring that no one is left behind. At upper secondary level, instruction and school lunches, as well as health care are provided free of charge, but students are required to obtain their own textbooks and they may also be charged for other learning materials. It is important to note that all families receive child benefit from public funds for each child aged under 16, which aims to cover specific costs relating to raising children. This is provided regard- less of parents’ income, which, in a sense, can lead to inequity (some families get even more capitals). In addition to such benefits, those receiving special needs education are also entitled to assistant services, other pupil welfare services and special aids (Sahlberg 2011). Finland’s investment in education is similar to the OECD average, with 5.7% of Gross Domestic Product (OECD 2017). Basic and gen- eral upper secondary education institutions are funded by the state and local authorities. Municipalities receive funding according to the propor- tion of population (number of municipal residents aged between 6 and 15) and its socio-economic status. Municipalities decide how to distrib- ute funding for education (OECD 2013: 16). In 2017 there were 311 municipalities in Finland. Sahlberg (2018: n.p.) insists on the diversity of municipalities and thus the multifacetedness of Finnish education: Since each municipality has very different regulations, the autonomy of the corresponding schools varies greatly. For example, in some munici- palities schools have the right to hire teachers, while in some teachers are recruited by the government. In some municipalities, principals can decide some minor bonuses they pay to teachers, and in some municipali- ties, the power to pay all wages comes from the government. Therefore, there is a common misunderstanding when discussing Finnish education internationally. People think Finnish education system is uni- fied. However, in fact, education in Finland is very diverse, not the same everywhere. That is also why I often tell international colleagues that we should go out and see how different communities in different situations and with different needs in Finland. Although Sahlberg offers an interesting critique of discourses about Finnish education globally, it is important to note that, in a way, he might have contributed himself to presenting an image of Finnish

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    7 education, which is homogeneous—like many other experts of Finnish education. The title of his most popular book, Finnish Lessons, and its contents add to the confusion (Itkonen et al. 2017). The most recent PISA results are from 2015. Finland’s performance was less impressive in the last study as the country ranked 13 for math- ematical literacy amongst all the countries participating in PISA, 4th in reading literacy, 5th in scientific literacy and 7th in collaborative prob- lem-solving (total number of participating countries and economies: 73; OECD 2015). One of the reasons is that inequalities have increased. For example, boys and students with an immigrant background now have a higher risk of lower performance. Although the impact of socio-economic status on the risk of low performance is still lower than the OECD average, it has also increased (OECD 2015: 6). What Finnish education fans and supranational organisations seem to miss is the fact that, like all other education systems, Finland wit- nesses contradictions and should be examined, according to Simola et al. (2017), through dynamics. In agreement with the scholars, one could say that the Finnish system of education is located on different continua, in terms of ideology, policy and pedagogy, that characterise it as politically shifting from one end to another: – Brunila et al. (2017) note that Finnish education, like many other sys- tems of education, has clearly shifted from a knowledge-based educa- tion to skills training, prefiguring students’ role in the labour market. – Simola et al. (2017) argue that Finnish education is witnessing a strong contradiction between “the social-democratic agrarian tradition of equality and the market-liberalist version of equity that emerged in Finland in the late 1980s”. While the former is based on the ideol- ogy of the similarity of students, regardless of their sociocultural back- ground, the latter is clearly stating that students should be catered for according to their own capacities, needs and individuality (ibid.). – Pedagogically, Simola et al. (2015) note that Finnish education repre- sents a mix of traditional and progressive pedagogy (Fig. 1.2). Regardless of these counter-narratives that have been presented in e.g. sociology of education and social justice and multicultural education,

8    Y. Li and F. Dervin Fig. 1.2  Continua of Finnish education the flow of ‘pedagogical tourists’ to Finland (especially from China and the USA) has not decreased, neither has the amount of requests from international media. The promotion and export of Finnish education to certain parts of the world have been part of the current nation branding and commercial strategies (Schatz 2016b; Simpson and Dervin 2017). These derive directly from the PISA fame and have led to what we could refer to as ‘PISA hysteria’. The reputation of Finland abroad has thus been very important over the last decade and conscious efforts have been made by decision-makers and some scholars to protect this reputa- tion. However, as we shall see, very little, see nothing, is ever said about teachers’ CPD in Finland. We thus believe that it can represent an inter- esting and critical entry point into Finnish education. The Broader Picture: Marketization, Branding and ‘PISA Hysteria’ For Cantwell and Kauppinen (2014: 3), it is important to under- stand the complex ways in which today’s education is integrated into local, national and global political economies, especially in higher

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    9 education—a very important level of education when discussing Finnish (teacher) education and training. They write: “nearly all aspects of higher education (e.g., student recruitment and learning, governance, organizational administration and strategy, public policy, and the aca- demic profession) are embedded in the political economy with links to the market, non-profit and non-governmental organisations, and the state” (ibid.). The marketization of education is a reality in Finland and is imbricated, especially, in higher education despite claims that it is not (e.g. Sahlberg 2011). Over the last 10 years, since the semi-privatization of Finnish universities, there has been “a move from the public good knowledge/learning regime to the academic capitalist knowledge/learn- ing regime” (Slaughter 2014: vii). Teacher education being part of universities in Finland, has especially triggered many business-like ventures. The economisation of Finnish higher education is evident today through e.g. an increase in activities related to education export (sale of made-to-order trainings, knowledge, services and consultancy to other countries, see Cai and Kivistö 2010); which represented about 100 million euros in 2013 (Team Finland, 2014), and 260 million euros in 2014 (cimo.fi, 2017). A new Government Programme from 2017 has set a target to increase the turnover to 350 mil- lion euros by the end of 2018 (ibid.). According to the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture (2010: 13), “Higher education institutions will be encouraged to be active and assume a major role as education export oper- ators.” In 2018 Education Finland, a national education export program, was set up by the Finnish National Agency for Education (NAE) (educa- tionfinland.fi). It is described as follows (cimo.fi, 2017): The Education Finland growth programme offers companies, education and training providers and others involved in education export information about new business opportunities, develops know-how in education export, and promotes Finnish education and training abroad. The programme also develops new support solutions together with other operators in edu- cation export. The Finnish National Agency for Education is responsible for the implementation of the Education Finland growth programme. The programme receives funding from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment and the Ministry of Education and Culture.

10    Y. Li and F. Dervin Its main goal is to “offer Finnish educational know-how and learning solutions globally” (from the website; motto: “Ready to learn? ”). An exhaustive list of Finnish companies and start-ups is included on the website. From a business perspective, and when we look at the compa- nies represented on the website, one can wonder if a needs analysis has been made: what does the world need from Finland? As such one of the company is based on the famous Finnish cartoon characters Moomins (language education) and another one offers 3D printing services. Can export of education rely on what appears to be scattered and somewhat random, basing its selling points on anecdotal white lies? Furthermore can one sell CPD abroad when the state of CPD in the country is said to be fragmented and ineffective? At an event in China in January 2018 where Finnish teachers were asked to ‘perform’ with Chinese children and present to Chinese spe- cialists (event organised by an education export company), the follow- ing ‘selling’ ideas were shared about Finland: All subject teachers have interdisciplinary teaching abilities (examples given: The same teacher uses triangle irons, sand balls and sticks in music teaching; jigsaw puzzle and dice in math classes; and games with students in physical education). The key to Finnish education is according to one teacher: “Our education system is not built for the sake of winning in PISA. It is for Finland to win international competition in the future so that every child can have a high-quality education”. The following aspects are also mentioned about Finnish education: (1) Education for all (2) Development of a high level of teachers’ competence: Finland’s high social status of teachers, young people want to be teachers, there are strict pre-service training and teaching practice. (3) Focus on students, students at the center (4) Effective guidance and advice (5) Encouraging Assessment and Evaluation: There is no standardized test and teachers have autonomy

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    11 (6) Flexibility and Trust: Trusted Principals, Trusted Teachers,1 Trusted Students and Parents.2 Finland is also the happiest country in the world. The rhetoric around trust will come back again and again in this book. For Sahlberg (2018: n.p.), one of the ‘gurus’ and promoters of Finnish education, When it comes to trust, first and foremost we need to understand that in a system, if parents or society themselves have high demands on their children’s well-being and behavior, this often means that you are not giv- ing some freedom to the consequences that may arise. In Finland, trust is for us the full trust and freedom for our schools and teachers, believing that they can develop goals, teaching standards and content appropriate for their children. The trust is instilled deeply in our culture; it is not a single behavior in a particular situation. We shall see how this ‘rosy’ picture often hides many unspoken issues in relation to CPD, amongst others. Institutions producing international league tables of school perfor- mance like the OECD—responsible for PISA studies—or the World Trade Organization, have played an important role in stimulating mar- ketization and branding in Finland. They constitute what Spring (2015: 1) calls a ‘global education superstructure’ that “directly and indirectly influences national school systems along with multinational educa- tion corporations and schools.” These also increase the influence of 1One of our research participants, a teacher from primary school, shared the following anecdote. One of her colleagues asked her for exercises to be used to train the students for the past tense in French. When she asked her why she needed exercises about that when it was not even in the curriculum, the colleague explained that she wanted to teach it because teachers in the lower sec- ondary school would blame her for being a bad teacher if the students did not know this tense. 2In her book School’s Fault, Korhonen (2018: 35) shows that parents’ trust is not always true (she is on schoolyard supervision duty): “I walk around the schoolyard, I remember the headmaster’s advice: remember to look like you’re doing something. Every year there are parents who have time to come and spy on you. If some students have a fight and you’re not there immediately, the headmaster will get a call from one of the parents complaining that the teachers are not doing their job.”

12    Y. Li and F. Dervin educational research conducted by economists and judging educational outcomes in economic terms (e.g. rankings). Scott et al. (2015: 65) claim, for instance, that the OECD “simulta- neously acts as a diagnostician, judge, and policy advisor” for member states and others. These superstructures tend to continue working from a methodological nationalistic approach which is nation-based and thus, (in-)directly contribute to some sort of neo-nationalism, especially when the best performers advertise or sell their education to others. However, Dale and Newman (2005) argues that we can no longer be apprehended as local entities separated from each other in our accelerated global world, especially in education where discourses and practices circulate. Since the ‘PISA hysteria’ started in the 2000s, nicely marketable imaginaries about Finnish education have blossomed: Finland is one of the most equal countries in the world; Finnish people are hard-working and honest; Finnish children do not need to work hard at school even if they perform excellently in PISA studies; Finnish teachers are the best in the world, etc. (Dervin 2013; Sahlberg 2011). Decision makers’, country branders’, practitioners’ and even researchers’ voices from Finland have contributed to spreading this commonsense, supported by international media, politically engaged scholars and foreign politicians in need of inspiration. The Finnish National Agency for Education (NAE) itself uses marketing language to describe what they are trying to achieve to foreign guests (e.g.: “Everyone can grow to his/her own potential. We have passion for learning!”). There is an interesting saying in Chinese that could explain well what consequences this has on how Finnish education is discussed around the world. It derives from a discussion between a minister and his ruler during the Warring States Period (475– 221 BCE) about the presence of tigers on the streets. The saying is 三 人成虎 (San Ren Cheng Hu ). Literally it means “three people become a tiger ”, in other words if three people say they have seen a tiger then it must be true (even if it may not be true). Figuratively the meaning is: If you repeat a lie often enough, it will be believed… Critics of PISA have noted many methodological concerns about the conduct, analysis and interpretation of its results (Goldstein 2004). For instance, we have been personally very critical of interpretations such as the following, concerning Finnish pupils’ excellent results at reading:

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    13 This is due to both educational and socio-cultural reasons: teaching chil- dren to read in school is based on individual development and pace rather than standardised instruction and frequent testing; Finnish parents read a lot themselves and also to their children; books and newspapers are easily available through a dense library network; and children watch subtitled TV programmes from early on. (Sahlberg 2011: 25) Although Sahlberg’s arguments include larger societal aspects such as TV and reading outside schools, it seems to us that too much empha- sis is laid on the positive influence of parents and teachers. We believe that looking into the specificities of the Finnish language, which has regular spelling, compared to e.g. speakers of English, should retain our attention. While in Finnish every single letter is pronounced, English pronunciation is quite challenging as the way words are written rarely correspond to how they are read aloud. Take for example the words Leicestershire [‘lestəʃə(r) ] and Marimekko in Finnish. Ignoring this aspect can rhetorically serve the purpose of showing the ‘superiority’ of Finnish education and society (teachers are excellent, parents caring, etc.). Another example for testing mathematical literacy is the use of cal- culators during PISA tests. While in e.g. Singapore the children are not allowed to use them, in Finland, they are very common—even for PISA tests. So, do we compare ‘apples and pears’ through PISA? Should we use perspectives that look into broader ideological socio-economic-political contexts (hidden ‘truths’, ‘white lies’)? Should we also pay more atten- tion to biased generalisations and consider alternative perspectives, espe- cially from the ‘periphery’ (i.e. outside Europe and the US), to compare educational systems (see Li and Dervin 2018)? Isn’t there a need to be critical of ethnocentric, essentialist and exotic discourses about different systems of education? (Li and Dervin, ibid.). For Biesta (2015: 350): The most visible way in which systems such as PISA are seductive is in that they seem to provide clear, unambiguous and easy to digest and to communicate information about the apparent quality of educational sys- tems, particularly with regard to their ‘performance’.

14    Y. Li and F. Dervin Imaginaries about Finnish education, derived from ‘bad’ analyses based on PISA results, reports and books for general audiences (rather than ‘proper research’) published mostly in English or translated into local languages (e.g. Sahlberg’s book Finnish Lessons ), often construct Finland as a different place that has very little in common with other coun- tries—especially in terms of education (Sahlberg 2011). The insistence on dissimilarities makes the Nordic country both an ‘exotic’ and ‘better’ place. Through our critical work, we have noticed an ‘allergy’ towards similarities between education systems of top performers and those who face many problems. It could be that, when the problems faced by Finland in education, which are similar to those experienced by other countries, are more transparently discussed, Finland ‘fans’ will try to find another place that can give them the illusion that ‘their’ problems can be solved. In many descriptions of Finland, we are reminded of Psalmanazar’s (1704) imagined Taiwan in An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa. The mysterious author, who was actually French, had never been to Taiwan (Formosa as it used to be called), although he claimed to be the first native of Taiwan to visit Europe. His descriptions of the place were made-up and surrealistic: people lived underground; aristocrats breakfasted on viper’s blood; students were fluent in ancient Greek; priests sacrificed thousands of infants to a horned god. Interestingly his stories impressed English audiences and he was even invited to give lectures at Oxford. Although the comparison will appear far-fetched, we often hear salaciously imagined ideas about Finland (especially from people who have never visited Finland—although those who went to the Nordic countries, are not immune to spreading these imaginaries): there are no social classes; pupils don’t get any homework; becoming a teacher is as pres- tigious as becoming a lawyer or a doctor. In a recent email to one of us, a teacher educator from another country asked us “how assessment is occurring in Finland now that you don’t have individual disciplines or subjects”. This puzzling message was most likely based on made-up sto- ries from international media but also from some education exporters about the fact that the 2014–2016 Curriculum in Finland had banished school subjects and generalised interdisciplinarity in all schools. This is our reply:

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    15 Good question! However, we still have different disciplines and school subjects. There is this misconception around the world that we don’t… we do… we do… Teachers should, in principle, do at least one interdisciplinary model per year (phenomenon-based learning) but it does not work… Teachers were not trained at all for this. My advice about Finnish education is: Come see for yourself, go outside Helsinki and you will witness counter narratives… I can send you some of the articles we have written about Finnish education as “the emperor is naked”. The colleague replied briefly: “Thanks for taking the time to get back to me and also for the info.” Without any request for clarification or pub- lications. We have faced many similar situations abroad: From a Dean of a Faculty of Education in Canada who did not want to hear about the ‘issues faced by Finnish educators’ because he wanted to ‘continue dreaming’, to a French educator, who did not speak a word of Finnish or Swedish, and got really upset when he heard counter-stories about the ‘wonders’ of Finnish education. Our assumptions are that myths about Finland are very handy to manipulate decision-makers (“the Finns do that, so it must be great”) or to remind e.g. teachers that they need to work harder or get further training (“because they are not as good as Finnish teachers”). We name this phenomenon “Finnish education as an alibi”. But the Nordic country has also somewhat understood the value of advertising and selling its educational system. Adopting an ambig- uous form of self-aggrandizement (see the recent use of the hashtag #BragForFinland used by many Finnish businessmen and public fig- ures), through which Finland is constructing itself as better than it is, those who sell implicitly or explicitly its education often lessen the value of other educational systems by othering them and representing them as ‘bad examples’ to follow (the case of China) or as being ruthless and even ‘primitive’ forms of education (Schatz et al. 2015). Falling into the traps of “apparent neutrality of description” (Holliday 2010) represents a danger for those who get compared to Finland. Chung’s (2015: 476) warning about comparing Finland’s education system with other sys- tems argues for a different approach to comparison:

16    Y. Li and F. Dervin While I have argued thus far that Finland provides a good example of education policy, especially in terms of teacher education and political consensus, there is the underlying and tempting risk of viewing Finnish education uncritically, as a ‘silver bullet’ for all educational pitfalls and problems. This leads us to the idea of nation branding, which, in the case of Finland, has clearly had an influence on the phenomena described above, and has accompanied the ‘PISA hysteria’. Over the last 10 years this phenomenon has spread in certain fields of research in Finland— such as teacher education—and contributed to uncritical claims about Finnish education. The concept of country branding was introduced by e.g. Aronczyk (2013) and Anholt (2009). Aronczyk defines country branding as: Using the tools, techniques and expertise of commercial branding is believed to help nations articulate a more coherent and cohesive identity, attract foreign capital, and maintain citizen loyalty. In short, the goal of nation branding is to make the nation matter in a world where borders and boundaries appear increasingly obsolete. (ibid.: 12) In the document entitled Mission for Finland published in 2010, the Finnish authorities place education at the centre of the nation branding strategy. The document also justifies the need for nation branding in the following terms: 1) Increasing the appreciation of the fruits of Finnish labor, that is, pro- moting the export of Finnish products and services, 2) Promoting inter- national investments in Finland, 3) Promoting inbound tourism to Finland, 4) Promoting the international status of the Finnish State, 5) Promoting the appeal of Finland among international professionals, 6) Raising the national self-esteem of Finns. (2010: 23) Interestingly nation branding represents, in a sense, a ‘renationali- zation’ of Finland, a new phase in defining Finnish people’s identity and appeal to the world through the forces of the market. Of course, Finland was not the first nation to explicitly brand itself in 2010. As

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    17 a ‘smaller power’ in the world it needs to legitimize its very existence and nation branding represents a powerful way to do so (Lehti 2011), especially as Finland has had a good reputation in most international rankings. Anholt’s Good Country Index placed Finland number 2 after Ireland (http://www.goodcountry.org/overall) in 2014. The controversial idea of the Index is to measure what countries contribute to the common good of humanity and what it takes away. All these somewhat faulty inter- national rankings are often used as a way to sell and promote Finnish (teacher) education to the rest of the world. As asserted earlier, the Finnish government is actively committed to the marketing and export of its education brand and to reveal, use and maybe (?) misuse the ‘secrets of the world’s number one education in Finland’. As such, the marketization of education and nation building are not wrong (everybody is doing it!), but because the created images and discourses are somewhat unstable, they can be abused for political or economic purposes elsewhere, ignoring the changes of Finnish educa- tion itself and the problems met by Finnish educators as its position in PISA rankings declines. For sure people will experience ‘aesthetic fatigue’ with Finnish edu- cation, which, in turn, will create resistance to the so-called ‘Finnish road’ and ‘Finnish secrets.’ As Finland will lose its PISA appeal, others will consider it worthless and turn to other countries (Estonia?), and fall into the same trap. Another saying from Chinese can help us summarize this issue: 色衰爱弛 (se shuai ai chi): affection loses with beauty wither- ing away… As researchers who want to learn about—or maybe from or with— the experiences of top-performing countries, we also need to recog- nize a somewhat hidden, controversial and cruel fact: these ‘mysteries’ and ‘miracles’ generally come from regions that are said to be the ‘best’ (mostly Europe and the United States). News emerges everyday about how e.g. Egypt is reforming its educational system, inspired by the Finnish system of education; the same goes for Saudi Arabia. For these countries, Finland has quality education and they are looking for reci- pes and secrets—and their own secret is to open the ‘bag’ instantly to copy and apply Finland’s ‘good practices’. However, ‘the secret of someone else’s

18    Y. Li and F. Dervin home’ has its own context of development. The process of replicating education success ‘at home’ is usually a process of collecting and remov- ing practices and methods from their context. In this book, and throughout our work we have argued that we must learn to think critically about our education and the other’s and, probably most importantly, we must learn with each other. By showing that the ‘Nirvana’ constructed around Finland is mythical in many cases, we hope that this book will stimulate more critical and reflective discussions. A Silenced Achilles’ Heel? CPD in Finland Finnish teachers selected from top 10% of sec.(ondary) sch.(ool) Graduates / undertake 5 or 6 yrs of training (Masters level) / provided with continuous in-service training (…) In a recent post online, an American educator listed the above as the most ‘amazing’ features of Finnish education, in comparison to American education. Only the second aspect is correct: All teachers are required to have a Master’s Degree—although there is a minority of teachers who are unqualified and untenured, who often serve as sub- stitute teachers. The first statement is based on a misunderstanding: only 10% of student candidates are selected from those who apply for teacher education at university, not of all the secondary school students from a given year. And as we shall see in this book, the third statement about continuous in-service training could be easily refuted. For a period of six months in 2015 the Finnish Ministry of Education (MoE), and an organization, SITRA, that “promotes Finland’s compet- itiveness and the well-being of the Finnish people” (http://www.sitra.fi/ en/well-being), set up a New Education Forum involving many specialists who came together to discuss the future of Finnish education. One of the participants, who was the Head of the Teacher Education Department at the University of Jyväskylä, said during one of the meetings: We have long ridden the wave of Pisa hysteria, telling ourselves that our schools are good. And they are excellent – by yesterday’s standards. Our schools do not meet current or future needs. (Sitra 2015)

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    19 The wave of PISA hysteria towards Finland, as asserted earlier, often relies on positive discourses about Finnish teachers, especially in rela- tion to the 5-year initial teacher education they receive at Finnish universities. In a decentralised approach, the Finnish Government defines and sets educational priorities, while schools and day-care centres are principally maintained and supported by municipalities (local authorities), which have significant responsibility for organisation of education, fund- ing, curriculum and hiring personnel (OECD 2013: 4). According to the Teachers’ Trade Union (2017), in average, Finnish basic education takes place with one teacher for 18 students in years 1–2, one for 20 in years 3 to 9—with a similar number for upper secondary education. Finnish teachers are known for having pedagogical autonomy to teach and assess students’ learning (OECD 2013: 4). This is often referred to as ‘teachers’ empowerment’ (Sahlberg 2017). One must bear in mind, however, that the vast majority of teachers use textbooks which can, in most cases, dictate the way and the things they teach. From a manage- rial point of view, we must remember that, if a given organization or a superior ‘empowers’ subordinates, it does not mean that the managers are completely separated from the management system. The empowered people can take the initiative to carry out various activities, but some- one needs to supervise the overall situation and the general direction things are taking in order to ensure that the overall goals of the organ- ization are met. To our knowledge, there is no research on the percep- tion of empowerment by teachers and decision-makers in Finland. In their 2015 article about the business context, Andrade et al. show that there are often differences between employers’ and employees’ percep- tions of such practices. There might be a need to look into similar issues in Finnish education. In 2017, the Teachers’ Trade Union launched an Oath for Finnish teachers. This oath was inspired by the Hippocratic Oath taken by medical doctors, establishing principal medical ethics such as non-ma- leficence and confidentiality. The Oath for Finnish teachers was named after John Amos Comenius, a Czech educational reformer, remembered for his innovations in methods of teaching. The Comenius Oath reads as follows:

20    Y. Li and F. Dervin As a teacher I am engaged in educating the next generation, which is one of the most important human tasks. My aim in this will be to renew and pass on the existing reserve of human knowledge, culture and skills. I undertake to act with justice and fairness in all that I do and to promote the development of my pupils and students, so that each individual may grow up as a complete human being in accordance with his or her apti- tudes and talents. I will also strive to assist parents, guardians and others responsible for working with children and young people in their educational functions. I will not reveal information that is communicated to me confidentially, and I will respect the privacy of children and young people. I will also protect their physical and psychological inviolability. I will endeavour to shield the children and young people in my care from political and economic exploitation and defend the rights of every individual to develop his or her own religious and political convictions. I will make continuous efforts to maintain and develop my profes- sional skills, committing myself to the common goals of my profes- sion and to the support of my colleagues in their work. I will act in the best interests of the community at large and strive to strengthen the esteem in which the teaching profession is held. We should note at this stage that the oath is not contractual but serves as guidelines for teachers. The highlighted paragraph of the Oath is of central interest in this book as it concerns the “continuous efforts to maintain and develop my professional skills.” This has been contentious in the Finnish context and very few publications, documentaries or studies (inter- national as well as local) enter into details about what we consider to be Achilles’ heel in the Finnish context. As such, while collecting the data for this volume, we have heard again and again that many Finnish teachers never receive CPD—except maybe half a day per year depending on the municipality they work in. We have also heard

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    21 over and over that teachers’ CPD is a “jungle” in Finland. We shall see that there are many explanations to these issues, from personal motivation to local municipal finances. The problematic rhetoric of trusting teachers in Finland is also often used to justify the lack of CPD for some teachers. What Is Special About This Book? This book was written as a direct consequence of our involvement with Finnish education but also with comparative and international education. One of its main aims is to contribute to critical discussions about the ‘wonders’ of Finnish education which have been sold around the world for the last ten years. Our agenda is thus motivated by the need to debunk some myths about Finnish education, using CPD as an example. In so doing we agree with Orwell (1946) that “No book is genuinely free from political bias”. We have written this book from a critical and reflexive intercultural perspective. This means that, unlike many other scholars and education professionals, we pay attention to uncritical and unreflective compara- tive approaches to education ‘utopias’ like Finland. Unlike many observ- ers, we try to avoid the following pitfalls: 1. International visitors must rely on their hosts in Finland—they often have to pay university departments or the National Agency for Education. Having access to the field, and to multiple voices about Finnish education, is challenging if one is not inside the system. For this study, we have chosen freely the participants to our research, relying on our deep knowledge of Finnish (teacher) education and multiple contacts in schools, organisations and universities. 2. We have had access to data in multiple languages, especially Finnish and Swedish, which many observers do not understand. Punakallio and Dervin (2015) and Dervin (2013) note, for instance, a gap between the news and general discourses about Finnish education in English and local languages (as a reminder, Finnish and Swedish are the two official languages of the country). This multilingual approach

22    Y. Li and F. Dervin has allowed us to dig under the surface of utopian Finnish educa- tion and to question some of the discourses that make it ‘miraculous’ to the eyes of many people abroad. Unlike many observers, we do not just rely on translations to English. For example, the omnipres- ent discourse that community work, cooperation and mentoring are the best forms of CPD in Finland is questioned in our book, rather than being merely admired.3 The reality on the ground can be very different than this mantra. As we shall see, many teachers prefer to conduct their work ‘behind closed doors’, without sharing their own resources. Some also resist changes and lack motivation to develop their competences. 3. As asserted earlier, Finland is actively involved in education export, which means selling educational services, schools and hiring teach- ers for services abroad. Many Finnish and international scholars take part in these activities, which has an influence on their objectivity and partiality, and on the boundaries between research and business. Educational exporters are often found amongst Finnish education delegations abroad. Interestingly, some foreigners also use “Finnish education as an alibi” to sell their products or ideas. In order to sell books about Finnish education some foreign companies (co-?)organ- ise events at Finnish universities (they basically rent a room) to give credibility to their products (we were there ). This has an influence on discourses on Finnish education. As researchers working in China and Finland, not involved in Finnish education export, we have no pressure to ‘censor’ some of our research results and discussions. Finally, this book represents an attempt for us to be critical towards our own criticality. We shall not just be critical out of the desire to be critical. 3In his 2018 column “We Need More than Just Better Teachers? ” in response to The World Development Report 2018, Sahlberg argues rightly that the Report spreads myths about Finland. He writes: “It is the culture of professional collaboration that improves educational performance in Finnish schools, not teacher autonomy as the report assumes”. As we shall see, the argument of autonomy is systematically used by practitioners and decision-makers to defend somewhat the miserable state of CPD. The ‘culture of collaboration’ that Sahlberg presents as being a character- istic of Finnish education is far from being a reality in all schools as we shall see, and somewhat a myth in itself.

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    23 Our ultimate goal consists in contributing positively to the improvement of teachers’ CPD in Finland and elsewhere by highlighting issues in the ‘best education system in the world’. Our goal is also to warn readers of the dangers of uncritical comparisons of their own context with the Finnish context. By having identified the country’s Achilles’ heel, we can peel up many layers—like an onion—that often escape outsiders’ attention. Structure of the Book Chapter 2 serves the purpose of framing CPD to understand and explore the Finnish context. This is used as a conceptual and theoret- ical chapter for the rest of the book. We start by problematizing CPD as a polysemic idea, reviewing international research. We are critical of the fact that most of the literature on CPD is Westerncentric and add what we consider to be interesting dimensions from China. The second section is about the importance of long-term reflexivity in CPD. This is followed by a review of current research on CPD worldwide. The ‘natu- ral’ links between initial teacher education and CPD are noted. Chapter 3 is dedicated to Finnish Initial Teacher Education and Professional Development. As will be noted in the previous chapter, the two need to be clearly and coherently linked. The chapter starts with a quick critical presentation of the Finnish Core Curriculum for Basic Education (2014/2016) which has been very much discussed around the world, and is central to understand teacher education and CPD. The role of teachers in the Curriculum is also problematized. Then the basics of Initial Teacher Education are presented, as well as recent projects to improve it. This review shows that Finnish Initial teacher education is more complex (and unstable) than the way it is often described globally. The next and final sections are about CPD. A diachronic review is pro- posed first. Specific forms of CPD used in Finland follow, and a certain number of ‘mysteries’ around CPD are then discussed (finances, law, rights and duties, etc.). The chapter ends with an example of CPD strat- egy and practices from a town in Western Finland (this serves as ‘good practice’). This chapter, and the previous one, represent the conceptual, theoretical and contextual backbones for the ensuing study.

24    Y. Li and F. Dervin Chapter 4 describes the data and methodologies used. A specific form of discourse analysis, called dialogism, is presented. It allows us to ‘delve’ deeper into the respondents’ discourses in order to identify potential contradictions, and ‘white lies’. Our assumption is that dis- courses on Finnish education are so complex that we needed a tool that allowed us to explore its different facets. We remind our readers that the collected data will only provide us with an entry point into some aspects of CPD and that we do not aim to generalise for the entire country. Chapter 5 examines the work of CPD providers. The following ques- tions are answered: who organises CPD in Finland? What do they offer? What problems do they face in offering CPD? Main Finnish providers share their views, critiques and hopes about CPD. Tensions from within and between providers are also described. The chapter helps get a broad sense of CPD offerings and strategies. Chapter 6 is devoted to teachers. A rural school, a bit isolated from the capital city Helsinki, was chosen as a case study. Interviews with teachers allow us to tackle the following issues: what are their experi- ences of CPD? What are their critiques of it? What needs do they have? What do their discourses on CPD tell us about the pitfalls of Finnish education? The data was collected a few months after major curricu- lar reforms in Finland and there seemed to be frustration amongst the teachers, especially in relation to the lack of proper CPD. At least one of the teachers was very active in self-training. Chapter 7 deals with the last category of actors (which we call ‘para- texts’) and includes decision-makers, school leaders, teacher educators and CPD project coordinators. This last category allows us to compare the dis- courses of those who make decisions about CPD or who observe CPD practices (teacher educators) and to contrast them with those of providers and educators. This chapter demonstrates that there are gaps in the ways some members of this category engage critically with CPD, with deci- sion-makers and principals being more ‘liberal’ than the rest. As we had a privileged position of being ‘locals’, we managed to obtain alternative information about CPD and also about Finnish education in general. In Chapter 8 we come back to the metaphor of ‘Achilles’ heel’. We argue that CPD can tell us a lot about what is happening behind the scene of an ‘education superpower’ like Finland, and open doors to

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    25 aspects of international comparative education which are not always easy to access. The conclusion summarizes what we found; proposes a concluding figure which presents the organization and funding of CPD in Finland and offers recommendations for different actors involved in CPD. These recommendations are of interest to a global audience. The Afterword opens up discussions about comparative and interna- tional education, using Chinese and Finnish education as an example. The topic of social justice is central in both systems of education and has been discussed extensively in examining CPD in the Finnish context. Social jus- tice thus serves as a basis in the afterword to warn readers about comparing ‘apples and pears’ but also about starting comparative international analysis from biases. For instance, teachers’ CPD appears to be more developed, systematic and fairer than in the Nordic country. Learning with other in comparative and international education is suggested as a solution. References Anholt, S. (2009). Why national image matters. Brussels: World Tourism Organization (WTO). Aronczyk, M. (2013). Branding the nation: The global business of national iden- tity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Biesta, G. J. (2015). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. London: Routledge. Brunila, K., Ikävalko, E., Kurki, T., Masoud, A., Mertanen, K., Mikkola, A., & Mäkelä, K. (2017). Transitions, Justice, and Equity in Education in Finland. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cai, Y., & Kivisto, J. (2010). Towards a fee-based education in Finland: Where to go? IMHE General Conference, Paris, France. Cantwell, B., & Kauppinen, I. (Eds.). (2014). Academic capitalism in the age of globalization. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. Chung, J. (2015). International comparison and educational policy learn- ing: Looking north to Finland. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 45(3), 475–479. Dale, A., & Newman, L. (2005). Sustainable development, education and literacy. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 6(4), 351–362.

26    Y. Li and F. Dervin Dervin, F. (2013). La Meilleure Éducation au Monde? Contre-enquête sur la Finlande [The best education in the world. An ethnography of Finland]. Paris: L’Harmattan. Egginger, J.-G. (2013). Aux sources de l’Éden éducatif nordique. Images véhiculées en France de l’instruction primaire finlandaise au cours de la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle (1851–1911) [origins of the Nordic edu- cation heaven. Representations about Finnish primary education in France during the second half of the 19th century (1851–1911)]. Recherches en Education 16, 13–19. Goldstein, H. (2004). International comparisons of student attainment: Some issues arising from the PISA study. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 11(3), 319–330. Grahn-Laasonen, S. (2018). Government’s question time in parliament: Equality in education. February 28, 2018. Available in Finnish at http:// minedu.fi/artikkeli/-/asset_publisher/hallituksen-vastaus-valikysymykseen- koulutuksen-tasa-arvosta-28-2-2018. Grek, S. (2009). Governing by numbers: The PISA ‘effect’ in Europe. Journal of Education Policy, 24(1), 23–37. Holliday, A. (2010). Intercultural communication and ideology. London: Sage. Huhtala, A., & Vesalainen, M. (2017). Challenges in developing in-service teacher training: Lessons learnt from two projects for teachers of Swedish in Finland. Apples: Journal of Applied Language Studies, 11, 55–79. Itkonen, T., Dervin, F., & Talib, M.-T. (2017). Finnish education: An ambig- uous utopia? International Journal of Bias, Identity and Diversities in Education, 2(2), July–December 2017, 13–28. Korhonen, M. (2018). School’s Fault. Helsinki: Into. Lehti, M. (2011). Performing identity—Looking for subjectivity: Marginality, self-esteem and ontological security. Paper presented at the Comparative Baltic Sea Building’ seminar, Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies. Uppsala University, March 14–15. Li, Y., & Dervin, F. (2018). Education systems and social justice: Comparing and contrasting in China and Finland. London: Routledge. National Board of Education. (2016). National core curriculum for basic education. Helsinki: Opetushallitus. Niemi, H., Toom, A., & Kallioniemi, A. (Eds.). (2012). Miracle of education. London: Sense Publishers. OECD. (2011). Strong performers and successful reformers in education lessons from PISA for the USA. Paris: OECD Publications.

1  Introduction: Contextualizing Teacher …    27 OECD. (2013). Teachers’ professional development. Europe in international com- parison. Paris: OECD. OECD. (2015). https://www.oecd.org/pisa/PISA-2015-Results-Students-Well- being-Volume-III-Overview.pdf. OECD. (2017). Education at a glance 2017: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing. Orwell, G. (1946). Politics and the English language and other essays. London: Horizon. Punakallio, E., & Dervin, F. (2015). The best and most respected teachers in the world? Counter-narratives about the ‘Finnish miracle of education’ in the press. Power and Education 7(3), 306–321. Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons. What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Columbia University. Sahlberg, P. (2017). FinnishED leadership: Four big, inexpensive ideas to trans- form education. New York: Corwin Press. Sahlberg, P. (2018, March 3). Teachers need a sense of mission, empathy and leadership. The Conversation (Z. Zhuoying). Available at https://www.jiemo- dui.com/N/90187. Schatz, M. (2016a). Education as Finland’s hottest export? A multi-faceted case study on Finnish national education export policies. Helsinki: University of Helsinki Press. Schatz, M. (2016b). Engines without fuel?—Empirical findings on Finnish higher education institutions as education exporters. Policy Futures in Education, 14(3), 392–408. Schatz, M., Popovic, A., & F. Dervin (2015). From PISA to national brand- ing: Exploring Finnish education®. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(2), 172–184. Scott, D., Posner, C. M., Martin, C., & Guzman, E. (2015). Interventions in education systems: Reform and development. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Simola, H., Bernelius, V., Vartiainen, H., Paakkari, A., Norola, M., Juvonen, S., et al. (2015). Hyvin toimivan lähikoulun salaisuus (Well functioning secrets about neighbouring schools). In J. Kulonpalo (Ed.), Työkaluja metropolialueen kehittämiseen. Kaupunkitutkimus ja metropolipolitiikka—ohjelma 2010–2015 (Tools for developing metropolitan areas. Urban research and Program 2010– 2015 for metropolitan politics ). Helsinki: Helsingin kaupungin tietokeskus. Simola, H., Kauko, J., Varjo, J., Kalalahti, M., & Sahlstrom, F. (2017). Dynamics in education politics: Understanding and explaining the Finnish case. London: Routledge.

28    Y. Li and F. Dervin Simpson, A., & Dervin, F. (2017). Speaking from the stomach? Ventriloquised ethnocentrisms about Finnish education. Educational Practice and Theory, 39(1), 5–29. Sitra. (2015). https://www.sitra.fi/en/news/finnish-education-based-meeting- yesterdays-standards/. Slaughter, S. (2014). Foreword. In B. Cantwell & I. Kauppinen (Eds.). Academic capitalism in the age of globalization (pp. vii–x). Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.

2 Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context CPD as a Polysemic Idea In this chapter, we navigate through the ways Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has been discussed, problematized and defined in research. First, we notice that the available literature derives mostly from English-speaking contexts (North America, the United Kingdom and Australia). Second there appears to be a long list of models of CPD dating back to the end of the 1970s. Third, a vast array of words and phrases are used to refer to CPD. In English, the following words are synonymous with CPD (amongst others): in-service training, in-service education and staff development. In Finnish, many different phrases are used to refer to Teacher CPD: opettajien ammatillinen täydennyskoulu- tus (most frequently used: teacher professional development training), opettajien ammattitaidon kehittäminen (teacher professional competence development), opettajien jatkuva ammatillinen kehittäminen (teacher continuous professional development), and opettajien ammatillinen jatkokoulutus (teacher professional continuous training). The words used in Finnish comprise: development (kehittäminen ), complement/ © The Author(s) 2018 29 Y. Li and F. Dervin, Continuing Professional Development of Teachers in Finland, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95795-1_2

30    Y. Li and F. Dervin supplement (täydennys ) and advanced training (jatkokoulutus ).1 In the discussions we had with decision-makers and practitioners for this book, no one seemed to make a difference between these terms. As Craft (1996: 5) argues, traditionally both in-service training and a need for professional development have often been taken as a matter of voluntary commitment or seen as appropriate for those with career ambitions by teachers and decision-makers. However, in complex times like ours, CPD should be a must for every single educator, especially as the idea of the ‘life-long learning’ of teachers has gained ground glob- ally. For Helin (2014: 86), CPD should be a continuation of ITT. To start with, it is important to say that the term Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seems to be defined and understood somewhat differently depending on the context in which it is used (Guskey 2002; Avalos 2011). It can also have very different forms. In the Finnish context, there seems to be no ‘official’ definition proposed by decision-makers, researchers or teachers themselves. In Aspfors’s (2012) study on teachers’ induction in Finland, CPD often just refers to post-initial teacher education. Often, in this context, unrelated and inconsistent one-off events constitute the main approach to CPD (Aspfors 2012). In the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (known as TALIS, 2013 and 2018) that offers an opportunity for teachers and school leaders to share their experiences of education, CPD is under- stood as follows (2009: 49): Professional development is defined as activities that develop an individu- al’s skills, knowledge, expertise and other characteristics as a teacher. In their broad definition, TALIS covers formal and informal ways of developing as teachers (ibid.): (structured activities) courses/ 1From a multilingual perspective, it is interesting to note that in Chinese, there are also different terms used to refer to CPD: CPD (专业持续发展), teacher continuing education (教师继续教 育), teacher in-service training (教师在职培训), etc. Although there does not seem to be a clear distinction between the Chinese terms, there is an indication that they differ in terms of length and engagement.

2  Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context    31 workshops, education conferences or seminars, qualification pro- grammes, observation visits to other schools, participation in a teach- ers’ network, individual or collaborative research, mentoring and/or peer observation and coaching; (less formal activities) reading profes- sional literature, engaging in informal dialogue with peers (ibid.: 50). In their short study of CPD in Finland, Guiden and Brennan (2017) note the following forms of CPD: compulsory training, voluntary training and informal training (e.g. conversations and engagement with other teachers). Niemi (2015) refers to these as being a more holistic approach to CPD. In this study, we concentrate on structured activities (compulsory and voluntary training) for the following reasons: (1) As we shall see in the next chapter, the Finnish State invests millions of euros every year in teachers’ CPD but there is a lack of research on the forms of CPD tak- ing place or the influence it has on teachers. We also feel it is i­mportant to examine the structure of formal CPD offerings, which can inform us (indirectly) of the current burning issue of inclusion and social jus- tice in education, from a broad perspective (regional disparity, teachers’ empowerment, amongst others). (2) Many studies have been published on initial teacher education in Finland, but very little on CPD in this context. It is thus time to examine this important aspect of teachers’ work. (3) Theoretically and in accordance with Villegas-Reimers (2003: 11–12), amongst others, CPD is “a long-term process that includes reg- ular opportunities and experiences planned systematically to promote growth and development in the profession.” Teaching practices and stu- dent learning are more likely to be transformed by professional devel- opment that is sustained, coherent, and intense (Supovitz et al. 2000; Weiss and Pasley 2006). (4) Although we recognize the positive influence of informal activities for CPD, municipalities and schools have a duty in Finland to provide educators with opportunities for CPD every year. As we shall see, the reforms related to the new core curriculum of 2014 in Finland, have added to the stress levels and needs for teachers’ devel- opment. The current rhetoric of ‘teachers’ autonomy’ and ‘research- based’ approaches in Finland, appear unsustainable when teachers are required to be able to work across disciplines, systematically use ICT,

32    Y. Li and F. Dervin change the way they fit in the school community, etc. In Heikkinen et al.’s (2015) study on CPD in Finland, one teacher who took part in their interviews explains: Teachers’ autonomy does not just mean freedom, but also responsibility and an obligation to develop as a teacher. The Importance of Long-Term Reflexivity in CPD It is important to note, first of all, that teachers’ development dif- fers from one teacher to another and from one context to another. Furthermore, and in agreement with Feiman-Nemser (2001: 1042), “professional development should be built into the ongoing work of teaching and relate to teachers’ questions and concerns”. According to Stoll et al. (2012), CPD should encompass both intel- lectual and personal aspects: teachers engage with new ideas, try out new things and, probably most importantly, they are enabled to chal- lenge their own beliefs. Furthermore, effective CPD needs to be “teacher led, linked to pupil learning, grounded in reflection, a sus- tained cooperative effort and embedded in institutional development” (Schollaert 2011: 26). For Huhtala and Vesalainen (2017: 74) “Without a proper plan, in-service training can be experienced as being fragmen- tary, non-systematic and even unnecessary”. It is also important to note that formal CPD that relies on the simple transmission of information does not correspond to deep teacher learning and potential change in the classroom and beyond (Bausmith and Barry 2011). Reflection should thus be central to CPD and post-CPD. Lempert- Shepell (1995: 434) defines reflection as “the ability to make one’s own behaviour an object of study: To manage it via the ability to regard one- self as the ideal other”. Teachers’ change relies on their capacity to reflect during and after CPD. For Girvan, Conneely and Tangney (2016), a lot of CPD is thus theoretically based on experiential learning (e.g. prob- lem and inquiry-based learning) derived from classics such as Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky.

2  Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context    33 Huber (2012: 840–841) presents multiple approaches to learning in CPD including: courses (external/in-house), self-study (textbooks/soft- ware), concrete experiences (simulation/practice), collegial exchange (learning communities/networks), reflection and planning (portfolio), feedback (self-assessment). We should note at this stage that systematic evaluation tools of the impact of Professional Development on teachers are lacking (Huber, ibid.)—e.g. development of reflexivity. Research on CPD The amount of research on CPD is comprehensive, especially in coun- tries such as the USA and the UK. Calderhead (1992: 3–10) overviewed the theoretical research perspectives of teachers’ professional develop- ment as follows: Socialisation into the professional culture The development of knowledge and skills The moral dimension of teaching The personal dimension of teaching The reflective dimension. Historically, the interest in teachers’ experiences can be traced back already to Fuller’s (1969) classic stage theory, where teacher develop- ment is identified through a three-stage model of teacher concerns. This chronological and accumulative stage model consists of self concerns (concerns in relation to survival as teachers), task concerns (performance as teachers) and impact concerns (influence on their pupils). Accordingly, when teachers start their career they are mostly concerned with them- selves. They are, in other words, self-oriented as their attention is turned inward. As they become more experienced, they turn their attention outward to instructional techniques and pupils’ progress. Fuller (ibid.) claimed that a teacher could not move to the next stage of concern

34    Y. Li and F. Dervin without first solving the concern of the previous stage. There are a num- ber of other teacher development theories including Burden (1982), Dubble (1998), Katz (1972), Watts (1980), each of which is an offshoot of the original work in this field by Fuller. All these present different stages in teachers’ development paths. As one example, one could mention how Craft (1996: 168) argues that it is possible to generalise certain stages in the career of a teacher: On entry into teaching (induction phase) On re-entry to teaching after a break (induction phase) Preparing for increased responsibility (preparation phase) Shortly after assuming increased responsibility (development phase) After a substantial number of years in a similar post (review/audit phase). In the EU, there is an emphasis on the fact that teachers’ professional development should be supported through a 3-phase model: Initial teacher education, induction (for new teachers, 3–5 years after graduation), and in-service teacher education. This continuum should support teachers’ career-long development (Niemi 2015: 280). In Finland, although there are currently discussions about generalizing teachers’ induction, at pres- ent, these different stages are not taken into account. Many scholars have described the gap between initial teacher education and induction as real- ity shock (Jokinen et al. 2005), transition shock (Corcoran, 1981), or cul- ture shock (Wideen et al. 1998). In Finland, Aspfors (2012: 6) notes: Some teachers may be welcomed with an information folder about the prac- tices of the school or directed to a web page containing such necessary infor- mation, while others might be offered the opportunity to participate in an introduction meeting for a couple of days. The main emphasis is usually on the adaptation to the work community rather than on professional develop- ment aspects. Therefore, this kind of orientation or introduction should not be mistaken for comprehensive support in the form of induction. Aspfors (2012: 12) lists the following reasons why CPD induction pro- grammes are lacking in the Nordic country: “the result of a relatively

2  Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context    35 high teacher status, high numbers of teacher applicants, good PISA results and a long and research-based teacher education.” Since the end of the 1990s, research has defined a new paradigm for professional development—one that rejects the ineffective ‘one- shot’ workshop model of the past in favour of more powerful oppor- tunities (e.g. Stein et al. 1999). In general, professional development is viewed to be more effective when schools approach it not in isolation but rather as a coherent part of a school effort (Darling-Hammond 2009). Research on effective professional development also highlights the importance of collaborative and collegial learning environments that help develop communities of practice able to promote school change beyond individual classrooms (Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin 1995; Perez et al. 2007). Finally, the concept of ‘capacity building’ is central to professional development (Fullan 2005). It is about developing collective ability, i.e. dispositions, skills, knowledge, motivation and resources (ibid.). At a very general level it means acting together and bringing about positive change to schools, to change something in the way work is carried out within the professional communities, how to develop teachers’ compe- tencies. Thus, it is about making a change in the school cultures. CPD in Finland: Not Enough Research How could a system of education like Finland, revered around the world, survive and succeed with what appears to be a ‘jungle’? In this book, we examine this silenced Achilles’ heel of Finnish edu- cation, with an emphasis on basic education—the level covered by PISA studies. This is to our knowledge one of the rare publications on CPD in the Finnish context. Only two evaluations of CPD, written in Finnish, were identi- fied: Korkeakoski’s (1999) evaluation of the effectiveness of CPD on the utilisation of information technology, development of teaching of mathematics and natural sciences, development of language teaching and of teaching in a foreign language, education related to vocational

36    Y. Li and F. Dervin qualifications, and the development of social skills and remedial teach- ing, and Lehtola and Wilen’s (2010) survey on teachers’ perceptions of CPD in the Regions of Southern Finland. Other reports concerning government initiatives have also been published (e.g. Hämäläinen and Hämäläinen 2011; Kangasoja 2017) and will be used in this book. In terms of international scientific publications, only four articles dedicated to the topic in the Finnish context seem to be available— which is very surprising considering the ‘fame’ of Finnish teachers around the world. Geeraerts et al. (2015) examine how the recent and popular method of teacher peer-group mentoring contributes to CPD of teachers in Finland. This ‘method’, as we shall see, is becoming more common in Finland as a form of CPD and as a substitute for more for- mal CPD. Based on a survey of teachers in Finland, the authors claim that the participants experienced mentoring positively. The review arti- cle “Teacher Professional Development in Finland: Towards a More Holistic Approach” by Niemi (2015), presents new ways of doing in-service training in Finland beyond ‘formal’ CPD (“teachers as devel- opers in the whole school community”), devoting a lot of the paper to teacher mentoring in the induction period (straight after ITT). “(CPD) of Finnish primary school teachers – potential lessons to be learned for Ireland” by Guiden and Brennan (2017) examines three different forms of CPD in Finland, teachers’ perceptions of CPD and reflects on the lessons Ireland could learn from the Finnish CPD context. We note that this second publication relies on somewhat outdated information about CPD in Finland. For example, the authors explain that CPD is provided by “universities, polytechnics and OPEKO”, while polytech- nics and OPEKO, the former nation Center for CPD, have ceased to exist in the Nordic country (ibid.: 42). Finally, Huhtala and Vesalainen’s (2017) article is based on an empirical study of the challenges of a three-year CPD course for teachers of Swedish in Finland, sponsored by the NAE. Unlike the official discourse used by some education export- ers, they discovered that teachers are not willing to cooperate with each other, some are hesitant and passive to explore ‘modern’ teaching methods (with e.g. the use of ICT) and some of the teachers’ language skills left to be desired. They suggest that research-based planning and

2  Framing CPD to Understand and Explore the Finnish Context    37 implementation of CPD should occur and that it should relate directly to the individual needs of the teachers, every day work and school real- ity. The teachers explained that they need and want more CPD, espe- cially relevant to their own subject (Swedish). Interestingly a similar limited number of articles on CPD has emerged from China. Like many other countries, China seems to have ‘fallen in love’ with Finnish education. Yearly many visitors come to Finland to observe the schools and talk to educators, teacher educators and decision-makers. Finns are also very active in travelling to China to ‘sell’ their education. In their article ‘Education is a life marathon rather than a hundred-meter race’: Chinese ‘folk’ comparative discourses on Finnish education’, Liu and Dervin (2016) examine a range of books about Finnish education published in China for a general rather than narrowly specialist readership. They show how certain images and myths about it and what these tell us about how the authors view Chinese education but also current societal discussions about it. These publica- tions illustrate very well the overreliance on official discourses emerging from Finland and selective observations in ‘model’ schools in Finland. Chinese research on the professional development of teachers in Finland and in-service training of teachers is somewhat scarce. Through the China Knowledge Resource Integrated Database (CNIKI database), the keywords “Finnish teacher training/education”, “Finnish teacher in-service training”, 5 research articles were identified.2 Wang Bo (2013) introduces the professional development plan of the In-service Training for Physics Teachers Project (ITPT) in Finland. The program aims to enrich teachers’ knowledge of disciplines, practice experimen- tal teaching methods and construct teaching concepts for individual 2The database returned many reports written by teachers and principals who had visited Finnish schools. Here are examples of report titles, which give an indication of the overly positive content: 创世界最佳教育模式 芬兰是如何做到的 (How Finland Achieves the Best Educational Model in the World); 最好的教育,最好的人生—芬兰教育考察报告 (The Best Education, the Best Life—Report on Education in Finland); 让每一个生命绽放光华—芬兰教育成功因素探析 (Let Every Life Blossom Brilliantly—An Analysis of the Success Factors of Finnish Education); 最优秀最自由最幸福的芬兰教师 (The Best, Freest, and Happiest: Teachers in Finland).

38    Y. Li and F. Dervin teachers. The program includes face-to-face and remote assistance and collaborative reflection learning modes, including lectures, seminars and practices. Wang Liying (2005) presents the operation of in-service train- ing of bilingual teachers in a city of Finland and details the role played by the university’s continuing education center in the in-service training of teachers. Song Baoping (2013), through his own inspection of the training courses of Helsinki University Teachers’ Continuing Education Center, discusses teacher in-service training from the perspectives of training features, curricula and operation methods. The relatively com- prehensive and detailed study by Li Li and Chen Shiming (2013) exam- ines the provision of in-service training programs for teachers in Finland as well the organization and implementation of the curriculum. They also point out the shortcomings of in-service training of Finnish teach- ers, that is, the tradition of self-evaluation lacks accreditation procedures and standards set by the government. Furthermore, the scholars argue that the government should provide high-quality assessment standards for in-service education and training of teachers. The article by Liu and Zhang (2017) is by far the most critical. The scholars compare teacher professional development data from Shanghai and Finland in the TALIS studies and found that due to strict selec- tion and high quality, Finnish teacher education has obvious advan- tages. At the same time, CPD activities in Finland pay more attention to the application of technologies for information and communication, the teaching of special needs students and multicultural education. However, a lack of motivation and conflicts with working hours, a lack of financial support, and of professional development opportunities provided by schools are noted by Liu and Zhang. Although these studies are of interest, the authors tend to rely on sec- ond-hand data (literature reviews and official reports). There is a lack of direct dialogue and engagement with the leaders and providers of the actual training programs and teachers who are involved in the training. First-hand information is relatively lacking. Finally, the literature used tends to be in English or translations into Chinese, which means that these scholars miss out on vital information only available in Finnish or Swedish.

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