Contribution of Finnish society to pursuit of interests and dreams

This is the bit that I really struggled - I know too little about Finnish society to say anything meaningful perhaps, but I have still thought about some observations I had through my own eyes and other people's lenses.

Firstly, I can see the Finnish society provides the necessary foundation for the flourishing art and culture industry.

• strong social welfare that removes a lot of economic and financial worries and anxiety behind innovation, which is high risk investment. The costs and disincentives of creative endeavours are reduced. This is the MOST important factor I think - people's livelihood is not threatened or undermined or prejudiced by doing what they want to do. (this is also possible only because the population is very small for a country of the size of Finland - only 5 million)
  
• a multicultural society that already exists - this is a controversial statement, certainly not to the same extent as London, and most Finnis would seem to disagree with this, but I found the atmosphere in creative industries pervasive, for example. There are enough people to appreciate the diversity - something akin to a cultivated civil society.
• equality between jobs – different occupations are respected in their own right. There is less pressure to do some kinds of jobs than in many other places. this leads to a more even distribution of manpower and financial resources.
• society values the individual – respect what each individual thinks and wants to do. less family pressure or pressure from social norms.
• education promotes freedom and liberty in students’ development from an early age. students have always been encouraged to think for themselves. There is a City architecture project for children, and they apparently adopted children's proposal for building a prominent city building. That sounds like incredulous confidence in children, but that says quite a lot. Regrettably I didnt manage to find out more about this when I was in helsinki.

Secondly, there is some contribution from the 'Finnish character' if there is any such thing (which I believe there is).

• honest and serious worker who only wants to do the job well. It might initially sound a very plain irrelevant statement, but that actually makes a HUGE difference. I strongly get the impression most people in Finland (except the drunken) had a serious attitude to what they did as a living in respect of the SUBJECT MATTER itself, rather than treating jobs as a means to earning money.
  
• don’t like money, just for fun - thats what someone wrote and told me before. I also got that impression from the Finnish guide who led me to wonderful tours at EXTREMELY LOW PRICES with a meagre profit )

Contribution of the education system

The education system promotes the development of interests and pursuit of dreams in these three ways:
A. FREEDOM OF CHOICE B. EQUALITY C. FIRM, FERTILE GROUND
A. The system gives students plenty of choice in encouraging their development.

• diversity of subjects in the curriculum – broad range of choices for them to dabble in and try out. I have shown just bits of the system really, but one gets the idea that secondary school is like university - students have SO MUCH CHOICE re learning literally what they like.

• the inspiring and liberal teaching approach - "first the forest, then the trees" (see the section on 'interest development' for more details on my discovery!) – Yolanda Chen introduced this concept which I find as well a very accurate description! Basically they show the students the whole picture before going down to details and honing their skills too early.

This encourages the students to explore their own way of learning their subjects, without so much discipline and control in ensuring precision when they are getting started. Students are more likely to keep up and further develop their interests. The more advanced and rigorous training can be reserved for those who are determined and interested to go further.

• postponing the streaming, and introducing flexibility and reversibility in the decisions young people have to make. Students DON'T HAVE TO SACRIFICE AND GIVE UP THEIR INTERESTS BEFORE THEY ARE OLD ENOUGH TO TELL WHAT THEIR INTERESTS REALLY ARE!

• young people are encouraged to have a balanced life with lots of ‘hobbies’. They don’t consider the sports or music as rigid training purely for the sake of cultivating their abilities or ‘talents’ in those areas. Rather, they aim to help the people to enjoy and learn in a relaxed manner, and ultimately to incorporate their areas of interests as part of their lives. This turns on the purpose and attitude in pursuing their interests – it is not for the sake of standing out from others, but for the genuine love of their hobbies. (See Julius's case for instance)

• Individual fine tuning and attention – allowing students to learn at their own pace and the curriculum and learning materials are designed for individual students.



- Encourage independent learning and thinking AND ACQUISITION of knowledge and skills - Teachers don’t give them the answers, but they help them to find the answers for themselves. (don’t give them the fish, but teach them how to fish – this way the next generation of fishermen have the ability to explore uncharted waters and go to greater lengths and depths) They are more likely to find their own worlds this way in my opinion. (See independence)

• Actual subject called Student counselling which includes classes and individual sessions with students from Grades 7 to 9 (Forms 1 to 3) to tell them what sort of options are available to them, and help them work out what to do (primarily choose between high school and technical schools). There is also one week of compulsory work experience with enterprises in the real world (organised with the help of the school). This makes the options in society known to young people in time for them to make plans for themselves – options only mean something if they are known to our next generation, and they have reasonable chance of working towards it.



B. education values: equality; respect for every child and free education for all

• no child is left behind – free education for all means every child can in theory have access to good school education irrespective of their family backgrounds and financial situation. Talented children do not lag behind because of a competition at the starting point. The philosophy behind this is that the government believes they cannot afford to lose any member of the society. Teachers IN GENERAL don't seem to think there are bad students in Finland (only with one exception from my experience)

• RESPECT THE INDIVIDUAL - the individual ability, potential, thoughts, interests of each child are respected. they are encouraged to think for themselves, independently and critically from very early on. They are not meant to walk the paths already explored by the previous generations – they are meant to find out what they like themselves or their own way of going about things, and do as they wish.

• To look at this from another perspective - the philosophy of no child left behind taken further: the interests, needs and dreams of children are respected, and the society and education system try to facilitate their all-round development to the extent possible for the individuals.

• comparison is not encouraged, so students do not easily feel frustrated when they don’t initially excel or master their interests. Students are encouraged to learn at their own pace, and not rushed or pushed much when they are young. Benefits of small class teaching.



C. The education system has plenty of resources and has a firm legal basis to ensure that everyone is capable of working towards these ideals.

I certainly acknowledge the decisiveness of money as a factor.
• education expenditure occupied 6.5% of GDP. Lots of resources were devoted to the system.

• various pieces of legislation to secure the quality and rights of free education for all

• teachers’ masters qualifications (either in education or their own respective subjects). the teachers themselves set good role models for lifelong learning – always enrolled in postgraduate courses during vacation time. there is in-service training as well.

Finnish society and education --> Dreams??

I already feel incredibly ashamed how i have been doing many other things all these months but write up my report and learn a bit more ... (and feeling legitimately excused because of my busy life with all the tutorials and seminars and exams lol) but since I have an opportunity now timewise and after I have unleashed my emotions, I'll write a concluding entry about my understanding after this brief investigation - that is -

my understanding of the original hypothesis I wanted to look into:

How does the Finnish education system and society help their young people to pursue their interests and dreams?

Whilst I'm afraid I still don't have a very simple and conclusive answer (which i dont think exists anyway), I have concluded my thoughts as follows. I have written a report initially which presented an overview. I by no means claim that Finland does this better than anyone else, but I just thought given how well it has done in the general tests and surveys, I wondered if it was equally good in THIS RESPECT.

Please see the following two entries: Contribution of education and Contribution of society.

Finnish education project – Keeping Dreams Alive (Overview)

I was inspired to undertake this mini research project primarily because I felt dismayed by the constraints within the society and education system of Hong Kong that have stifled the development of young people and cultural industries. Few people seem to be able to keep up their interests in life or, in slightly cheesy language, hold on to their dreams. This has led to a rather narrow society excessively focused on its financial system, unnecessarily at the expense of its many cultural talents who would have provided valuable input to our economy, as we have seen a thriving world art market notwithstanding the recent financial turmoil. I believe that we need a better education to help more young people in Hong Kong to pursue their dreams and create a more diverse society, and therefore have set off to find some insights as to how this could be done.



With thanks to the Oxford and Cambridge Society of Hong Kong, I paid a visit to Finland—the ‘Daughter of the Baltic Sea’(as you can see in the map in the picture above, it does look like a maiden with one arm), a country not only strewn with 180,000 lakes and a myriad forests but also one with a cultural appeal as it has given birth to talents such as Jean Sibelius, a classical music master, Alvar Aalto, a leading architect and designer, Tove Jansson, the author of the Moomin Valley series, Lordi, a rock band with its debut ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’ winning the 2006 Eurovision Song contest, the Helsinki Design District, etc. It has also come top in growth competitiveness four times in this decade, although it was one of the poorest European countries fifty years ago. Most importantly, it has one of the best education systems in the world according to the last three PISA studies (although the two recent shooting incidents have been alarming). The combination of a prospering culture and a developed education system would explain why I felt the ‘call’ of the home of Nokia. Whilst I appreciate the creative capacity of Finns largely stems from the prior flourishing culture, I believe that its education system has played an important role in generating the right people in order to maintain this continuity.



I visited three schools in Helsinki and Salo (Meilahden ala-aste, Meilahden ylaasteen koulu, and Moision Koulu) to see for myself how students learn there. I had an interview with Mr. Reijo Laukanen, an education expert who has advised the Finnish National Board of Education for three decades, and with Yolanda Chen, a Taiwanese author who has recently written book about the Finnish education system. I also found out a bit about the cultural industries in operation by talking to artists. After my research and personal experiences through these visits and interviews, I have consolidated and summarised my findings and thoughts as follows. For more details and case studies, please see the posts under category Finnish education project.

To say a few words about the Finnish education system in general, Finland has a highly developed philosophy about people and education which is commendably put into practice. The society values its every member and believes that the education should leave no child behind. There is one socio-economic reason behind this: Finland only has a population of 5 million people and its economy needs everyone. In practice, this means free education for all, including immigrants and international students, with free books and even free school lunch. This entails substantial state input which amounted to 6.5% of the GDP. More astonishingly, unlike England for example, state education is very strong and attains a very high average standard, with a deviation in school performance of less than 5% (PISA), while private education only plays a residual role. Students of different abilities are mixed in comprehensive schools without any banding system. The only streaming and entrance tests are based on the learning needs of students, for example, those with special educational needs or international students who need a different language instruction or an international curriculum. All teachers are required to be holders of masters degrees. Teaching profession is highly competitive as only one in ten applicants gets teacher training, although the pay is not very good at all. Students with poor family backgrounds can have access to good education and are just as capable of developing their potential fully. This is achieved by a firm legal basis under the Education Act.



The society of Finland helps its people to pursue their dreams in four main ways. Firstly, its culture has an established tradition in art and music which creates plenty of space for creative endeavours, and the state supports such industries. There is a Finnish Innovation Fund, Sitra set up by Parliament fifty years ago that provides funding for creative and high-tech industries, which is supplemented by Tekes, Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, the Academy of Finland, the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and Finpro. Finland invests around 3.4 per cent of the GDP in research and development.

Second, the social welfare system which takes up ¼ of the GDP provides security for people. This reduces the financial worries and costs in taking risks in innovative work which is often independently undertaken with little funding and uncertain returns. Third, society values equality and generally respects each occupation in its own right. Fourth, individual is the basic unit of society, which means they generally care more about what they themselves want to do, rather than what they ought to do under family pressure, for example. This aspect is a rather widespread attitude among Western countries.

The education system facilitates the development of the interests of young people in two main ways. Firstly, the system tries to get the most out of every child. It provides free, good education for all so that children’s potential is not compromised by sub-standard education or financial problems. Another distinctive feature is that it discourages competition and ranking when students are still developing until high school, which starts at Grade 10 and encourages every child to learn at their own pace without worrying about others. If a child finishes early, he moves on to the next task; conversely, it is ok for the kids to take their time. This is possible in the classroom with small class size. The underlying philosophy is every person learns differently, and speed is only a difference which is not a cause for celebration. As a result, students who don’t learn as fast are less likely to be discouraged.

Secondly, the system facilitates the development of interests and hobbies. The curriculum itself is very diverse and has a lot of options on the table. The state also supports further education in music, art, design, architecture, theatre, film and various technical industries. The general teaching approach seeks to inspire an interest in learning. As Yolanda Chen suggests metaphorically, teachers show the students ‘first the forest, and then the trees’—meaning that when students get started they dabble in subjects such as languages, art, music, woodwork, freely with hands-on work to explore for themselves, without much emphasis on honing the skills. For example, students learn to speak foreign languages well before they start to learn the grammar and play the instrument for fun before learning the theories. So students are more likely to enjoy what they learn and develop an interest and motivation, which will naturally lead to further pursuit. Interest comes before skill.

More importantly, children develop their hobbies and keep up what they like. It does not matter whether they excel; what matters is they enjoy it as their hobbies, which slowly incorporate into part of the lives of individuals, as well as the lifeblood of society. This is a key factor in developing cultural industries not only because people might develop their hobbies into their own professions, but also that a population of audience interested in art and culture is cultivated, which drives the demand for a flourishing culture.

The implications for Hong Kong are not entirely clear because of the different social and economic conditions here. Whilst reforms are under way, what we could learn from Finland is probably something quite simple, yet fundamental: to value the education of each and every child, and do it from our heart. In Finland, I was most impressed by the attitude of almost all sectors of the system: education board, schools, teachers, students, parents, publishers, political parties—it takes a concerted effort by different parties to create and sustain an excellent education system.