Picture: The Finnish people really enjoy family time, so to embrace the ideal here is my family relaxing on ice after a good day’s work in Helsinki.
What I know right now-I know that I continue to be in awe and at the same time overwhelmed by this Fulbright gift, and eager/excited to dive further into my project.
This past week I was invited to Helsinki to meet with the Fulbright Finland Foundation. Meeting with other Fulbright grantees provided access to some of the most respected educators within this country providing a stimulating arena for answering key questions about Finland’s educational system. Given that my focus is special education, as per the norm, my platform is special, and I have to find my way to get my specific questions answered, as they typically aren’t a part of the overall spiel. So in typical and uncomfortable Robyn fashion I spoke up not just in a staff meeting, but to some “higher ups” within the realm of the Finnish educational system.
This provided our group with many insights to the Finnish education system and has thus created a stronger foundation for this inquiry project. The Finnish Counselor of Education, Elija Kauppinen, responded to my questions about how students with special needs access the National Curriculum and I absolutely loved her response! “Teachers are not implementers of curriculum they are constant developers of curriculum. With this process all students have the opportunity to find their own potential.” Wow! How often I am conflicted back home with the given curriculum knowing full well that if I could tweak this and alter that then my student would have access to the meaningful components of what we are told to teach.
I then heard from Hanna Bjorkman the head of International Relations from the city of Helsinki who was so proud to share that in Finland the poorest child could have the best education. She continued to share that when former President Barack Obama came to Finland how he too was taken with this statement. It really resonated not just with me but every person in attendance of this conference. The big question is how can we shift our educational system to meet the needs of ALL of our nation’s children. When I have the answer to this million-dollar question I’ll be sure to shout it from the rooftops.
Finally I was able to speak with Maija Heikkila, A Fulbright Alumni who is a teacher at the University Teacher training School in Vikki, about how accommodations and modifications were made in Finland. She helped me to understand that plain and simple in Finland teachers are Trusted. This word trust has since come up again and again when meeting with educators throughout the country. This trust allows educators to do what they know to be best for their programs and for their students. Trust, such a simple word and yet so powerful. How can we as educators be trusted to make the multitude of decisions we make each day? In fact, I had just shared via email with one of my teacher candidates back home about this word trust. That she needed to trust that her instincts were right and that by sharing how she made these decisions perhaps her administrator would begin to trust thus understand and appreciate the multitude of decisions she made each day.
So I leave my educator friends and family members with this:
1. Trust that you know what you are doing and do it confidently, if you have trust then perhaps this will spread so more people trust you (us)
2. You are the developers of the curriculum-don’t implement but make it your own!
3. Teach each student because no matter their ability and/or background they absolutely deserve the very best.