What does school leadership look like in Finland? Tapio Lahtero shares his perspective on what it was like to lead schools with well-prepared but highly autonomous educators through the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The first part of this three-part interview focuses on how the schools he leads responded to the initial shift to remote learning and accelerated the development of the digital competence of the whole staff. The second and third parts highlight how the schools continued to carry out their key role as teacher training institutions during the pandemic, describes how the schools have addressed concerns about students’ mental health and learning, and discusses the progress and prospects of major reform initiatives to support more “phenomenon-based learning” and improve the matriculation exams in Finland.
Lahtero serves as the Administrative Principal of both Teacher Training Schools of the University of Helsinki – Viikki Teacher Training School and Helsinki Normal School. He also leads the principal training program of the University of Helsinki and has written extensively on issues of leadership in Finland. This post is one part of a continuing series looking at aspects of schooling and education that are and are not changing following the school closures in different education systems. For more from the series, see “What can change in schools after the pandemic?” and “ We will now resume our regular programming“. Previous interviews and posts have also looked at developments in the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Finland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Vietnam.
Thomas Hatch (TH): Your official appointment is at the University of Helsinki, where you are the administrator in charge of the two teacher training schools that are part of the University of Helsinki’s Teacher Education Program, can you tell me how this is organized? Who do you report to?
Tapio Lahtero (TL): This is a bit unusual, but the principals of the two training schools report to me; I report to the Dean of the University of Helsinki and also directly to the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance provide funds directly to the two schools. The system isn’t that they give money to the university, and the university gives it to us. The funds come directly from the Ministry. That’s why I report directly to the Ministry as well.
The Ministry of Education has different Departments – the Department of Higher Education, Department of Basic Education, Department of Upper Secondary School Education – and I cooperate with all of them. That’s because in our teacher training role we are part of higher education. But at the same time, we also are a normal neighborhood school for Helsinki pupils, and I need to talk with the Department of Basic Education too.
TH: I’m particularly interested in how schools in different education systems responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. I understand the Ministry made the initial decision to close the schools early in the pandemic, but can you tell me about how schools in Finland responded?
TL: I think we were quite successful in Finland in dealing with the COVID situation, and one reason is the high level of autonomy for municipalities, principals, and teachers. We didn’t wait for commands from the Ministry. The situation was so complicated that I don’t believe it was even possible to give instructions to everybody at once in a short time. I know in many parts of the world, principals waited, and they
waited and waited practically until COVID was over. But in Finland, we transformed our system overnight.
I know in many parts of the world principals waited, and they waited and waited practically until COVID was over. But in Finland, we transformed our system overnight.
Of course, there were some differences. Some municipalities and schools performed well, but some municipalities struggled to find effective solutions. What are the reasons we had these differences? One reason for the differences is resources. For instance, in our teacher training schools, we could give every student their own laptops the day before the closures. And then the next day, the school continued with a “normal” day, but we were online. We had exactly the same lessons, timetables, lunch breaks,
everything.
TH: But the decision to close was made at the national level, wasn’t it?
TL: We knew this decision was coming, but, at that moment, it was really up to us to decide whether or how to get every student a laptop. If you wait until you know the decision will come, then it is too late to do any radical things. You are ready or you are not ready. That means whatever you did two years before is really crucial. For the schools and municipalities that had developed ICT-based pedagogies and had invested in devices in earlier years, closing the next day wasn’t a big issue. We were in a hurry, and it was hard work, and it was mentally challenging, but we didn’t encounter major problems. However, the municipalities that had not done their homework, or who felt this ICT-pedagogy is too difficult or these devices are too expensive, they had problems because in one week, in one month, you can’t do any miracles. It’s not possible. I know that in some places in Finland the teachers had to write the assignments on paper, and then walk around the municipality and deliver them to the students. But of course, with a high level of autonomy, quite soon they developed their systems. For example, they used mobile phones; they used applications like WhatsApp, which may not be ideal normally but were okay for the COVID situation.
If you wait until you know the decision will come, then it is too late to do any radical things. You are ready or you are not ready… in one week, in one month, you can’t do any miracles.
Also, in our school in Viikki, our first and second graders they hardly know how to read, so they barely know how to open or use the computer for online learning. So when we knew the schools were going to close, that same day, I sent our secretaries to buy “good-enough” mobile phones for our first and second-grade teachers, and they used Whatsapp to start to contact the students and their parents, and during the first week, they met all students and parents via mobile phone. They taught the parents to use the computers and after one or two weeks, the students also knew how to open their computers and see their classmates. It was easier with the older students of course.
It was not a happy time, but we didn’t have huge problems, because we had resources and we had worked hard for several years on our technology. We had bought the computers, but we had also adopted Office 365, and the teachers and the students knew how to use it. That all helped us.
If we hadn’t had a uniform approach, I think the situation would have been more catastrophic.
TH: You mentioned that you started this work with technology several years before the pandemic. Did you do that in response to the push for digital competency as part of the curriculum reform in 2016? It wasn’t specifically intended for emergencies or crises, was it?
TL: That’s right. We’ve been developing our digital systems for some time. This is quite funny now, but when we started to buy computers; when we started to train our teachers; and when we started to use Office 365, we ran into many difficulties. Some of our teachers liked it. Some of them didn’t like it. They said “I have my own system; I hate this Office 365. I don’t think this ICT-based pedagogy is very good. I don’t want to learn it…” But, of course, we had some teachers who liked it and who had really high-level skills. As principals, year after year, we tried to build professional learning communities so teachers could learn from each other and share materials. But the results were very small. Changing school culture is not easy. But then COVID came along, and I am a bit bitter because this small virus without a brain was better than I was at changing school culture, and I was supposed to be the expert!
From the beginning of COVID, what happened was that the teachers started to self-organize; they started to give each other advice; they started to ask for help; they started to meet online and share materials; and they started to learn how to use these devices better than before. During this first couple of months during COVID, there was much more of this activity than there was before that. As the administrative principal in charge of the two schools, I had bought devices; I had chosen Office 365; I had ordered some training sessions; I had asked some teachers to help their colleagues; But looking back, I think I had done a good job as the manager, but this small virus did better work as a leader than I had.
Looking back, I think I had done a good job as the manager, but this small virus did better work as a leader than I had.
Organizational research says that in institutions like schools very strong reforms don’t take place without some crisis. Before COVID, some teachers would give reasons why they couldn’t use technology, but they knew and I knew that the real reason was because they did not have the skills and did not want to develop them. It was like we all knew a secret, but we couldn’t say it out loud. But now after COVID, all our teachers have good enough skills with ICT-based pedagogy, and they can make pedagogical
decisions about whether or not to use technology.
TH: Isn’t the “Finnish Way” to have the teachers involved in the decisions about how to implement the curriculum reforms and whether to adopt Office 365 or other platforms and tools and to come to some consensus?
TL: Normally, municipalities have their autonomy, and the municipalities make these kinds of decisions. But we are not run by a municipality, so it needs to be my decision. Of course, we had prepared, and we had a long process where we asked all the teachers for their input. But even before that process, we knew more than half of the teachers would have to change their systems, whatever platform we chose. If we didn’t make the decision, then we would have a fragmented system. Before this decision, our students had to sign into different systems several times a day, and it caused problems with their personal laptops, so I thought we had to pick one platform.
TH: What’s the legacy of this decision and the uses of technology during the pandemic? You said your teachers now have the skills to use digital pedagogy more effectively. But are they using that pedagogy? Or have they just gone back to teaching the way they were before?
TL: That is an interesting question. I don’t know if we are using technology more effectively now. It also depends exactly what we are talking about. For example, now we digital materials, so we have a paper book and the same book digitally with videos and audio. Now, my question is, what happens with pedagogy? And I’m very skeptical. In my school, I think that teachers can use paper books just as effectively as digital materials. But digital environments, like Office 365, and digital tools are more interesting. Now all our teachers use this digital environment, because it’s easy, and it gives more time for more important things; and our students learn how to work in this kind of digital environment. Then also, in different subjects, teachers use digital methods, and didactics, and materials, and that is okay.
But the question for me, as the principal, is should I control that? I’ve even told one history teacher I hope you don’t use a lot of digital tools, because this teacher is very talented at telling stories. Students love these stories, and they love history as a subject. Why should I, as the principal, tell him to use digital tools and stop telling stories? The question isn’t how much do teachers use technology, the question is what do students learn? So not every teacher in every subject needs to use these tools in the same way.
“Why should I, as the principal, tell him to use digital tools and stop telling stories? The question isn’t how much do teachers use technology, the question is what do students learn?“
TH: Anything else you want to add about your leadership during COVID?
TL: Well, I don’t think it’s possible for the organization to operate in different ways at different levels. If I, as the principal, ask teachers to use ICT-based pedagogies, but I don’t use it, then it’s a paradox. COVID helped us because we changed all our meetings– our teacher meetings, our team meetings, our leadership meetings – to using Office 365, and then even after COVID, we continued using these kinds of tools. Now I can say that our whole organization, not only at the pedagogical level but also at the administrative level, works at a new way. But before COVID, we really hadn’t used Office 365 for administration before that. Maybe that’s one reason why I wasn’t so successful before this little COVID guy forced me to work in a new way.
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