Sustaining teacher education and supporting students’ mental health: Tapio Lahtero on the work of the principal in Finland during and after COVID (Part 2)

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 second part of this three-part interview describes how the schools he leads continued to carry out their key role as teacher training institutions and addressed concerns about students’ mental health. The first part of the interview concentrated on how the schools responded to the school closures and developed their digital competence (Leading when following is not required: Tapio Lahtero on the work of the principal in Finland during and after COVID (Part 1)). The third part of the interview will discuss the impact of the pandemic on student learning and the progress and prospects of Finland’s efforts to develop more “phenomenon-based learning” and to reform upper secondary matriculation exams.

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 what aspects of schooling and education 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): In the first part of our interview, you talked mostly about the shift to remote instruction and the development of digital competence among your staff during COVID with teachers, but your school is also a teacher training school. How did you have to change teacher education and the work with the practice teachers [pre-service teachers]?

Tapio Lahtero (TL): With teacher training we also continued in our normal way. The student teachers still observed lessons. They had a link so they could come and observe what happens in our virtual classroom. When the teachers and pupils worked in small groups in breakout rooms, the student teachers could join the breakout room and observe. The student teachers also had to do their own lessons, so we told them you have to learn how to use these devices and give your lessons virtually, and they would share their screen and work with the students in breakout rooms. After the lesson, the student teachers and our teachers had their feedback discussion, and we had group seminars with the student teachers and our teachers using Microsoft Teams. The student teachers sent their lesson plans via email, and after that they would have another Teams meeting to discuss how to improve their plans. It was all like before but online. And this all happened overnight, and we made sure that the student teachers could submit everything they had to for their programs on time. But it was not a rich enough experience for the student teachers, particularly in how to help them meet and create connection with students. I’m not happy when it comes to those kinds of things, but somehow it was quite unbelievable that we could really change our system. If I think about my leadership in that kind of crisis, the Finnish way to lead schools is to talk with teachers, trust them, ask for advice. But in that crisis, I needed to give straight orders, and the first order I gave is that nothing changes. Everything continues as normal, but I knew the teachers and staff struggled.

The Finnish way to lead schools is to talk with teachers, trust them, ask for advice. But in that crisis, I needed to give straight orders, and the first order I gave is that nothing changes. Everything continues as normal.

TH: Did you ever consider another option? Did you think about taking a week off to figure things out and then come back?  Why did you know that you had to continue this way?

TL: In Finland, we have very strong cultural reasons for keeping schools open.  Even with hospitals, it is possible to say that today we have big problems, and we can’t take patients.  But with schools, even during the Second World War and times of bombing in Helsinki and Turku, schools operated. Our role in school is to take care that our society works as normally as possible. I think that is the answer, because you can’t find any teacher or principal who could even think that “today we don’t have school.” For some reason, it’s not possible. I cannot think like that. I can think of one situation when I worked as the Superintendent of Basic Education in the city of Vantaa, when a school building burned down overnight. The morning after, the school was destroyed, and in that situation, we had one day without school. But the next day, we had school in some other buildings. That is the only exception I know. It is cultural. I know that in many countries, they just closed or waited. But in Finland, we have autonomy, and I think we have a climate where we should not be scared if we make mistakes. We continue.

Even during the Second World War and times of bombing in Helsinki and Turku, schools operated. Our role in school is to take care that our society works as normally as possible.

TH: What about your new teachers…The school had worked on digitization for two years, but you had new teachers. Did you have to do anything special to get them ready for digitization and the move to remote learning?

TL: After we had developed solid systems, all our administrative operations happen in Teams. Meetings occur in Teams; discussions in the teacher room happen in Teams; and various memos and materials are stored in Teams. Nowadays, when we have new teachers, the system is that they come to work in this digital environment.  It’s not something extra. Before, with new teachers, we had to tell them that we have this extra system, and we need to teach you how to use it, and we have to hope that they use it. But now, they cannot work here at all without using these digital environments. Now the landscape is very different too. Especially when we recruit younger teachers, they are already better using these tools.  It’s more natural now. It was trickier before we had a uniform system.

TH: Are there particular things that weren’t digital before but that are digital now? Do teachers still have some of their meetings online or digitally?

TL: We have a lot of meetings with different working groups and teams, like a school culture team, a wellbeing team, subject based teams, the class level teachers in the primary school, and the leadership team. We also have meetings with the staff of each of the schools, and we also have some meetings for all the teachers, that are sometimes followed by smaller group discussions. Some groups, like subject teachers, can decide whether they want to meet face-to-face or online, and often they choose to meet online. Leadership teams often prefer face-to-face but sometimes may decide to meet virtually. Every Wednesday, there’s a one-hour time window when all teachers need to be present, and then the principals of each school make the decision whether it’s face-to-face or online. We also have the meetings for mentoring or guiding the student teachers and more and more these meetings are online.

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.

TH: You said one of the downsides during COVID was that student teachers didn’t have a chance to develop personal relationships with students. Are there other issues coming out of COVID? Are people doing too much digitization?

TL: I think we are finding the right balance with digitization. But during the COVID time, maybe I couldn’t really understand how bad things were for people. I read newspapers, and I discussed it with researchers, and they mentioned that this was a very heavy for time students, principals, and teachers. But I think I understand it better and better now. For example, for upper secondary school students a very significant part of their school years were during COVID, and they have many more mental health issues than students of the same age had before. When COVID came, our teacher organization didn’t meet for a long time, and even when we were present in school, we couldn’t come together in the teacher’s room. We worked alone, month after month. We have not found the same level of community, and it takes time. Many teachers are very tired, and they have not recovered and the same happens with principals.

We worked alone, month after month. We have not found the same level of community, and it takes time. Many teachers are very tired, and they have not recovered and the same happens with principals.

TH: Have you seen other evidence of issues with student well-being in your school? Are more students needing counseling, and how have you responded? How do you know about it? Do teachers report it to you?

TL: When I read the newspapers and when I discussed this with researchers, they describe this phenomenon nationwide. After that, I can recognize the same phenomena in my own school. It’s not easy for a single principal with 1,700 students, but I can see some difficulties among our upper secondary school students. Normally, when they start the school year, we have different kinds of programs, and we try to create a good understanding about the school, and we try to create good groups. I have been doing this for a couple of years, but now we have had much more difficulties in this. Sometimes I think they don’t feel they are part of the group like before. When it comes to our teachers and their cooperation and sense of community, I can feel differences compared to before COVID.

TH: Have you had to do anything differently as a principal to deal with these mental health issues, like hire more counselors?

TL: We’ve been able to adapt the structures and personnel we have to address these challenges. But we also receive project funds every year to support various initiatives or to support students with different learning needs, and, then we also received additional funds for addressing COVID-related challenges. With this money, we’ve hired more school assistants and more special education teachers. But we’ve used these people in a different way. For example, at our Viikki campus, the role of these new people has been somewhat different. We have had special education teachers that work with our primary school students and special education teachers that work with our lower secondary school teachers, but this new teacher starts working with 6^th graders at the end of primary school and then will continue with them into lower secondary school to support their transition.

Next week: Resilience, Trust, and Change: Tapio Lahtero on the work of the principal in Finland during and after COVID (Part 3)