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Revisiting Finnish success in education: Focusing school teachers' life

  • Journal of the Scandinavian Society of Korea
  • Abbr : JSSK
  • 2013, (14), pp.49-78
  • Publisher : The Scandinavian Society of Korea
  • Research Area : Social Science > Area Studies > North Europe(Scandinavian)

EUNJU YUN 1

1숙명여자대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to contour Finnish teachers's life in order to revisit the success of education in Finland because the Finish teachers are considered the heart of Finland's educational success and particularly the main factor responsible for PISA accomplishments for a decade. The daily life of teachers in Finland could be summarized with the two tasks, one in teaching and the other in doing research. The rest of their works in schools is in support of these two main works so that they could provide the excellence of teaching for Finnish students. Also the teacher education programs for prospective primary and secondary teachers in Finland have been designed and built for providing a competent teacher as a researcher. Therefore Finland could finally has exceptional teacher quality thanks to time, tolerance and decision which have been given by the whole Finnish society in the name of the educational reform since 1970s. But interestingly the teachers in Finland do their best and provide the exceptional teaching quality not just because of high salary and pleasant work conditions in addition to social respect but because of the fulfillment of moral mission, in other words self realization by Dewey's words. This critical factor among many has been ignored and not been articulated so far by various scholars except Pasi Sahlberg, a distinguished Finnish educational expert. This paper found it out by revisiting the existing literature, which implies a very critical lesson to us who are now trying to learn from the educational success in Finland.

Citation status

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