The Ohio State University campus is full of people who want to learn and excel. Who want to teach and make a difference? My American colleagues are there with their own lives, families, joys and challenges. All of us. Are working for a global goal of bringing up future generations capable human beings and developing workforce.
It is exactly how you imagined it, and it’s nothing like you imagined.
Pedagogically, my Fulbright visit to the Ohio State University in Columbus tastes different. But is fundamentally the same as in Finland, in my home institution, Haaga Helia University of Applied Sciences.
Finland’s President, Alexander Stubb or Alex, as the President of the United States, Donald Trump addresses him, is visiting Washington DC. With our Prime Minister, Petteri Orpo, while I am on my Fulbright visit for building institutional collaboration between Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences and the Ohio State University. A multibillion-dollar deal is done on co-constructing ice-breakers for the US. As I observe and compare the American education system with ours in Finland.
These findings on similarities that I am about to share are at the same time also dimensions that differ. They are based on my personal impressions. And experiences accumulated during my Fulbright visit in Columbus.
What is evident is the fact that both educational systems have their strengths on a global scale. The Finnish system has for years on end proven to be one of the best in the world when it comes to inclusivity. Student-centred approach and sustainable biological solutions. That support a well-rounded lifelong learners to become active citizens. In the US, the excellence of individuals endorsing the successes of individual learner learners is present in every possible occasion. They have the top universities. They have the top learners.
What is different is the distribution of resources, of course. Both wealthy nations can afford education to serve everyone. But where in Finland, all education is free, including materials, field trips, lunch, school, transportation and in some institutions, even breakfast, in the US, the families need resources at every level of the education system. That has its implications. For the gifted it there is always a way to go forward in the US. In Finland, the focus is more on keeping everyone on board. In Finland, one cannot distinguish between a school on a less privileged and wealthier neighbourhoods. Since the public funding gives more to those who have less. In comparison, in Ohio, some take a different lunch queue. Some school districts appear drastically different from an outsider’s point of view.
Regardless of the way education is funded in the two countries. Both do facilitate flexible and varied paths to those who are motivated and able to learn. In the US, in some cases, even middle school students can take college courses. The learners can choose between high school careers and Community College and university studies, and the routes are varied and rich in combinations. Adults can keep learning and especially in vocational or professional teacher education, the students have a similar kind of multidisciplinary work-based learning culture. The teacher trainer’s role as a mentor resonates with the Haaga Helian pedagogical approach.
However, the take on Internationality appears to be somewhat different. As a smaller nation, Finland has no choice but to reach out, learn from and about others. A Finnish university student studies always partly in another language, since not even nearly all the materials are translated into Finnish and Swedish, not to mention sami. And most degree programs embed International Studies in English within them. In the US, the children can start a volunteer foreign language on at 14, while in Finland every kid starta learning a new language at the latest at the age of 7. Plus, of course, it’s obliged to study both the official languages
The USA is a melting pot of cultures where internationalization happens at home, in the classroom, at school, where students from all over the world gather, and nowadays in Finland. it’s in many places exactly the same. But in the US, the lingua franca, the English language dominates. And this power extends to cover practically the entire world. So understandably, the attitude toward internationalization and cultural diversity, all learning foreign languages is drastically different in these two nations.
In every educational institute I visit, I am met with the same enthusiasm and motivation. The middle schoolers are at task. The high schoolers are motivated to excel the students at a career centre and the Community College proudly where their professional uniform. The educational leaders show their programs and facilitate the learning with the warmth that radiates and reflects both to an outsider and from their staff and students. In a class of teacher education, I asked students why they want to become teachers. And the answer comes from the heart. “As a teacher, I know that I can make a difference in someone’s life”. This is definitely something that we share.
In Finland, learners address their teacher by the first name only. From early childhood education to doctoral or postgraduate studies. In the US, teachers are misters, missises. misses, doctors and professors. And are expected to dress and act their role as an example. And educator also through these tokens of role produce professionalism and distance. The fact that in both countries the teachers and teacher students I meet care deeply for their students is not blinded by this evident difference. Nor does the Finnish familiarity between teachers and pupils lessen their authority in the learner’s space. In the learning space or toward the educates.
Educators I meet on my visit in different educational institutions, engaged in discussions and share their work without hesitation. Students have the capacity to assess and celebrate what they’ve gained from their studies. Teachers, students and their teacher trainers share their profound insights into pedagogy, its challenges and magic.
The same kind of motivation and passion for learning and facilitating it, I encounter in my everyday life with my own teacher, students and networks in Finland.
There are other differences too.
In conclusion, the emphasis may differ, but fundamentally many things have a shared base between. Education in the United States and in Finland. In professional or vocational teacher education. In my home turf. Work based learning and workforce development are trends. Focused on in both countries. And the passion for opening opportunities for the young or the adult learners to be OK and provide for themselves is at the core of education.
When arriving to the US at the airport, I was attended by a person who greeted me with: “Oh, you come from the happiest country in the world!” With these words, I was met many times during my stay. Smiles the kindness to strangers, the ability to seize every moment, to be present, even if for a fleeting moment with anyone who comes to your awareness, is deeply rooted in the surface of American hospitality and education, as well. It is free to be kind. It doesn’t cost anything.
And it is OK to smile to anyone who passes you by. We Finns are supposedly happy, but might not express our happiness that often that strongly. With the Americans behind “the happy talk” and bright smiles, there is a certain melancholy and longing that for a Finnish teacher trainer on a Fulbright adventure, is easy to recognize and share.
As fellow humans to Americans and the Finns value similar aspects of life that are also ingredients for happiness and aims of education systems, I think. Those would be: having a home. Caring for the kids. Providing for the family. Personal safety. Need for development. Appreciating the role of diversity in innovations and solutions for future. There is a shared sense of belonging to a community and also to a global community of professionals and citizens.
It becomes evident that not all life live in the same reality and place in space. Not in in the United States and Finland, but also not within the same society. But we are all human beings who have a desire to care for and educate the future human beings together with others. When I return home from Ohio, I am left with the longing for even stronger bridges between education in the US and Finland. To break the ice is one thing, to combine strengths another. To co-create something sustainable yet another future step to be taken together.