Dear Principals, I have studying high performing education systems since March 2004 when I started in Finland. After a visit to schools and speaking with principals, teachers and experts in Finland and visited 18 other countries to be able to carry a comparative analysis. An academic book out my study is coming soon to be published by the University of Hong Kong. When ready I will let you know. I was so impressed (no wonder all the people around the world is impressed by the high and conssitently high performance of Finland) with Finland that I have returned four more times.
There is very little that I can say about Finland and Finnish education system that you do not know already. But let me add a couple of perspectives: principals today face new challenges that makes their work in schools more demanding, and Finland in general face one challenge "staying on top". As Hannele Niemi (from Helsinki University) once told me: "there is only one direction you can go when you are first".
Well being first is not certainly the most important thing in education, and you Finnish educators know this more than anyone else. But the worse thing it could happen to anyone is to sleep the dream of success. Japanese say: "Failure is the mother of success"; the contrary might be true if one is not challenged by success. I get back to you soon! Eduardo
Mr Eduardo Andere is a professor of Education. He has been doing research about Finnish education for some years (since March 2004). This time he wanted to get a deeper insight into the reasons behind the Finnish success and what schools are doing in order to enhance teaching and learning. We had a privilage to pay him a visit in our school a few weeks ago.
