/ad'venCHer/ 1. an unusual and exciting experience or activity: Mutual Understanding

It’s complex being a human being. I’ve been wrestling with the concept of culture and my own culture’s influence on my perception of reality. There is so much to learn about myself—is there enough time?

Try thinking about these thoughts:

Are there rich Finns? Are Finnish teachers paid more? Why is everything bigger in America? What my side of the world does and the decisions Americans make personally impacts your side of the world because we are globally connected—and the decisions Alaskans make specifically impacts Finns because of climate and our connection through the Arctic region. Spanish or Finnish cucumbers—nationality or carbon footprint? Hiilijalanjälki—carbon footprint in Finnish—ironically, the first part (hiili) is pronounced hee-lee. Are we depleting our oil in Alaska? Yes, I apply for and receive the Permanent Fund Dividend. I just filed my taxes while the United States was sleeping.

Equity and equality in meeting the needs of all learners. Gender equity and opening the door for me, a woman, a compliment—I forgot—how would he know? I’m sorry; I switched from English and started speaking Finnish to you because I forget you are not Finnish. Girls out-performing boys. Girls always do. Finns don’t say love. Finns don’t say much. Sometimes when they do, it appears more direct than polite—I finally get it. ‘High context’ culture. A hug deeper than words. Teaching and teachers are a universal language—I had met her only once before. Are we a welfare state still? New program for unemployed youth; a guaranteed job within three months of completion of training—paid by the state if not by an employer—but, they have to work for it.

All teachers do research; some teachers do research. The focus is not on content knowledge—that will come; the aim is decision-making and formulating and argument to defend your decisions. I think the Americans have misunderstood our German education system. A map without Sweden! Thank you for being here. I wrote my research in Finnish because I wanted to write it for Finnish teachers. Your research belongs to the Finnish people and Finland. There isn’t a word in English for our word. Love for my country. I’ve wanted to do what you are doing. Why I can’t stay. Seven months isn’t long enough. Do you miss me? They really want to be teachers. I never thought I would be inspiring to anyone.

I hope this makes your head spin, because it has been mine. These are ideas that have crossed my mind and stood out in my experiences. All of these ideas can be understood or interpreted differently dependent on one’s own culture or highlight a difference in cultures.

The goals of the Fulbright program are to increase mutual understanding and support friendly and peaceful relations between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Follow this link to learn more about James William Fulbright and the origin and mission of the Fulbright program: http://www.cies.org/about-us/what-fulbright. After three months of living in Finland, I am starting to conceptualize the impact of the Fulbright program goals in my own life and knowledge base. By living in another culture, even one that by mere physical observation doesn’t look much different than my own, I’ve had cause to reflect on how my own life experiences have shaped how I perceive my experiences past, present and future.

Several weeks ago now, I spent the morning with my university advisor observing his student-teachers implement lesson plans they had prepared. We discovered we are only one-year difference in age and I immediately began sizing up our accomplishments. A futile and useless effort, I know, but somehow gut instinct—I am competitive by nature. I thought about how very different his life has been from mine just beginning to understand and know Finnish culture—how his 39 years of life have shaped him comparatively to how my 38 years have shaped me. And how we could be standing together, processing our experiences separately and yet jointly and have shared understandings. And likewise, laughing at the same incidents and jokes finding the same humor.

Recently, I traveled to Berlin for the 60^th Berlin Seminar hosted by the German Fulbright Commission. During this conference, I moderated a break-out session on education for the starting panel titled, "One continent . . . many visions." I shared this responsibility with one other moderator, but our participant group was so big we had to split into two and ended up individually moderating separate groups of about 50 participants. My question for the participants was what issues, in education, had they experienced in the context of their Fulbright experiences in their host countries—the participants were either American or German representing educational experiences in the educational systems of Budapest, Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany, Andora, Finland (me), Belgium and the U.S. It was a very wonderful conversation and amazing to be a part of an international panel on education.

There are two recurring reflections that standout in my mind from this experience that continue to illustrate to me the value of the Fulbright program goal of increasing mutual understanding.

Naturally, since our host country was Germany and Germany has many Fulbright teaching-assistants, the conversation devoted a significant amount of time to reflecting on the German education system with many Americans sharing their perceptions. After we ended, one young German participant came up to me and said that she had a sense that the American Fulbrighters in Germany misunderstood the German education system. I told her it is very hard to correctly understand a different education system when trying to frame it from your own cultural experience—I told her not to give up, but that we (as Americans) might get it a little wrong, before we get it right, because our own educational experience is so different. This seemed to comfort her.

The next morning I was walking with a researcher who is studying philosophy in Germany and reflecting on this experience. He reminded me that she would likely go to the United States and make similar misconceptions. He pointed out that while we cannot completely conceptualize a different culture’s decisions, at some point, whether we are fully informed or not, we will have cause to make value judgments about another culture’s decisions. But, hopefully, even though these judgments may or may not be argumentatively accurate, they will move us closer to true understanding by driving us to have conversations that bring mutual understanding.

The other reflection that keeps recurring in my mind was a question posed to me during the panel on education and that I have often heard repeated. “Are Finnish teachers paid more?” Where do I start?

First of all, this is very much like trying to compare apples to oranges. I’ll try to explain why (from my own understanding and what I believe is accurate). Finnish teachers are paid for the number of 45-minute lessons they teach. For class teachers (teachers who are not subject teachers), a full-time position requires about 20 lessons a week. There is a base salary for this minimum 20-lesson assignment and teachers can choose to teach additional lessons and are paid per each additional lesson. Subject teachers have a higher minimum lesson workload (I think 24-25), but are paid more. I have also heard this minimum lesson workload described differently per municipality.

Class teachers do not have prep-time during their student contact day, they take turns sharing recess duties and eat lunch with their students everyday. And recess duties are no light responsibility as most compulsory school schedules have a 15-minute recess after every 45-minute lesson--this means children have at least four 15-minute breaks every school day. Finnish teachers' student contact day ends much earlier than mine in the United States, but this varies dependent on the schedule decided at each school by administration and teachers. From my observation, the student contact day is two hours shorter than mine in most of the classrooms of young children that I have visited. At one school, if a teacher tutors students after school, she can submit her time with an explanation to be paid for the additional work. Teachers earn a minimal raise after 5, 10 and 15 years.

Still not clear? A Finnish teacher shared with me her monthly salary. Now it is difficult to make a fair, straight across the board analysis because in the U.S. our salaries are based on education and years of experience. It is also difficult because she lives in a country that is a welfare-state economy and a significant portion of her income goes to taxes and the cost of living in Finland (not unlike Alaska) is very high. She also does not pay for certain services out-of-pocket that I do (for example, health care)—which for me means I may or may not end up paying for the services dependent on my need and she is essentially always paying for them through her taxes. Nonetheless, bottom-line,our salaries were almost the same. Mine was slightly more.

Secondly, and what I think is most important to understand in reference to this question of salary is that I believe that this question is not even culturally relevant in Finland. I’ll try to explain why I think this.

I have heard the question of salary asked only by individuals raised in capitalist cultures to justify the reasons why anyone would want to become a teacher. One of my second grade students told me his mom said she didn’t want him to become a teacher because they didn’t make enough money. Why not try to become a doctor or a lawyer? For those of us raised in these societies we initially assume that this must be the reason why young Finnish students choose to enter the teaching profession. Why else? After all, it is very competitive to be accepted into teacher training programs in Finland; at the University of Helsinki there are 3,000 applicants for their teacher education program and only 100 students are accepted to become teachers.

But, Finnish economic culture is not based on capitalism. I’m sure Finns want to make a good salary and I’m sure more is better (Finns do value leisure time), but the Finnish economy is a welfare-state. This concept of government is one in which the state (national government) plays a key role in protecting and promoting the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those who lack the minimal provisions for a good life. What happens in reality is that there is a more equal distribution of wealth.

I have had several Finnish friends explain to me that the families they grew up in were considered, “Working-class.” But, this didn’t mean that their families could not have a car and own a home. My understanding is that their parents did not make enough to buy these things on their own, but because they worked and earned a living, the system provided the opportunity for their parents to have these things. This also doesn’t mean that there aren’t wealthier Finns—because I asked this, too.

But in reality, if your culture is one of more equitable distribution of wealth your focus might less likely be on making the most money you can, and more on choosing a profession based on more altruistic values. Think of this theory in the converse reality of capitalism, what if you could make a decent living and be provided for any every way so much so that your choice of profession wasn’t influenced in any way by income potential—what would you be?

Anyway, that’s my theory, from my own cultural perspective. And, I could be totally wrong.

Below are a few pictures from Berlin. If you want to see more, please go to my google+ page.