I was asked to write about my co-teaching experience in Finland.
A work, accompanied by images, that describes the professional characteristics of my work as an Italian teacher in a Finnish environment and the peculiarities of the educational world of the country that hosted me.
I would like to avoid listing the usual series of pros and cons, and also avoid extolling one method or downplaying another.
There are aspects that prevail in the Finnish educational sphere that are very easily adaptable to Italian teaching methods, and there are limitations in Finnish education that we overcome—badly, but we overcome them.
Let's start with everything we like about Finnish schools, which can easily be achieved in Italy as well (many Italian schools adopt innovative methods, and often it simply depends on individual teachers, whose personal characteristics make them more mobile than others and who often have the desire to try their hand at it).
A brief introduction is needed, precisely because the excuse for our schools' inability to move toward innovation is often found in the diversity of environments, cultures, and people.
• Northern European children are just as prone to disorder, poor education, breaking materials, bullying, and breaking rules as ours.
• Northern European children and teenagers can get hurt at school just like ours.
• Northern European teachers work incredibly hard and often get burned out just like us Italian teachers.
• Some are eager to work and some are less eager, just like in Italy!
• We have the same technological capabilities! (labs, interactive whiteboards in classrooms to watch videos and play audio, WE TOO have textbooks that can be used digitally)….
• ..and we definitely have a better climate! (for holding lessons outdoors).
So where's the difference?
Where the general rule doesn't apply, where there's no enlightened leader, where the majority doesn't have the will to act, a difference can still be made.
Here's what I've seen this month that can easily be adopted in Italy:
1. Weekly meetings in the teachers' lounge with the principal, every Monday during the first recess, a half-hour of sharing about what will happen during the week.
2. The obligation for teachers of subjects that have laboratory spaces in the school to use the laboratory once a week with each class. A laboratory technician must always be present and there must be a fixed timetable for all classes. Additionally, the possibility of reserving spaces on a voluntary basis during free classroom hours.
3. Provision of board games in the corridors, cards of all kinds, origami, manga, mandalas, with a support teacher (on a rotating basis) responsible for returning them.
4. Segmented lessons! In 2025, there are still teachers who spend an hour (or even two!) on lectures. Students are only required to know how to take notes! Even in History or Literature classes, where the teacher essentially needs to "narrate," the segmented part is important even and especially in those lessons! Especially in those lessons. With questions, group work, debates, and opinions. But lessons CANNOT/should consist solely of the teacher's narration, no matter how engaging the narration; students must be able to revise every 15 minutes at most!
This aspect depends on the individual teacher and must be addressed with targeted training courses! Finnish schools also have very tight schedules, and Finnish teachers also have a timetable to follow, but they do so by following the book (which guides the segmented lesson). This means that each lesson (45 minutes) is divided into at least three parts (much more often into 5/6 parts) where what is explained is immediately put into practice with exercises (always different).
There are countless training courses on this subject, and in fact, our books are already structured accordingly (just like the Finnish books!).
5. Prioritize COMPETENCE over KNOWLEDGE.
The segmented lesson trains precisely in this direction, as do the many types of cooperative learning, class debates, and many other methods.
6. Interdisciplinarity. Continuous meetings, often held in the staff room, also serve this purpose, along with numerous social opportunities.
7. Structured training courses aimed at encouraging the entire teaching team to innovate and plan. Teacher well-being is also protected by their well-being in the workplace, with colleagues, and through constant stimulation. In Finland, too, many teachers take time off from teaching to take courses, or, like in our country, re-enroll in university. It is very common for teachers to change jobs for short or long periods, only to then return to teaching, which limits burnout.
8. Finnish schools promote ongoing social activities aimed at teacher well-being, whether funded by school funds or self-financed by participants.
But the aspect of team building has a strong weight in the Finnish working environment in general and especially in a working climate where wellbeing is of great importance for the impact on users, be they families or the children themselves.
This creates a climate of considerable trust in the teachers and, therefore, in the school and the institution itself.
9. The school where I work has a clinic! With a nurse, a doctor, and a psychologist, the latter is present a few days a week, following the cases reported by teachers and also intervening at the request of families.
In this regard, it is very important to note that in Finland, there is no rush to obtain various certifications (ADHD, DSA, etc.). All Finnish schools offer a blanket test, followed by a further, more in-depth test if further investigation is needed. And for support, it is sufficient for the school itself to determine that certain students need support, and that support is activated through support teachers who are assigned to certain classes and also have a specific classroom for their reinforcement lessons.
However, I have included this aspect in the list of what can be implemented in Italy in the school environment, because even if it is the Minister of Education who can radically change this aspect, we can still align ourselves with this trend and that is, the psychologist at
school (which is often introduced through projects) and not being entirely dependent on certifications to support a student in a more attentive and specific manner.
10. Twinning. They must be a priority. Even in Finland, there are teachers who are foreign-loving and always ready to leave, and teachers who prefer to remain stationary, but the frequency of projects that bring teachers and students on exchanges with other European countries is very high!
What could be more difficult to adapt:
1. School timetable. This is a ministerial responsibility.
Even if we don't want to introduce lunch (which in Finland the state pays for students, along with all school supplies), it would be very useful to make lessons less demanding with longer breaks. (In Finland, for six 45-minute lessons, the breaks combined add up to an hour and a half.)
And we don't always start at eight, but some days at nine and others at ten (on those days, students finish at three or four).
2. The bureaucratic aspect. We can't decide on our own to avoid writing minutes if we deem them unnecessary, or a schedule, or an initial and final report. We just have to do it.
But many of these rivers of words we're asked to write will never be read, and that time could certainly be used more productively, for example, with more intensive meetings during the three-year period, particularly for interdisciplinary study, which is so useful for preparing students for their graduation interviews.
Working on Civic Education as we really should: as a team.
Planning CLIL lessons to be implemented.
Etc., etc.
As you might have imagined, in the end, only two aspects are difficult to adapt and a good ten are easily adaptable to our teaching system.
Now we could also talk about the areas in which Italian schools excel: the richness of content and the high level of knowledge required in various subjects, such as mathematics, science, and literature. I can't mention history, because, for example, in our system, history is repeated across the three levels of elementary, middle, and high school, but in recent years, when we should be studying contemporary history, we often barely get to the world wars.
However. If the richness of content acquired by Italian students isn't matched by adequate preparation in terms of skills, we unfortunately can't say that Italian schools are superior.
Finally, the aspect closest to my heart: the management of activities "in addition to the classroom": field trips, museum visits, meetings with authors, workshops at school and outside, outings to films in foreign languages, science in the square, young European parliaments, and many others.
All these activities CANNOT BE DESIGNED BASED ON THE DISCIPLINARY LEVEL OF A CLASS GROUP!
Let's take the use of the laboratory as an example, because it's the most emblematic example of this topic.
When going to the laboratory is the norm at school, it doesn't occur to anyone that doing so with a class is prohibitive. When a class systematically goes to the laboratory with a teacher who establishes rules, over time, going to the laboratory and the rules associated with that place become a habit.
Solutions can always be found: the class is divided into two or three groups with the help of support colleagues, etc. On field trips, a support colleague is added.
In Finland, broken equipment is paid for by the families of those responsible for the damage. It's standard practice.
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