The USMO paradox could be seen for example in the answers given by the respondents when asked to express the leading idea of the FNDC. On the other hand the FNDC was seen to be producing officers (professional soldiers) for the needs of the defence of Finland, but on the other hand the university status of the college was emphasized (an innovative research centre;
university level research community etc.). Interestingly some respondents synthesized (they did not just choose one or the other aspect as a “right answer”) these different aspects together to the idea of training and educating soldiers based on researched knowledge136.
The role of the Ministry of Education in Finnish higher education seemed to be a professed fact by the respondents. The Ministry of Education has a seemingly clear role in controlling the educational activities of the FNDC. On the other hand the evaluation of the FNDC made by the Finnish Higher Education Evaluation Council (FINHEEC) in 2001 was familiar only to some of the respondents. Further on it seemed to be the case that more the strengths than the weaknesses mentioned in the evaluation report were analyzed at the FNDC. Only in one department a development plan based on FINHEEC’s evaluation was made.
When focusing on the relations between the FNDC and the Defence Staff and the mentioned ministries, one point from the newly formed competence development strategy made by the Division for Personnel of the Defence Staff is especially interesting: the development of
134 Paradoxos in Greek combines two roots: para, which can mean variously beside, by, with, beyond, past, against, or contrary to; and doxos, which means “that which is generally thought or believed, “the common opinion”. Interestingly a paradox is an argument in which you take sides – both sides. (Wilder, Collins, 1994, p.84-86) Often the paradox is interpreted as a dilemma (cf. chapter 3) but the main unifying idea is the dimension between two essential poles of interest.
135 Since the autumn of 2001 the training and education of Finnish officers has been conducted at the FNDC and also in the schools of the services and branches, supervised by the FNDC.
136 In the draft of the FNDC’s strategy (6th September 2005) this point was mentioned in the form “the teaching is arranged based on research and practices in the field”.
the training and education system forms the basis for the competence development of the FNDC137. The question asked by the FINHEEC in its evaluation report of the FNDC (2001, p.10): according to what kinds of guiding principles the FDF is going to develop its training and education system, still needs an answer. Rather often also in the FDF the difficulty seems to be the general tendency to see the trees instead of the forest; details are discussed instead of the question of how to guide the systems. Hopefully this tendency will be overcome when the FNDC gets prepared for the next evaluation of the FINHEEC.
Another conceptual structure emphasized in the competence development strategy is the learning organization (cf. chapter 4). When asked about the meaningfulness of the idea of the learning organization the respondents could be grouped to those considering that there have been learning organizations in the FDF for a long time already (e.g. the military units), and those who saw that the importance of the idea was relatively small or “numerically zero”.
Interestingly those serving on the departmental level were more sceptical than the others of the idea of the learning organization.
If the idea of the learning organization divided the opinions of the respondents, how did they understand learning itself? The respondents understood the concept of learning very differently. Some of them emphasized that the students need some background knowledge and understanding to be able to solve practical problems. It could be said that generally speaking learning was identified to be a unification of learning “old things” and creating something new.
Learning was not limited to “internalization” or to “appropriation” of the given information but it was also seen to have a functional and practical aspect (i.e. identifiable e.g. in the capability to solve practical problems).
When asked about the pedagogical principles two main idealistic themes emerged over others: focusing on wholes, and individual responsibility to solve problems when learning.
Although the individual responsibility of the students was emphasized, the overindividualistic competition was identified to be balanced by an emphasis on social cooperation, which is already the general strength of the students.
Learning seemed to mean the ability to show on a practical level how the learner has learned. Hence the question of assessment methods was a fundamental question. In their answers the respondents stressed quickness, easiness and the feedback system (feedback received from the students, ex-students and their superiors). The responsibility of the assessment practices seemed to be shared more or less by the students, ex-students and their superiors. In
137 Competence development strategy, 2004, p.5.
one department a teacher has developed a new kind of tool for evaluation, a learning log, but the log method was not used by the other departments138.
The question about the need to look at the assessment methods at the FNDC emerged already during the Change Laboratory meetings139. There the question was put into the form:
“What kind of know-how are our tests actually assessing; some kind of [disciplinary] know-that or something else?” When the researcher asked about the discussions concerning “the problem”
the lack of open discussions came up as a response.
To start to learn seems to need some willingness to confess that some problems do exist140. The same demand applies also on the level of organizations. The learning organizations have to be able to identify some “potential problems” and societally make them authentic and shared problems to be solved. One more example of the cultural barriers hampering this development was also explicitly identified at least by some of the respondents. The intent was to use the Training Portal as a planning tool enabling open and fruithful discussions, but contrary of the expectations “people used the technology badly” (i.e. the Portal) and the intensity of the discussions remained on a low level. It could be said that the organizational silence restricts potential problems from becoming authentic and shared problems waiting to be solved in the process of learning.
One main principle often emphasized by the respondents was the comparability of the degrees (civilian versus military ones). The principle has been highly valued at the FNDC, aiming to get and sustain its university status. The importance of the comparability principle has been increased also through the Bologna process141. Despite of this, the degrees of the FNDC has been also lately kept shifting between comparable and incomparable (Viitasalo, 2005).
Another main principle, answered in the form of the leading idea of the FNDC by the respondents, was the training and educating of soldiers based on researched knowledge. The respondents saw that so far the biggest reform of the Bologna process has been the emphasis on scientificness. But what is the essence of being scientific? Based on what kinds of shared principles and ethos the boundary between “civilian science”, military science and the ordinary activities of the professional officers will be negotiated and renegotiated by each individual
138 The Continuing Education and Development Centre offers an exception in this case, having put the same idea into practice during the past years.
139 Cf. Chapter 6 and excerpt 6.15.
140 Cf. the following chapter about the analysis of the learning concept from a social scientific perspective.
141 Cf. e.g. Bologna Process; http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna_en.html. The European higher education will be developed based on a set of specified objectives, such as the adoption of a common framework of readable and comparable degrees, two levels of degrees, the ECTS-compatible credit system, a European dimension in quality assurance and the elimination of remaining obstacles to the free mobility of students. On the other hand for example the fundamental principles of autonomy and diversity are respected.
researcher on a continuous basis? When the military researchers give reasons for, e.g. the choices of books (cf. choices of theories; various kinds of choices needed to be done during the research process), what kinds of reasons do they give, if any?
The researcher asked about the principles behind the choices of the books and the respondents expressed views like “the classics must be read”, “centrality”, “stimulating”,
“offering problems”. Curiously explanations related to scientificness or some sort of scientific ethos were missing. Obviously at the FNDC much work needs to be done also on the metatheoretical or philosophical level when the basic assumptions of social scientific research are scrutinized142.
In the renewal processes of the FDF’s officer education system the guiding object of the developmental activities seem to be a written curriculum. The researcher asked about the idea of the curriculum having three layers143. Some respondents were not familiar with the layered curriculum idea but those who were could be divided into two groups: those who saw the layeredness as a process (first the written, then the taught and finally the learned) and to those emphasizing the levelness of the curriculum (we have to act simultaneously on all of these different layers and especially focus on what will be learned in practice). It seems that the respondents shared a view that the concept of learning is a key issue and in the future we need to focus more on how we conceptualize the learning. Consequently, the deep transformational educational planning cannot be replaced solely by focusing on the production of a written curriculum or by the use of planning tools (i.e. the Internet-based Core Edit (a Finnish tool of the ECTS system; cf. the main Bologna principles).
Let us return briefly to the issue of organizational silence. Some of the respondents said that maybe there have been too many and too long discussions during the Bologna process, slowing down the otherwise rapid planning process. The silencing of organizational discussions could be the most effective way to act if the process is reduced only to the level of the written curriculum. When remembering the other layers of the curriculum, we do not have the alternative of avoiding discussions at least if the goal is the effective educational development or even educational transformation. If the discussions need a more focused structure and alignment, this could be achieved by the identification of the fundamental questions and starting the planning process from these kinds of questions instead of decentralizing the issues to be dealt with the six autonomous disciplines controlled by unidentified principles.
142 Chapter 2 shows the position of the researcher in these kinds of questions.
143 Cf. Karjalainen, eds., 2003, and Tyack and Cuban’s (1995) argument explained in chapter 3. According to them the educational reform could be divided into three stages: reform talks, adoption of reform (=at least producing a written curriculum) and the actual implementation (=on the layers of taught and learned curriculum).
The dangers of imitation and blurred identity were noticed by the participants of the Change Laboratory meetings, but how about the respondents of the thematic interviews? In general the FNDC follows the actions of the European universities by participating actively in the Bologna process. Interestingly, not so many other European military educational institutions have joined to the Bologna planning process as actively. We cannot overrule the possibility that the active role taken by the FDF in the Bologna process could have a meaningful influence to other nations dealing with same kind of challenges and problems but presently the paradox is clear: the Europeans are integrating their higher educational systems, but military educational systems are in the periphery or sometimes not even on the map of the process144.