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.
Traditionally, a good officer has been understood as an individual actor on the battlefield;
especially capable to lead, train and educate his personnel and troops. Obeying orders; just doing and thinking less, has been the main idea behind the educational arrangements. But interestingly a good officer and a good soldier has always been aware of the fundamental paradox: the Soldier’s Basic Paradox145. According to the paradox obeying orders is not enough but the individual officer needs to use all his resources as effectively as possible to achieve effectiveness and gain good results. In other words he has always had to act “beyond” the ordered. In other words the secondary contradiction between the subject (i.e. the individual teacher) and the community could take the form of the Soldier’s Basic Paradox. Obviously the relationship between the deep-seated paradox and the identified secondary contradiction needs to be understood (cf. chapter 8).
Presently the paradoxes and the identified secondary contradiction seem to be made into a solvable form along the key educational dimensions as follows (cf. chapter 9 for a practical example),
- Practice (knowing how) versus theory (knowing that).
- Old (internalizing the given) versus new (combinatorial innovations; knowledge creation and production by progressively inquiring).
- Individual versus community.
- Local versus global.
- School versus work.
In the past just knowing how to win and survive on the battlefield has been the only relevant goal. Hence, the need for theories (know-that) has always been rather difficult to explain and to understand146, but essentially needed to be understood also by the officers. Also many of the respondents stressed that the officer of our age needs to learn to research and to integrate the researching to his normal way of working (e.g. as a teacher).
Previous generations have not solved our problems and we cannot solve our students’
problems on their behalf, was a shared opinion of the respondents. On the other hand, also in the FDF we are used to developing “solutions” on a continuous basis, but the reasons behind these
145 The Soldier’s Basic Paradox is a metatheoretical (cf. Toiskallio, 2002, p.86) paradox needing to be solved. On the theoretical level this metatheoretical problem is akin to the Leader-Follower Paradox (or the Burns Paradox; Burns, 2003, p.171) emerged in the field of transformational leadership (Burns, 1978; 2003; Bass, 1998). By the words of the Deep Leadership Model (a transformational leadership model developed at the FNDC, Nissinen, 2001) the paradoxical question is mainly about which one of these two leadership dimensions (i.e. transactional and transformational) is more dominant in the behaviour of a military leader. Cf. also Macgregor, 2003, p.208; Brownlee, Schoomaker, 2004; Dixon, 1976, p.194. Hawkins (2001) name unity, endurance, obedience, hierarchy, and readiness for violence as the main American warrior premises. The fact seems to be that these kinds of premises are universal in nature and the main question deals with the dynamic nature of the premises. The case of obedience clarifies the point. Of course also in the future soldiers and officers are expected to obey orders but this does not tell the “whole truth” of the case.
146 Cf. the translation mistake in the case of military pedagogy presented in chapter 4.
solutions need to be made more transparent and justifiable. The reason to act in a traditional way cannot be justified by the saying “because we are used to doing so”. Therefore, understanding the understanding (also emphasized by some of the respondents) comes to the fore (cf. the following chapter).
When asked about the role of the individual teachers in the Bologna process, and in the educational development in general, the centrality of the teachers in the process was a shared opinion of the respondents. This answer is paradoxical when comparing to the interpretations of the participating teachers during the Change Laboratory meetings when they were wondering about the possibility or maybe the impossibility of themselves to influence on the FNDC as a whole and as a system. Maybe the teachers are not aware of the expectations of the managers of the FNDC?
In the FDF and also in the FNDC there is a tendency to emphasize the centrality of the cultural aspects and consequently its relative stability. Interestingly, the respondents emphasized that (the culture of) the FNDC will certainly be carried by the tide of Finnish culture, overruling the need for teachers’ activeness and innovativeness. Paradoxically the respondents stressed that the teachers will play an active role in the development but on the other hand this activeness is expected to be useless because of the “evolutionary change process”. Consequently, an appropriate role for the officers is expected by the respondents to be passively adapting to the changing situation147. As a counterbalanced act the activeness of the individual agents (i.e. the teachers) needs to be reconsidered and the possibility to develop societal structures (i.e. culture) needs to be understood (cf. chapters 8 and 9).
When struggling with such a difficult paradoxes as the Soldier’s Basic Paradox, imitation guided by the comparability principle is not all that is needed. Solving the paradox effectively needs more than just imitating best practices, especially when in the field of schooling there is lack of such systemic and well aligned best practices. The roots of the paradoxes and problems have to be faced and it is impossible to do this without focusing on how to enable teachers to develop themselves and their peers and become more like what they keep teaching their students (i.e. to make justifiable judgements based on research and give reasons to their own actions).
Hence, on the 28th of July 2005 the researcher sent a Teacher’s Self-Evaluation Sheet with the needed instructions to the teachers of the Department of Education in order to focus on teaching practices148.
147 Cf. the frogs in the Sengean boiler steadily boiled and being unaware of the situation and of their possibilities to influence on their well-being.
148 The idea of the sheet was elaborated during the Change Laboratory meetings. Cf. chapter 6.
During the interviews the respondents told to researcher about many pedagogical innovations, such as emphasizing key principles instead of details, web-based blended education, learning in small groups, use of assistants149, staff excursions and inquiring stance on working. The innovativeness of the departments varied a lot, small departments being the most innovative. Paradoxically no traces of research-based pedagogical development were noticed.
Some of the respondents told the researcher about the expectations of the Department of Education being a producer of “practical pedagogical knowledge”. So far the Department of Education has not met these expectations (cf. also chapter 6).
When we begin to discuss about the expertise in the case of the FNDC, we simultaneously have to focus on the espoused values of the FNDC150. Also in the Change Laboratory meetings the essentiality of the shared values was notified, and a similar conclusion was made by the interviewees. It was stated that values guide our actions and activities but how about then in the case of expertise?
The relationship between officers and civilian university graduates (i.e. “pedagogical experts”) recruited from the civilian markets deserves to be reconsidered. Paradoxically these
“pedagogical experts” enter the core area of soldiership as mentioned above, having a lot of useful experience and theories from universities but lacking experiences gained from the field (i.e. the military units). The proposal of the researcher is that instead of looking out, and expecting that more civilian “pedagogical experts” will solve our pedagogical problems, the FNDC needs to concentrate to the development on the pedagogical expertise of their own teachers151.
If the FNDC really values expertise, and especially pedagogical and managerial-leadership expertise, the college has to identify what it means by the expertise or the pedagogical expertise.
A close look at the present state of the educational practices have to be taken and individual knowing how to train and educate needs to be “externalized” to be socially scrutinized. Hence, the Teacher’s Self-Evaluation Sheet as mentioned above.
When speaking about the values, the respondents mentioned that the issue is wider than the espoused values of the FNDC. The value discussions at the FNDC have to take also academic or scientific values (i.e. the ethos of science) and basic values of soldiership under consideration. It is not only discussions that are needed, but the made conclusions have to be identifiable in
149 Students who were more knowledgeable or competent in the issue to be learned.
150 The espoused values of the FNDC are patriotism, expertise, trustworthiness, feeling of togetherness and development.
151 We can hypothesize in a parallel manner in the case of leadership and management. Will the FNDC try to recruit civilian “outsiders” to be experts on leadership and management in the FDF or develop themselves as experts of leadership and management?
practical educational activities as well. Some of the respondents wondered how the espoused values of the FNDC could be turned into authentic ones. If the FNDC values expertise, how is this seen in, for example, the strategy planning process of the FNDC? Or in the Bologna process?
Along the dimension of local and global the respondents saw that in the future the continuing internalization will be a fact. Presently at the FNDC the international cooperation is arranged unsystematically and lacks strategic guidance. The respondents said that the arrangements have to be systematized and activated on all disciplines and in all levels of the military educational system. Maybe this tendency could be seen in the newly made strategy of the FNDC or in the strategies made by the departments?
Presently the community aspect has been gaining some ground among the Armed Forces because of the increasing interest in communities of practice152 (i.e. communities of experts). It needs to be emphasized that also these constellations could be partly consciously extended and enabled. Through communities an educational institution could extend its networks to be effectively used in educational practices. More interestingly, they should be globally expanded among the military educational institutions.
The relationship between school (the FNDC; as B) and work (the military units; as A) seem to be in need of reconsideration. According to the responses, the present situation can be put into the form of the formula: A -> B. In this formula the B (the FNDC) expects to get feedback to be able to measure how successfully it has taught its students. Actually this kind of formula does not recognize that in reality the FNDC is powerfully influencing, through the graduating officers and publications, the resources of the profit centres of the FDF and FBG. This means that the formula has to be corrected into the form: A <-> B.
Someway the respondents have identified the correct formula when they emphasized for example the need of the student to learn to solve problems. Due to the fact that mainly the problems of the FDF can be identified on the field, the dimension between the FNDC and the other profit centres needs to be reevaluated. In practice this could mean that instead of dealing with well-defined problems made by the teachers, the students have to face the ill-defined problems of the field units and organizations. This means that also the FNDC has ill-defined problems to be used in its teaching.
152 Lave, Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger, McDermott, Snyder, 2002; Kilner, 2002; Brown, 2003. See the analysis in chapter 8. For current examples see e.g. companycommand.com and squad-leader.com.