Reflective Essay 3

Kamar Fayez; 201870032

Dr. Ali Ibrahim
FOED 6015

Finland Teachers verses UAE Teachers

Professional capital explains the resources between teachers and their teaching methods, that has

been developed, collected and distributed to produce high outcomes towards teaching quality and

student’s learning (Lumby, J., Crow, G., & Pashiardis, P; 2008).

At this reflective paper, I will be comparing UAE teachers in private schools with the Finland

teachers on using the five professional capitals.

The education system is massive that consists of obligations and rules. It’s a job that requires

commitment from all parties and especially teachers. Teachers are the pillars that the education

system stands on, as they are the parts that directly communicate with the future builders of our

world.

In Finland, teachers apply the five professional capitals that are; human, moral, social, symbolic

and decisional to ensure their rights and the efficiency of a teacher. These five capitals will be

used to compare my school teachers towards Finland’s teachers.

My school teachers perform depending on the procedures of the school itself and the leadership

team assist them to follow, it sometimes affects their passion and loyalty to stay for a long time

in the school.

Relating to the human capital, the school teachers reflect the capabilities of applying high level

of knowledge, skills, qualifications and training that has been developed and implemented in the

school development plan and it contributed a lot to the student’s learning as it can be shown from

our students results of being able to achieve their class level curriculum and some beyond their
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level. As a proof, we have the owner’s students and the scholarship of some students for being

high achievers.

Regarding the social capital, teachers cooperate depending on their grade they share ideas and

tasks with each other, yet they don’t reach the point where they consider other classroom

students as their own, they still put their level of success to their classes that they teach.

On the level of the moral capital, my school teachers are overwhelmed with work, pressure

sometimes affects their work outcomes, but still, they treat all students the same and all students

have the right to learn. This indicates some powerful effects over student’s learning.

As for the symbolic capital, in our community, there is respect toward the teaching profession,

and the UAE is committed to the education and learning system. Moreover, there are funds to

public school, yet private schools depend on their own budget and income.

The last capital is decisional, it is reflected on my school teachers in a weak point, as teachers

don’t have the time to process their own development because of loads of work and specifically,

the papers work, sometimes it feels as if they are only filling papers instead of teaching. In my

school, some teachers try their best to teach aligned with the paper work. The teachers

sometimes reflect weakly in making decisions as sometimes it not theirs to make. In addition, in

my school teachers teach more hours with less productivity sometimes and the length of the

school day may affect the student’s outcome because of training day to them.

Teaching position sometimes seems to some teachers at my school to a temporary job because of

the lack of job security and can’t be considered a job for life.

Finally, from my view, I can state that teachers at my school need more work at their decisional

capital and be given the chance to decide what is best for students and to be given the time to
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discuss, share, meet and act according to the situation they have. Yet still, teachers still have the

qualities of human, moral and social capital that s reflected in their teaching skills.
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References

Lumby, J., Crow, G., & Pashiardis, P. (2008). International handbook on the preparation and
development of school leaders. London: Routledge