The illusion of easy money disappears in a business programme

Pupils lose their illusion of making easy money already in their first year of the business programme at the Tampere Teacher Training School

“The pupils’ interest endures even if they lose their illusions.” Music teacher Aki Tulikari describes his experiences of teaching in the business programme of the upper secondary school of the Teacher Training School at the University of Tampere. The first pupils started last autumn.

Tulikari estimates that about a half of the pupils first believed that they were about to make lots of money. However, they lost that thought quite quickly.


“A net income of three thousand would be enough”

Nelli Karhu, who is a pupil at the upper secondary school, says that she would rather have a job with many responsibilities than a lot of money. “Money is like a bonus, I can always use the money too.”

Reijo Jaakkola adds that money is important as it opens doors and makes life easier. “Money doesn’t necessarily make you happy, but it can make things easy.” He says that he does not try to become a millionaire but to have a life that he can be content with where he has everything he needs.

How much money should you make in a month?

“Three thousand in hand would be enough, at least for me,” Jaakkola answers. Katariina Pentinen aims to study law and believes that the job of a lawyer will also bring money.

“I did not come to the business programme to make money. I heard of a study according to which a certain amount of money, 8 -9 thousands; if you get more than that, it does not make you any happier,” Pentinen believes.

Otto Santala says that the idea of money was somewhere ‘in the back of his mind’ when he got into the business programme. “3,000 would be a nice sum if you got to keep it all, but if things develop as they are going now and the price of flats keeps going up, it won’t be a lot of money in the future.”


“They think a woman’s place is in the kitchen”

There are 23 boys and five girls in the business programme at the upper secondary school. Why are girls not more interested in business?

“Men are more ambitious. Girls think that the woman’s role is still in the kitchen. Guys are ambitious and they would rather be the bosses themselves,” Nelli Karhu says.

Katariina Pentinen wonders why there are so few girls. She had expected that about a half of the pupils would be girls and half boys.

“When I heard about the number of girls, I was really surprised. Perhaps girls do not have the most leadership skills or they do not have what it takes to become the boss when they do not even believe in it themselves.”

Otto Santala hopes for more versatility and new thoughts which the pupils are not getting now as the majority of them are boys. Reijo Jaakkola also wishes that there were more girls.

Is the business world male-dominated and old-fashioned?

“It is a bit old-fashioned in that sense. Things will change a lot in the future when there will be more women involved,” Reijo Jaakkola says. Otto Santala remarks that the meaning of gender is also dependent on the branch of business. He would accept gender quotas in some lines of business in order to guarantee equality.

Teacher Aki Tulikari adds that gender balance can have some significance in the health sector, or the banking sector which is hard as a rock. Women could bring something softer.

“Would it be good if Yamaha had more saleswomen?” Tulikari asks his pupils.

“Many women are really interested in cars and they know much more about them than men do. If you have enough know-how in the field, why not,” Otto Santala answers.


”No to compulsory enterprising”

Many of the pupils in the business programme want to study at a business university. Nelli Karhu says that it is not too late to change one’s mind about further studies but that it would be difficult to change tack at this point and to start planning studies to become a doctor, for example, when the pupils have already chosen their courses with different things in mind.

For the pupils in the business programme, the idea of a career as an entrepreneur is more familiar than it is for some other pupils, but the pupils are still not taking up that option headfirst.

Katariina Pentinen wants to study law and start her own company. Otto Santala thinks that he could start a company if he first found a field he is interested in.

Reijo Jaakkola would like to start an advertising agency because there is a lot of know-how and IT in Finland that is not marketed properly.

“Nokia, for example, could advertise their brand better. Nokia would be stronger if it created a stronger name that guarantees high quality,” Jaakkola describes.

Nelli Karhu does not want to be forced to start her own company: “Starting a company should go, like, you first get a brilliant business idea which you are not forced to develop. The best ideas are if you just come up with something great about an everyday thing.”


“Our generation will fix the economy”

The pupils in the business programme have good solutions to the economic crises in Finland and the eurozone.

”Well, first we will have to fix the state finances and that does not happen at the drop of a hat. It is our generation and the ones that are younger than us who will start fixing the finances when we move on to working life,” Otto Santala says.

He suspects that too many youths lack motivation.

“Everyone should have an education first. When you graduate from a university or a college, there are no jobs in many fields which you can just go and take. This should be fixed so that we would have more jobs in Finland.”
 
Reijo Jaakkola wants to bring school closer to practical working life.

“You don’t learn anything practical at the business university as they mostly teach you theory about business. Here in the business programme we have many excursions where we get to learn a lot.


“We talk about theory without using the word ‘theory’”

Theory and practice can mean different things to the pupils and their teacher. Teacher Aki Tulikari approaches business through doing, so that theory, including critique, comes as a byproduct.

“When the students first understand the technique, the critique also starts to contain more varied perspectives.”

Marketing is learned through thinking about what kind of goods are for sale and how, for instance, luxury goods are produced and the students get to think if they are really necessary.

“Critique is an integral aspect, but it is not talked about outright as critique. In the same way in a music lesson, I never say that now I’m teaching you theory or history of music because it puts the pupils off. I don’t say that now we have a theory lesson, instead I say that now we talk about how music is made,” Tulikari explains.

Critique is talked about without using the word ‘critique’ and theory is talked about without using the word ‘theory’.

“It’s a funny thing that pupils think ‘theory’ and ‘history’ are dirty words already in secondary school, but, if I don’t use these words, they soak up what I teach without protest.”

Text Heikki Laurinolli
Photograph Teemu Launis
Translation Laura Tohka

This story was originally published in Finnish in Aikalainen 3/2013