Why Are Finland’s Schools The World’s Best? (hint, they are doing the opposite of the US)

[stockholmer]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/08/why-are-finlands-schools-the-worlds-best/

The secret seems to be emphasizing art, foreign languages, and physical activity, paying teachers like lawyers and doctors, and doing away with standardized testing. A shame that the United States is trending in the opposite direction regarding all of the above. Yes, it helps that Finland is a small, wealthy country with extremely equal income distribution, but its neighbor Norway follows a more “American” education model and with inferior results. Via Smithsonian Magazine:

Besides Finnish, math and science, first graders take music, art, sports, religion and textile handcrafts. English begins in third grade, Swedish in fourth. By fifth grade the children have added biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry. Not until sixth grade will kids have the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not publicized. Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests. “Americans like all these bars and graphs and colored charts,” Louhivuori teased, as he rummaged through his closet looking for past years’ results. “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

The critical decision came in 1979, when reformers required that every teacher earn a fifth-year master’s degree in theory and practice at one of eight state universities—at state expense. From then on, teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers. Applicants began flooding teaching programs, not because the salaries were so high but because autonomy and respect made the job attractive. In 2010, some 6,600 applicants vied for 660 primary school training slots.

Some of the more vocal conservative reformers in America have grown weary of the “We-Love-Finland crowd” or so-called Finnish Envy. They argue that the United States has little to learn from a country of only 5.4 million people—4 percent of them foreign born. Yet the Finns seem to be onto something. Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a decade.

Read the rest at Smithsonian Magazine
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&page=1

snip

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Here is a great comment after the article that pretty much sums it up:

"In Finland it doesn't depend on your savings and parents wealth that can you afford to study in college or the university. It's all about how bright you are. Someone can call it socialism, but for us it is only common sense. We take some socialism and some capitalism, mix it the way that serves us best. As a little country we can't afford to be too ideological or dogmatic."
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I would argue that even as a large country, the USA can't afford to be too dogmatic either.

You don't get what you pay for in the US, especially for education and health care, yet the US surely pays even more in others ways, because irregardless of costs, it isn't getting what it needs from so so many vital social infrastructures.

[mainer]

1. I posted this article yesterday -- the comments were dismissive

"They don't have minorities," "Maybe Finns are smarter," etc. No one wants to really hear why Finland does so well and its neighbor Norway (with emphasis on testing, like the US) is not as successful.

They spend less per student, they don't do much testing, and they revere their teachers. Maybe that last little bit: they RESPECT their teachers -- is more important than anyone realizes.

[marmar]

4. "They don't have minorities,"

Someone said that? ..... What a racist premise.

[The Genealogist]

13. And "Finns are smarter" sounds like some kind of eugenics crap.

[erodriguez]

17. To discount that statement is ignoring a large problem

Having a mostly homogenous culture certainly is a factor in Finland's success.

US students are diverse and for many English is a second language. A lot of these kids grow up in neighborhoods where their native foreign language the predominant language.


Furthermore, minorities have always been the target of institutional racism in this country. There are many here in the DU that have personal recollection of a segregated US. Some are only a few generations from having a relative that was a slave.


These issues have never worked its way out the everyday lives of many minority groups. There is a reason why Black and Latinos have the highest unemployment, the highest levels of poverty, the lowest attainment of education, the highest incarceration rates. The US always has been and still is marginalizing these groups because of their race.

[marmar]

19. Agreed, but to write that kind of statement without context is rather racist, IMHO.

nt

[mainer]

23. In Finland, struggling minority kids get special treatment

The goal is equality and mainstreaming EVERYONE, even those with learning disabilities. And they have less disparity between their highest achievers and their lowest achievers than other countries.

And how do you explain their superior schools to Norway's, with a similar ethnic diversity?

[War Horse]

14. The Swedes and Norwegians are looking to Finland on this

FTA: "Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a decade."

I'm Norwegian - the Finns seem to be doing something right.

[Turbineguy]

2. My family in the Netherlands tells me

that education there went down when they moved to the American system. The previous system however was a problem too. Very much a class system. If your Father was a Bricklayer, you were pretty much locked into a vocational school. College prep was just not possible for you. And the opposite was true too. If your Father was a Physician, even if you were an idiot, you'd get into college prep. Not always however, I remember in my Lyceum I had a classmate whose Father was a mere Sargent in the Army. What a scandal!

[FiveGoodMen]

3. K&R

[uponit7771]

5. From talking to some people from Finland on my last contract their students like school, its a place

...for them to escape home.

I would love to see some of their schools...

[LynneSin]

6. And how many countries has Finland invaded the last few hundred years

The reason why they can afford to spend money on education and we can't.

[RZM]

15. Finland's only been fully independent since 1917

Since 1809 they were a quasi-autonomous Duchy within the Russian Empire (before that part of Sweden), though they did have their own parliament, which the rest of Russia didn't have until the tail end of the Tsarist period.

They were of course involved in WWII as well, though that wasn't entirely their fault since they they were invaded by the Soviets in 1939 after failing to heed Stalin's demands for bases within their territory. They also took the opportunity presented by the German invasion of the Soviet Union to wage the 'Continuation War' from 1941-44 in order to recover the territory they lost in the peace deal with the Soviets in 1940.

[FrodosPet]

22. In WWII they allied with Germany and invaded the Soviet Union

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Finland#Finland_in_World_War_II

"After the Winter War the Finnish army was exhausted, and needed recovery and support as soon as possible. The British declined to help but in autumn 1940 Nazi Germany offered weapon deals to Finland, if the Finnish government would allow German troops to travel through Finland to occupied Norway. Finland accepted, weapon deals were made and military co-operation began in December 1940."

"Finland's support from, and coordination with, Nazi Germany starting during the winter of 1940–41 and made other countries considerably less sympathetic to the Finnish cause; particularly since the Continuation War led to a Finnish invasion of the Soviet Union designed not only to recover lost territory, but additionally to answer the irredentist sentiment of a Greater Finland by incorporating East Karelia, whose inhabitants were culturally related to the Finnish people, although religiously Russian Orthodox. This invasion had caused the United Kingdom to declare war on Finland on 6 December 1941."

[devils chaplain]

24. Actually, we spend much more per pupil than Finland...

Much more than anyone(save for Switzerland that is).



Original OECD source:

http://www.oecd.org:80/edu/eag2009

[MadHound]

7. You get what you pay for,

The sad thing is we don't pay teachers anywhere close to what they are worth. Worse, since we do pay teachers so poorly, the profession doesn't attract a lot of the best and brightest, especially since they can't afford to repay their loans on a teacher's salary. I saw numerous fellow students who would have made great teachers drop out of the education program because they were looking at a forty, fifty, sixty thousand dollar loan bill when they graduated, and only getting a starting salary of twenty five, thirty thousand.

You want a top notch education system, you've got to pay for it.

[elleng]

8. Excellent. Here's a bit from my daughters' elementary school;

they're college grads, but we still admire the way Lowell School did/does things. Its NOT a U.S. public school.

'Got humor? How about the ability to think flexibly or listen to others with understanding and empathy? These are just three of the 16 Habits of Mind that are not only central to Lowell's philosophy for teaching children, but critical to effective problem-solving as adults.'

[NYC_SKP]

9. K/R

And posting a link to the original Smitsonian article:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&story=fullstory

:patriot:

[tridim]

10. I took notice of Finland's educational system back in the height of the Demoscene days

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

Young Fins could program computers to create art like nobody else. While they were learning to program and create, I was fighting to get more computers in my high school. We didn't even have a programming class. It was pathetic.

[hfojvt]

11. apparently they are not as good as Korea

and they also got beat by Asian-Americans

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh122410.shtml

at least in reading

"Average score, reading literacy, PISA, 2009:

Korea 539
Finland 536

Canada 524
New Zealand 521
Japan 520
Australia 515
Netherlands 508
Belgium 506
Norway 503
Estonia 501
Switzerland 501
Poland 500
Iceland 500
United States (overall) 500"

[dtexdem]

12. What, actually teaching students? And pushing creativity? Isn't that passe?

I mean, is mere Finn success an excuse to ignore U.S. educational "reforms"?

;-)

[DFW]

16. If you can master a language like Finnish.......

Then I can imagine ANY other subject in school comes easy!!!

Don't believe me? Try wrapping your tongue around this:

Kurssi koostuu eri aihepiirien teksteistä, jotka on jaettu lyhyisiin kappaleisiin. Kunkin kappaleen lopussa on ymmärtämistä testaavia monivalintatehtäviä

[MadHound]

18. Actually, English and Japanese are among the most difficult languages to learn,

Along with Basque and Arabic.

Finnish is apparently far down the list.

[dynasaw]

21. Try Mandarin and Arabic

not only the spoken word but learning the writing. Most Americans can barely read and write in
English, uh, I mean American.

[DFW]

26. English? Really? I agree that Japanese and Basque are up there with Finnish.

I speak nine languages and have studied linguistics.

Finnish, Hungarian and Basque, with their agglutinative grammar, (especially Basque, with its practically limitless permutations), are maddening, while Japanese is set up completely differently, sounds spoken backwards to us (which is why so many Japanese use very short sentences when trying to speak English).

I don't speak any Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew), but my nephew is majoring in Arabic, just spent a semester in Jordan. he says it is a challenge, but not an insurmountable obstacle. I have no basis for comparison there.

English is just another Germanic language like Dutch and Swedish with a lot of French thrown in, and causes little difficulty for speakers of any other Indo-European languages. Its straightforward grammar makes it comparatively simple to get along in.

[Overseas]

20. K&R.

[astral]

25. How many of us even know a second language?

How many of us on this thread know a second language? We need to teach our kids better, and we need to not leave it to the school system. I'm not saying everybody take your kid out of school, just be involved in educating him, all of the senses need to be used in our development, we learn to love what we are and what we want to do by being exposed and challenged at a young age.

What a difference.