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Finland has a population of about 5.5 million. The population is mostly homogeneous, economically, racially and culturally.
There are no private schools in Finland. Those from more economically advantaged families receive the same education and opportunities as the least economically advantaged. All children receive meals at school and have equal access to healthcare.
There are no standardized tests beyond a National maltrication exam.
Teaching is a highly prestigious career.
There is no word equivalent of accountability in the Finnish language. There is only responsibility. The Gates experiment focused on accountability.
Physics is mandatory and begins in Elementary school. Most US students are not exposed to physics. Same can be said about teachers and parents.
Emphasis is on problem solving, especially group solve in Finland, not memorization and calculation.
It’s all about applying instead of calculating which is fundamental within the tests submitted for international comparison. In contrast, US students tend to be better calculators but fall short in logical application.
They are better than ours. Nothing in this world is perfect; everything has its flaws.
I'd much rather the Finnish system to ours. And while they may start preschool at 3, the schools do not resemble our preschools much at all. They are WAY more relaxed with the kids. Its not really school...or maybe its comparable to Montessori - self lead learning.
It sounds like you need to bone up on the Finnish system a little before posting about it. What is provided in these preschools is called "educare", ie, education and child care. There are similar preschools in the US.
There is a saying "Just because airplanes crash, that doesn't mean magic carpets fly". 30 years ago, Japan was the "magic carpet". Now it's Finland, mostly because a few years ago their kids scored the top scores on the PISA test.
Quote:
Originally Posted by middle-aged mom
Finland has a population of about 5.5 million. The population is mostly homogeneous, economically, racially and culturally.
There are no private schools in Finland. Those from more economically advantaged families receive the same education and opportunities as the least economically advantaged. All children receive meals at school and have equal access to healthcare.
There are no standardized tests beyond a National maltrication exam.
Teaching is a highly prestigious career.
There is no word equivalent of accountability in the Finnish language. There is only responsibility. The Gates experiment focused on accountability.
Physics is mandatory and begins in Elementary school. Most US students are not exposed to physics. Same can be said about teachers and parents.
Emphasis is on problem solving, especially group solve in Finland, not memorization and calculation.
It’s all about applying instead of calculating which is fundamental within the tests submitted for international comparison. In contrast, US students tend to be better calculators but fall short in logical application.
So Finland's population is about that of Minnesota, and a little smaller than Massachusetts'. Those two states are often considered "the best" in the US for education. Yes, the Finnish population is pretty non-diverse. MA and MN alone are probably more diverse than Finland.
I'd like to see your source on this "physics" education. My guess is it's similar to what US kids get in elementary school science. I'm not sure why it's such a big deal that physics be mandatory, beyond the physical science courses in early high school.
It sounds like you need to bone up on the Finnish system a little before posting about it. What is provided in these preschools is called "educare", ie, education and child care. There are similar preschools in the US.
There is a saying "Just because airplanes crash, that doesn't mean magic carpets fly". 30 years ago, Japan was the "magic carpet". Now it's Finland, mostly because a few years ago their kids scored the top scores on the PISA test.
Tell Anu Partanen that. It was her book from which I got that information.
LOL
Quote:
Anu Partanen (born 1975) is a Finnish journalist living in the United States. She became a naturalized American citizen in 2013. Her book The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life was published in June 2016 by HarperCollins.[1]
But I'm sure you know more about the Finnish system than a Finnish born woman who lived there until she was an adult. Right?
Tell Anu Partanen that. It was her book from which I got that information.
LOL
But I'm sure you know more about the Finnish system than a Finnish born woman who lived there until she was an adult. Right?
I'm going by your saying "maybe" this and "maybe" that. I have actually read a lot about the Finnish system. And just because you got your information from this woman's book doesn't mean you interpreted it correctly.
Its a crock of poo to say kids don't want to learn. Learning is an innate human characteristic.
Here's where the rocks and shoals are.
Every "education reform" enacted since the 1980s when A Nation At Risk came out has been aimed at the lowest 20% cohort. Every single one.
The population of that cohort is predominantly minority, predominantly poor and predominantly urban (yes, there are low performing rural schools but we're talking smaller numbers with them).
The average middle class kid comes to Kindergarten with a working vocabulary of around 2000 words. The lowest 20% might have half that, or around 1000.
That gap persists through the grades and widens out as the child gets older.
Gates attempted to apply industrial production concepts to education (and I'm sorry, having been through the implementation of much of it and reading the rationale I haven't been able to shake the idea that a lot of it had to do with increasing Microsoft's bottom line. Tests developed by Pearson Education, taken on Apple computers using software developed by Microsoft).
Also, most of his money went to schools and school systems that had that bottom 20%, so it wasn't spread evenly.
When teachers started to be evaluated on student test scores (as a note, my last full year teaching was 2013-14 in a middle/upper middle class school in a suburb of DC. That year the incoming 9th Grade reading level was 4th Grade, month 2) department meetings became bloodbaths with teachers fighting over who got the Honors/AP classes.
I saw it play out over the course of my last 4 years teaching and it was ugly. And yet another tool Principals could use to get rid of teachers they didn't like in order to make room for their frat brothers or girlfriends.
Last edited by North Beach Person; 07-05-2018 at 05:22 PM..
The reason that Americans are failing in school is because kids don't want to learn, their parents don't want to make them, and schools are more interested in teaching social justice then math, or science, never mind English.
Kids don't dream of having careers anymore, but instead feel entilted to the good things in American life. Their parents just want to be their friends, and we know the problems in the schools themselves, where honest educators are outnumbered by delayed adolescent social justice warriors.
Of course, we would be remiss not to mention that more and more time and resources are delegated to deal with kids who do not speak English. Never mind the enormous drag factor of minority communities such as Detroit, where statistically, over 90% of students are remedial at math, and NO ONE is above average.
Imitiating Finland or Japan will accomplish nothing at all.The ONLY answer is an honest dialog about our culture and a return to some basic values.
Ya but, thats like your opinion man..
(Just making generalizations without any basis)..
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