Dr. Hunter O’Hara and Dr. Merrie Tinkersley visited Finland, and this is what they learned:
“American Educators Find Surprises in Helsinki and at Home in the United States”
On the basis of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, Finnish public schools have ranked at the top, or very near the top in the world in the areas of mathematics, reading and science. Seven teacher education seniors and three teacher education faculty at The University of Tampa traveled to Finland to determine the nature of Finnish success with public education. We visited three public schools; 1) grades K-8, 2) grades 1-6, and 3) grades 9-12. We also visited Metropolia University and the University of Helsinki. At U.H. we had an extended conversation with a teacher education professor.
Prior to our visit, we understood that Finland prides itself for creating school equality across the nation. During our visit, we felt we were able to develop a realistic perception of Finnish public schools. We also spoke with Finnish students, teachers, administrators and parents. We expected to see extraordinarily dynamic, innovative teachers and pedagogy. We anticipated being dazzled with Finnish approaches to instruction, teaching strategies and techniques……such was not the case.
We observed examples of group inquiry/investigation, interdisciplinary thematic instruction, content-driven flexible conversation as well as the use of film for instructional purposes. Approaches such as these are not novel and are modeled, taught and practiced in multiple teacher education courses and internships at The University of Tampa. In terms of teaching strategies, nothing we viewed seemed visionary, extraordinary or new. Rather we noted that some teachers were using very traditional methods such a lecture/question and answer.
What Is Different About Finnish Schools?
Surprisingly for several of us, we did not see technology used in classrooms at all. We saw no use of standardized testing. In fact, we verified that there is no standardized testing in Finland unless the classroom teacher requests such a test for her or his own diagnostic purposes; but never for accountability. Progress is monitored, but the design and timing of exams are left up to the classroom teacher. We saw an egalitarian curriculum that includes substantial coursework in the fine arts, social sciences, the humanities and physical education in addition to mathematics, science and reading. High quality learner-created artwork adorns classrooms and all hallways. Not unlike the United States just a few decades ago, pianos are found in elementary classrooms.
We found that learning environments are noncompetitive. Instead of competition, the focus is on group learning pursuits and class multilogues. Physical education courses focus on fitness rather than competitive gaming. Finnish students do not even compete in inter-school athletics.
Finnish Culture and The Classroom
We did see significant cultural identifiers that directly impact the functioning of the school community and learning pursuits. Finnish learners are afforded a great deal of autonomy and freedom. Correspondingly, significant levels of maturity are expected of learners. Learners are trusted and expected to complete tasks without policing. Starting in first grade, students are expected to serve themselves at lunch and breakfast (free of charge) and to clear after themselves- regardless of their developmental level. Learners spend a significant amount of time in the out of doors pursuing projects and play regardless of temperatures (for Finns, there is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing). They know how to manage their frigid climate well. Learners act autonomously on a frequent basis and are free to take their time during transitions and while they are engaged in various projects. For example, there is no lining up and single -file –silent- walking between locations at the elementary level.
Just as cold temperatures predominate the weather, mutual trust predominates Finnish human interaction. As teachers trust learners, learners trust teachers to have their best interests at heart. School administrators trust teachers and learners, and Finnish communities trust teachers and principals to do their jobs well. Just as teachers trust learners, the Finnish government trusts Finnish teachers to structure facilitate and maintain successful learning environments. One principal shared, “I trust that teachers are going to do their own work in their own way.” Another principal indicated to us, “The focus is on trust, instead of accountability, and there are no high stakes tests. What happens in the classroom is up to the teacher.” Schools are never ranked and teachers track their own students. Finns trust their teacher credentialing process. Unlike many United States charter schools, Finns who have no credentials in education do not meddle in school affairs. Due to the prestige and free teacher preparation at the universities, Finland is able to admit only ten percent of the applicants into the teacher preparation programs. The Finnish government does not police schools in terms of learner performance, and the national standards for the various content areas are a succinct few pages.
All Schools Equal in Finland
There are no charter schools in Finland, no school vouchers, no “grading” of schools and no magnet schools. Unlike the United States, the intent in Finland is to assure that all schools are of equal quality. Again, that quality certainly does not owe it’s success to test driven instruction and curricula, nor does it have to do with “teacher accountability” campaigns as they have been called in the United States. Such approaches would have no place in a trust -centered nation like Finland. As has been made clear by their world ranking, Finnish schools are successful without the above questionable practices. Finnish teachers are highly respected and their prestige ranks with that of doctors and lawyers. Again, Finnish teacher preparation is paid for by the Finnish government. All teachers are prepared traditionally through a five year university preparation program. There is no alternative teacher certification in Finland.
Finnish teachers are fully unionized and they earn decent wages. We learned from faculty and administrators in Finland that there is no place for a scripted curriculum if administrators hire well qualified, traditionally prepared teachers. Moreover to be effective in their profession, teachers must be afforded professional autonomy and academic freedom. Many of these essential, teaching success-inducing components have been eroded in the United States over the past few decades.
Naturally, as educators we found Finnish schools to be very attractive, and yet we never lost our faith in the American public schools that had prepared us- the very schools to which we had also dedicated our professional lives. Quite plainly, the successes we saw in Finland should occur in the United States. Not only that, we were made aware that the entire design and implementation of the Finnish school system was based on American education research! As a matter of fact, the United States generates eighty percent of the research in education worldwide. If American education research is a good enough to base the design of one of the very most successful public education systems in the world, why is it not good enough to use in the United States? Furthermore, if we had the answers in the United States, why were we traveling to Finland to find our own answers?
Return to the United States
Not long after we returned to the United States, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools was published. Diane Ravitch’s carefully researched book contradicts the rabid negative mythology that surrounds American Public Education. Ravitch is a research Professor of Education at New York University and was appointed to the National Assessment Governing Board by President Bill Clinton. In short, she reveals that American Public School high school dropouts are at an all-time low, high school graduation rates are at an all-time high and that test scores are at their highest point ever recorded. In fact, when compared as a nation “the states of Massachusetts, Minnesota and Colorado … ranked among the top-performing nations in the world” (p. 67). Further, “if it were a nation, Florida would have been tied for second in the world with Russia, Finland, and Singapore” on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (p.67). Not only that, “American students in schools with low poverty-the schools where less than ten percent of the students were poor- had scores that were equal to those of Shanghai and significantly better than those of high-scoring Finland, the Republic of Korea, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia.” (p. 64) Most significantly, Ravitch confirms that the single biggest source of low academic achievement is poverty. Poverty impacts learning in dramatic ways and for learners to transcend that barrier, they must first overcome the overwhelming and debilitating effects of poor nutrition, poor health care, inadequate clothing and housing. Child poverty in Finland is 5.3 % but child poverty in the United States 23.1 % according to the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Report Card 10; the highest rate of poverty amongst all of the advanced nations in the world. It should also be noted that unlike the United States, many PISA high scoring nations do not school learners in an egalitarian fashion past certain ages; which is to say that, in those nations, by the time students take the PISA, underperforming students have already been “weeded out” or eliminated. Ravitch is justified when she asserts that American public education is an extraordinary success.
In light of Ravitch’s meticulous research, one can only wonder why seemingly sinister forces have conspired to stigmatize American Public Schools. Not to be forgotten, however, is the role that American Public Schools have played in the success of this nation. When we act to stigmatize or to condemn that bulwark, we are actually working to condemn ourselves. If the American people allow their public schools to be undermined by powers that have only their greed and self interest in mind, we do so at our own peril. If the day arrives when public schools are lost, the middle class will surely be lost as well. We must all value, support and protect American Public Education.
Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of Error. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
“In light of Ravitch’s meticulous research, one can only wonder why seemingly sinister forces have conspired to stigmatize American Public Schools.”
There is the word SINISTER again……I’ve been Tweeting it daily!
What is SINISTER about PEARSON is that they have delved into the dark arts of psychology to develop tests like STAAR that are intentionally designed to “frustrate”, “confuse”, and “intimidate” children. The psychological term for this is “crazy making”!
Mimi,
Pearson is already using the Common Core online tests to mine student data. Now, that is sinister!
Sinister and creepy…..
Since the military now has time on their hands,
Pearson must have made a deal with PSYOP too
target the school children?
This is a more serious look at “corporate education reform” comparing education in the US the Finland, the country that is tops in test scores. Have Scott read this. Pat
Sent from my iPhone
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So, we can see that in US schools, the idea of competition rules, not the idea if cooperation. And, as for real learning, the tests are only an instrument to “prove” that some teachers should be considered dead weight and should be turned out to fund a minimum wage existence once they have been worn to a feazxle and spent substantial amounts of their income supplementing their classrooms. Testing’s insignicance to real learning isn’t considered, just the utility of justifying teacher replacement with TFA who earn less and leave quickly.
Educators have little value. We hold the same insignificance as women once held in the 1950s.
Outstanding piece!
Did you see this yet? Maybe it was posted here.
The problem is that a statistically significant finding from an analysis of state-level NAEP scores, the variation among states being relatively small, often fades to insignificance when considered in the more practical, real world terms of how much math students are learning. It is doubtful that even the most ardent Common Core supporter will be satisfied if the best CCSS can offer—after all of the debate, the costs in tax revenue, and blood, sweat, and tears going into implementation—is a three point NAEP gain.
The 2012 Brown Center Report predicted, based on empirical analysis of the effects of state standards, that the CCSS will have little to no impact on student achievement. Supporters of the Common Core argue that strong, effective implementation of the standards will sweep away such skepticism by producing lasting, significant gains in student learning. So far, at least—and it is admittedly the early innings of a long ballgame—there are no signs of such an impressive accomplishment.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2014/03/18-common-core-loveless
Thanks for posting this, Linda.
The purpose of the Common [sic] Core [sic] was not, of course, to increase achievement. That’s just the marketing hook, though it’s one that many CC$$ supporters have swallowed.
The purpose of the CC$$ was to create a single set of national tags for software to be sold nationally by educational materials monopolists who see the switch to computer-adaptive learning as the coming disjunctive revolution in education. That’s why the folks who paid to have the Core developed opened their checkbooks. It was a necessary preliminary investment in a new multi-billion-dollar business.
It didn’t much matter to these people WHAT was in the “standards,” as long as they were invariant. They needed one set to tag their software to.
A lot of educrats and some union leaders, smart people all, have been totally PLAYED.
Bill Gates is a champion bridge player.
Fascinating. The intro to the article on the study says that CC$$ will increase NAEP scores, and then the article itself says, well, not by much. Billions and billions of dollars later, not by much. Hilarious.
Main goal. Reduce teacher need, teacher salaries, teaching profession.
Privatize everything.
I want the United States. I don’t want the Corporate States.
I get really tired of people pushing Finland. Finland has little or no diversity, has an itty-bitty population (their entire population is one-tenth the size of the school-age population in the United States), and their culture is different.
It’s apples and oranges. And don’t worry: When the privatizers get done with their globalist fantasies on education, Finland’s system will be privatized as well.
Norway next door has similar demographics and adopted the Reformer’s approach. It is performing worse than Finland. DNA is pretty much the same between people, meaning it is not us v. them and what works in Finland can work here. Scale is irrelevant as we can regionalize or implement at state levels. Finland had a terrible education system prior their current approach.
A good model should be examined.
How much honest and free exchange of ideas can there be if the state has a total monopoly on education?
Indeed, Janine. Centralization of control in a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth is the last thing we need. We need autonomous schools and districts making their own decisions, an ecology, not a monoculture.
The genetics of the Finns are somewhat different from the Swedes and Norwegians. They show more relation to Central Asian populations. The Finnish Lapps are roughly 20% Asian and Russian Lapps about 30% Asian. The Asian component of Finns is less but significantly more than that of the Swedes and Norwegians. The original Finns were probably Asiatic and they left a significant genetic influence on the present Finnish population unlike the situation in Hungary where there is little genetic evidence of the Magyars.
dianne, bob shepherd and linda–please post your valuable information on the indianapolis star site when they tout the common core (and our move away from the common core to our uncommonly high set of standards drawn primarily from common core, as in a rose by any other name) and their ed reformy mindtruster written pr pieces on charters/choice/vouchers. Never a word about the voucher charter experience in Ohio, except to quote the friedman people on how well that improved scores (written before the students actually used the vouchers). They need to see this information as their current ed writers have little to no experience in education.
You underestimate the Europeans. They have already had their historic victory over the excesses of the far right, and they smell the corporatists coming a mile away. They also don’t have the media machines that we have which so handily manufacture consent so that everything from wars to privatization are made acceptable and digestible for the American public.
You know little of Finland.
This country is governed by it’s people; there is no ruling elite and no chance whatsoever that education will be privatized.
(A British citizen resident in Finland for the past 23 years, with 2 sons aged 10 and 6 getting an excellent education.)
Finland has a model for learning that works….
Children have the same developmental needs everywhere….Finland just does a
better job of meeting children’s holistic needs.
Savage capitalism. If it can’t be monetized, it’s a no go here.
The state has been purchased by the capitalists. Making yourself completely dependant on the state is putting all that you hold near and dear into the hands of of the capitalists you despise so greatly. If an individual state or county wants to model Finland, great. Any federalized program will disenfranchise millions of citizens from participating in decisions regarding the pedagogy and curriculum that their children will be subject to. This simply is not the American way. To assume citizens can’t recognize the difference between what is quality education or not is truly underestimating citizens. Do you want healthcare that you are captive to? How about your healthcare? Are you really sure you want to surrender your choice and autonomy in your healthcare choices (or should I say no choice) to a government run bureaucracy? Sorry, but I don’t want to surrender my freedom of choice to a mobocracy of sheep who get their marching orders on the evening news. It takes alot of trust or naivete to relinquish these vital human rights to a bureaucratic elite that has permeated education and healthcare and desires to manage society from their ivory towers. Sorry, I don’t care about Finland. I care about freedom. There is no freedom in federally “managed” healthcare and education.
If an individual state or county wants to model Finland, great. Any federalized program will disenfranchise millions of citizens from participating in decisions regarding the pedagogy and curriculum that their children will be subject to. This simply is not the American way.
Agreed.
Can you explain why, Janine, ALEC, the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, the Brookings Institution, and the Heritage Foundation are all so intent on creating a centralized, top-down, totalitarian regulatory authority in education, a Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth? Why they are so hell-bent against local control?
Crazy. And dangerous.
But perhaps there is freedom in conscious, responsible choice…ands that’s precisely who the educators who visited Finland learned.
The Finns chose to create a quality educational system based on what research showed was sound practice.
And unless you missed it, trust and freedom permeate the Finnish system.
Are you opposed to trust and freedom, Janine?
Can we please stop with this nonsense. You can’t compare a completely homogeneous society where 95% of kids speak the primary language from birth to the US where some neighborhoods are all foreign born, with a melting pot of cultures and abilities/disabilities. For all your complaining about “monetization and capitalism”, there is not a mention of the fact this this anti-accountability push is simply a union driven agenda to have cushy, guaranteed jobs for life without having to answer to anyone ever. The facts are as follows: teachers in Finland make less than here (look that up), and for all the greatness of their “feel-good, non-competitive” system we should take a look at what they produce: equality in mediocrity. 1 Nobel Prize winner since 1967 (not in a hard science/math either) and only 4 total. Can you think of one Finnish company, other than the rapidly fading Nokia? I know that teacher unions love this idea of easy going mediocrity with no accountability, but this would be a disaster for the US.
is the truth to shocking to post? Censorship and control cut both ways, huh?
Do you seriously think “accountability” can be achieved by sitting the student in front of a computer and forcing them to answer 30 or so brief, disjoint, and contrived questions?
If Finland is producing better educated students, wouldn’t it make sense to find out how they are doing it?
Teacher’s unions are the Tea Party boogeyman, but they only exist BECAUSE of the anti-teacher attitudes you display. Most teacher’s unions have had little power for years. Why would you want to censor and suppress the opinions of those working in the classroom? Wouldn’t that be useful information?
What, exactly, is your “truth?”
You don’t like unions. You don’t like the fact that the Finnish system works. You probably don’t like the fact that trust and freedom are central to the culture of Finnish schools. You apparently have a problem with the notion of ‘equality.’
So, is that the “truth” of which you speak?
Rachel – The Finns are known for a lot of contributions to actuarial mathematics. It is interesting though that their top mathematicians have mostly been Swedish Finns – Lindelof, Phragmen, Ahlfors. Even Nevanlinna, despite his Finnish name, was mostly of Swedish-German stock. His family had changed their name to sound more Finnish.
Asking about Nobel Prize winners in Finland is like asking the same question about Minnesota (two winners since 1967) if you want to compare with an equal population. But you are correct, Rachel in implying that there are fewer winners coming from Finland with a population of ~5.6 million than from the US with a population of ~330 million.
Anti-accountability and cushy jobs are for charter CEOs. Don’t you find it funny that Moskowitz’s charters have super high teacher turnover yet, she stays in her job year after year with four assistants. Now that is cushy!!!!!!
I was wondering when the magic blame-everything-on-it ‘u-word’ would pop up! Far right wingers in the house!!!
and for all the greatness of their “feel-good, non-competitive” system we should take a look at what they produce: equality in mediocrity.
who needs more prizes and fortune 500 companies? The Finns have a good life. They see a vocational calling as being equal to a high level degree… everyone can earn a decent living, have good health care, great education. Maybe they just define greatness differently.
Excellent commentary on schools in Finland. Thanks so much. It confirms much of what the National Superintendents Roundtable learned in Finland during a 2012 visit. Education functions on the “principle of trust” we were told at the Finnish Ministry of Education. Students are trusted, but so are teachers and principals. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that more than half the national legislators are themselves educators (be still, beating heart!).
Something else contributes to this remarkable Finnish story, in my opinion. Finland began 40 years ago to rebuild it’s schools around two principles: equity in the schools and equity in the larger society. In the United States, wealthy schools are favored with more money. In Finland, all schools receive the same per-pupil allocation from the national government. In the United States, we have pursued policies that have provided the top 10% of earners with 90% of the benefits of economic growth. In Finland, a market-based welfare state (not a Socialist state) the benefits of economic growth are shared more equitably throughout the society.
All of this permits Finnish educators to do what a French administrator told the Roundtable when it visited the French Ministry of Education: “In Finland, they provide all students with what they need, when they need it.”
How much honest and free exchange of ideas can there be if the state has a total monopoly on education?
Like Common Core?
They don’t. They trust the local teachers and schools to do the right thing.
Dee Dee: thank you for resisting the Rheeality Distortion Field that afflicts some of the commenters here.
😎
Monopoly is a business term. Businesses are run as dictatorships with the power and authority vested solely in the owners and delegated as needed. Customers have no power in a monopoly nor do employees.
In state governments, the power and authority ultimately rests with voters. The state acts on behalf of voters. Every voter has a say. The state delegates to local school boards but they also answer to voters. This is not a monopoly.
So the answer is that there is a public forum where voters are given plenty of opportunity to freely exchange ideas. Free speech is not protected in the office place, it is at a school board meeting.
C’mon, Janine. You’re not really interested in an “honest and free exchange of ideas” are you?
You’ve already found your “truth.” And it’s Biblically literal.
Your words:
* “Adam and Eve lived for hundreds of years. Adam was 930 years old when he died. Together, over many generations, they had countless children; among them were Cain, Able and Seth.”
* “Scripture is also clear about homosexuality: ‘you shall not lie with a male as a woman: it is an abomination.’–Leviticus 18:22”
* “Either the bible is completely right and we were made for fellowship with our Creator or it is completely wrong and we are no more than an accidental combination of carbon atoms stuck for a short period of time in a meaningless period of consciousness.”
* “The third option that ‘we all worship the same God’ is a lie of Satan to draw us away from the one true God. Worship of anything other than the one true God and His Son Jesus Christ is worship of Satan.”
You can believe what you wish. That’s your right.
But it’s pretty clear from your own words that you have no interest whatsoever in an “honest and free exchange of ideas,” about religion, or freedoms for all citizens, or evolution, or much of anything else.
Reblogged this on Teaching Wanderlust and commented:
One of the things I love most about international teaching is being able to compare schools in the US to schools abroad. Finland would be a fascinating place to visit and I am not surprised at the reactions of the teachers who visited there. Great read, as usual!
Pasi Sahlberg, former a Finnish senior education official met last summer with a number of people in Minnesota. In his comments, he agreed with a number of things about accountability and “trust” that are a part of the University of Tampa report.
He also noted that there are about 75 “options” – similar but not identical to American chartered public schools. They are operated by a variety of institutions. They follow the state curriculum frameworks.
Both Massachusetts and Minnesota have compared well with Finland in recent international comparisons (recognizing that test scores are not the only way to compare schools and countries). Both states allow groups of parents and educators to create options within districts and permit chartered public schools.
In his book. Finnish Lessons, Sahlberg wrote, “converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.” (2011, p. 9)
References
Sahlberg, P. (2011). Finnish lessons: What can the world learn from educational change in Finland? NY: Teachers College Press.
I have always felt one of the more important tasks of a teacher is to help a student develop positive habits. Students will eventually determine and choose what they feel is the best curriculum for them; they will discover what interests them. To learn that in Finland students have expected behaviors regarding food service and reaction to obstacles (the reference to weather) validates my idea that fostering habits is of more importance than subject curriculum. These habits create autonomy and help the student become a self-sufficient learner. It is my belief this is the type of learner that is more prone to embrace the idea of being a life-long learner.
Curriculum designed to help a student pass a standardized test is a curriculum that is also grounded in developing habits. But instead of developing habits that create autonomy and critical thinking, standardized test curriculum teaches the habits of compliance. It like the consumerist culture realizes it’s dying so it is trying to change the habits of our young into automated responses rather than autonomous responses.
Reformers not only attack teachers, but it is truly an assult and undermining of educational research in our country. It’s ludicrous to think that people from our own country could take over a profession that has been heavily researched and recreate it into something that has no backing except by a small group of rebels with their own agenda.
The salt on the wound is this: “Not only that, we were made aware that the entire design and implementation of the Finnish school system was based on American education research! As a matter of fact, the United States generates eighty percent of the research in education worldwide. If American education research is a good enough to base the design of one of the very most successful public education systems in the world, why is it not good enough to use in the United States?”
We know the answer.
I love the way the writers confuse ravitch’s summary of the research with research. Ravitch did not do any research, she only read and summarized the research. A very great asset to be sure now that Gerald is no longer with us, but one which is ignored by the ed reform press–see scott elliott and his education writers association or whatever it is called. Heavily funded by the same people who bring you rhee, gates, and walmart.
From the IBJ ” A not-for-profit and “non-ideological” education news site focusing on Indiana is set to launch early next year, headed by former Indianapolis Star reporter Scott Elliott. Indianapolis-based Chalkbeat Indiana will be an outpost of the Education News Network, which consists of the online news site EdNews Colorado as well as Gotham Schools, a site that reports on New York City public schools.” non-ideological means opinion based, not research based.
Reblogged this on Rickarcher1959's Blog and commented:
What we do in the USA in the polar opposite of what happens in Finland. Then again, the Fins aren’t trying to profit off the backs of their children.
Interesting that Finnish educators are reading American research, while our “educational leaders,” read the sports pages — I wager Mr. Duncan spent the entire weekend watching and revising his bracket picks (probably some calls to White House for some teams to watch). Forget reading research today–maybe tomorrow after meeting with Pearson representatives, a visit to a charter school that has reached the top, and a quick lunch with M. Rhee—tough day at the office.
ROFLMAO!!! That pretty well sums up his day, other than checking to make sure his lobbyist friends made the proper “contributions” to his fund. Maybe he wants to follow in the path of his buddies rahm and vallas?
Reblogged this on Docjonz's Accounting Blog and commented:
As an educator and parent, I have been very interested in the on-going debate about the common core standards adopted for grades K-12 in the U.S.
This is a reblog of a post by Diane Ravitch about a visit to Helsinki, Finaland to see how they approach K-12 education.
The biggest advantage that Finland has compared to the US is that it has hardly any black or mestizo students. US whites were only slightly below the Finns in PISA scores and US whites scored above all white majority countries except Finland and New Zealand. High PISA scores are a matter of having predominantly white and East Asian students.
Jim, get some help.
Jim, get a life.
Give it a rest Jim, you clearly have no clue what you are talking about.
There are more African emigrants in this country than there are Sami (Lapps, to you).
“original Finns were probably Asiatic and they left a significant genetic influence on the present Finnish population” – nonsense! The greatest “genetic influence” has been that of Sweden, followed by Russia.
Your obsession with genetics is peculiar, bordering on racist, and has nothing to do with education.