William Doyle recently returned from a Fulbright year in Finland, and he spent his year studying education. His own child attended a Finnish school.
He wrote about some of the lessons he learned in this article that appeared in the Hechinger Report.
Here is the big takeaway:
If you want results, try doing the opposite of what American “education reformers” think we should do in classrooms.
Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment.
When American reformers refer to “personalized learning,” they mean that every child should have his/her own laptop. Finnish teachers use the concept of “personalized learning,” but they mean person-to-person learning:
While the school has the latest technology, there isn’t a tablet or smartphone in sight, just a smart board and a teacher’s desktop.
Screens can only deliver simulations of personalized learning, this is the real thing, pushed to the absolute limit.
Instead of walking in lines, remaining silent, blowing a bubble instead of speaking, and maintaining perfect order, as our reformers prefer:
Children are allowed to slouch, wiggle and giggle from time to time if they want to, since that’s what children are biologically engineered to do, in Finland, America, Asia and everywhere else.
Teachers in Finland have the freedom to teach and are encouraged to innovate:
Here, as in any other Finnish school, teachers are not strait-jacketed by bureaucrats, scripts or excessive regulations, but have the freedom to innovate and experiment as teams of trusted professionals….
Children at this and other Finnish public schools are given not only basic subject instruction in math, language and science, but learning-through-play-based preschools and kindergartens, training in second languages, arts, crafts, music, physical education, ethics, and, amazingly, as many as four outdoor free-play breaks per day, each lasting 15 minutes between classes, no matter how cold or wet the weather is. Educators and parents here believe that these breaks are a powerful engine of learning that improves almost all the “metrics” that matter most for children in school – executive function, concentration and cognitive focus, behavior, well-being, attendance, physical health, and yes, test scores, too.
But is there something about Finland that makes it inappropriate as a point of comparison? Does it succeed because of a homogeneous population? Doyle says no:
There are also those who would argue that this kind of approach wouldn’t work in America’s inner city schools, which instead need “no excuses,” boot-camp drilling-and-discipline, relentless standardized test prep, Stakhanovian workloads and stress-and-fear-based “rigor.”
But what if the opposite is true?
What if many of Finland’s educational practices are not cultural quirks or non-replicable national idiosyncrasies — but are instead bare-minimum global best practices that all our children urgently need, especially those children in high-poverty schools?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Also, teacher education colleges in Finland are more selective than our med schools…
Did better respect for teachers and freedom in the classroom lead to more interest in teaching in Finland?
From my experience, it has been exactly this as you state it — [a loss of] freedom in the classroom — which has led to the largest teacher exodus in modern days.
thughes, a number of experts from Finland have commented that American teachers are quite capable and have done well in exchange programs in Finland. Teacher’s by and large are not the problem. The so called reform solution for the allegation that teachers lack brains will not succeed, you need more teachers and the Ivy league pedigree you seem to imply is needed does not guarantee success. Finland addressed societal problems and did not put the burden on their schools. Improve your society and you will improve your schools, not the other way around.
http://pasisahlberg.com/q-what-makes-finnish-teachers-so-special-a-its-not-brains/
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Learn from Finland the right way to treat and teach school children.
I urge all viewers of this blog to read the entire piece.
For just one point of excellence:
[start]
There are some who argue that since Finland has less socio-economic diversity than, for example, the United States, there’s little to learn here. But Finland’s success is not a “Nordic thing,” since Finland significantly out-achieves its “cultural control group” countries like Norway and Sweden on international benchmarks. And Finland’s size, immigration and income levels are roughly similar to those of a number of American states, where the bulk of education policy is implemented.
[end]
😎
Finland does many things right that we are doing wrong. In addition to treating teachers as professionals and giving them more autonomy, they do not push down the curriculum and label young students as “failures.” Their early learning programs are constructivist with lots of hands-on play and discovery. Standardized tests do not drive their instruction. To be fair, their population is a lot more homogeneous than ours, but this is changing as over 30,000 migrants are expected to settle there this year. The ones that have arrived have not all been received with open arms, and some have chosen to go to Sweden where their reception has been better. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?no-ist
The Finnish approach sounds a lot like Montessori, both in philosophy and methods (eg, play in the early years).
The Montessori approach has been around for over 100 years now and is based on actual observations of how children learn (imagine that)
So much what he said reminds me of my teaching in the sixties and seventies, when I let kids me kids, and baked bread with a second grade of non=readers, to introduce them to reading..a recipe, or grew flowers and measured the growth of the fast-growing stems and made chatts, and made Japanese Kites, and then went out and flew them, and talked about the science of flight. I had fun with my kids, and like the Fins, I enjoyed being with them and they with me. Even in my toughest third grade, where behavioral problems were rife, the kids wanted to be with me, and they learned because they stayed.
And in the worst school to which I was assigned in the Bronx, in 1987, a junior high school where my students were 12, 13, &14, and I was the AIDP (trust me, not an easy job to improve attendance–the A & the I) I planned interesting activities without the interference of the administrations. We created skits, and my 9th grade even did a scene from Taming of the Shrew, for which we made costumes and scenery… and these kids who were all ‘dropout’ potential (the D & the P) came to school everyday to be with me. I READ BOOKS TO THEM, and gave them the books to keep, and we painted and did art activities as a break— if all work was handed in by everyone.
How did the school assist me?
NO class was more than 14 kids. (SMALLER CLASSES MAKE IT MANAGEABLE TO DEAL WITH SPECIAL NEEDS KIDS)
Parents were required to meet with me, and come to class to see what we are up to and to see what they needed to do a home to assist me) they wanted to stay.
Discipline problems were referred to social workers,( not a dean of discipline for punishment — although the school had such a post).
I HAD NO PARA. JUST ME AND THEM.
Yes, this was th e’good old days’ before parents worked 2 jobs, and kids were on their own or attached to a screen.
I am not saying that this could work in the prevailing culture of today, kids who cut their eye-teeth while watching aggressive media which teaches confrontation, kids in such abject poverty that they barely can eat or sleep, an olive in places where gangs have the only status and models of ‘success’
I am saying this society lost something when our public schools were savaged.
Smaller class sizes and funded curricula where teachers do not have to buy the simplest class material would have made elementary schools a place where young kids could find relief from poverty for a few hours. Professional educators like myself, who know how kids learn and support staff to help the troubled ones to calm down, teach social skills like compromise and cooperation…. Hmmm…. maybe we need to teach our congressmen how THAT works.
It takes a NATION to raise children and create good citizens, and our children are raised by the media. The consumer society that IS corporate America’s creation, has given us a new generation of citizens who are not merely overweight and ignorant, but uncivil to a degree not known in the past. Sherry Turkle says: “Our rapturous submission to digital technology has led to an atrophying of human capacities like empathy and self-reflection, and the time has come to reassert ourselves, behave like adults and put technology in its place”. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-sherry-turkle-reclaiming-conversation.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_bk_20151002&nl=books&nlid=50637717
Jerry Mander wrote this long before the internet and video games competed with teachers for a child’s attention” Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television
He also exlpained in his wonderful, must read book “In the Absence of the Sacred,” how the loss of family, neighborhood, and community removed the social values that Americans once handed down from past generations… values that for centuries benefited societies. And, this societal break-up came at the very moment when the corporations bought the media, and sent out THEIR VALUES, telling our next generations what THEY should do if they wanted to be HAPPY… like own lots of stuff, and ‘fight’ and be ‘tough’.
http://www.scottlondon.com/reviews/mander.html
I could not teach today. Have no illusions, but when I watched Finnish First, years ago, I recognized an ATTITUDE among the people that I saw again in Mike Moore’s “Where To Invade Next.” That attitude was that children WERE NOT MERE KIDS TO BE IGNORED, but they were full citizens who needed to be nurtured.
Our people are good folks, so many have big hearts, but it is the work of the corporate culture which controls their beliefs, promotes thier conversation and behaviors through the hidden persuaders in the media that now engulfs everyone….and this corporate culprit preaches an ethos that does not promote effort: ‘if you can think it, you can do it’ and “you deserve the best’ along with ‘bad teacher’, public school failure and CHOICE (i.e.charter schools.)
Imagine if funding public eduction was the mantra.
Diane, I’m always amazed when people reflexively assert that Finland’s insights are inapplicable to American inner-city students. Seems to me they are the children most urgently in need of the things that, for example, wealthy American parents seek for their own children in private schools, things Finland delivers on a national scale – – highly qualified, highly respected and highly professionalized teachers who can conduct personalized one-on-one instructional support; manageable class sizes; a rich and wide, developmentally-correct curriculum including the arts, recess and regular physical activity; little or no low-quality standardized tests and the toxic stress and wasted time and energy that accompanies them; daily high-quality assessments by flesh-and-blood teachers; and an atmosphere of collaboration, authority, warmth and respect for children and teachers. Why do our high-poverty students deserve less?
This. To assert that poor urban kids (read: black kids) need some kind of different – more controlling, less nurturing – education seems to be the very definition of racism.
In my experience most poor students don’t need a lot that is different. They need a lot more intensive work because they are behind due to t lack of access to healthcare, nutrition and security. They often exhibit emotional fragility and delayed language development. Instead of more, we often give them less! They often wind up in large classes in under resourced schools. This is not addressing the issues.
On the 2012 PISA, Canada scored the same as Finland in reading and math. Why isn’t anyone studying education in Canada?
Because no one gives a rat’s patoot about the PISA?
Speak for yourself, Dienne,
I love pizza, though I must admit I’ve never had Canadian pizza.
😉
For the same reason they ignored Finland. The current test-based reform movement was NEVER about improving teaching and learning. It was ONLY about gaining a slice of the nearly $500+ billion dollars of money spent annually on public schools. It was a business plan, NOT an education plan.
Standards, tests, and scores were just a means to an end: ROI.
But surely SDP you’ve had Canadian bacon pizza!?!
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
We could learn so much from Finland.
And I have a relative in Germany. Her two kids have so many opportunities there, including plenty of exposure to art, music, PE, hiking and walking in the woods, free play, cooking, and on and on.
I just wish children here had those same opportunities.
Once upo a time they did. I went to public school from 1946 to 1959.
In elementary grades we had music. Our teachers played the most recognizable parts major symphonies. Ie. The William Tell overture comes to mind, because I recognized it when I heard it on TheLlOne Ranger. We also learned the scales, to recognize the music signature. In Junior high I did well because I could tell the teacher that a piece was in the C major chord with a 3/4 tempo. I knew how to identify and locate sharps and flats.. We all learned to play the recorder and the autoharp in elementary school.
In art, I learned how to paint, which was a good thing, as my parents could never afford art lessons (or music). I learned to sketch and to draw, and how to use different media, and to measure and use a ruler, and in junior high art classes I learned to paint the scenery for The Mikado, the school play that the music class was presenting.
In Madison High, wehre Bernie Sanders and I went to school. I took art a s major. I studied illustrations on year, and fashion design the next, and later in my life I used these skills to illustrate children’s stories. At the high school, I designed the posters and the programs for school dramas, and worked on scenery… which made me popular in my sorority at Brooklyn College as I often worked on our presentations for the fair.
I taught art in elementary school, and much of what I shared with my kids were learned, not in college but in public schools. At Brooklyn College which cost $35 a semester as an undergrad, and $50 a semester for my MS in Education.
For my $240 in tution costs, I studied fine arts, and graphic design, as electives, because my major was in English and education and my minor was in SPEECH, COMMUNICATION, AND THEATER, where I studied extemporaneous speaking, learned to write plays, to act and to direct… skills which I used when I taught. Eventually, in my forties, I wrote a play which was accepted by The Dramatist Guild, after the Penguin Repertory gave it a serious reading.I then used those skills when I taught Communication Arts at East Side Middle school, to the entire seventh grade. Many of my students learned how to create character and write a dramatic plot, and won awards across the city. Many of my students Facebook me and tell me that they used those skills and became writers and artists. Chacey W went on to teach English at a college. We still communicate.
Go see Moore’e WHERE TO INVADE NEXT. Europe took our bet ideas and made them work. Our GOP preached austerity and robbed our children (who are not children for long) of skills they might use in their lives.
All that our schools needed was proper funding, to build more schools, staff them and support the professional staff. Out schools did not fail…they are murdered!
I think that the Finnish education system provides many good examples of what we need to change about the American education system. Individualized/personalized learning practices are something that is very much so lacking in the current educational system we have. Volunteering in a second grade classroom has shown me this. Whenever the teacher is unable to help all of his students, he tells them to go on their iPads and play an educational game. I am really wondering how effective this is? What will be the effects of this type of “learning”?
Michael Moore’s new movie, “Where to Invade Next”, devotes a significant amount of time to the contrasts between Finnish schools and American schools. It’s worth viewing.
That’s what I want for my children and grandchildren, being treated with dignity and respect along with kindness and understanding, not as an interchangeable seat in a classroom full of robots expected to learn on command.
I was a high school principal for Yuba County Court and Community Schools for 18 years. The schools for the at-risk kids were boring and unimaginative when I was hired. I love to do things differently, and the teachers and I decided to change what we did completely. We all trained every summer at Rudolf Steiner College in Sacramento to learn how to use the educational approaches that Waldorf education uses in their schools, which are similar to the Finnish schools described by Mr. Doyle. We studied developmental psychology and how kids learn at different stages of their lives.
We only had very at-risk kids who had all failed in public school. We instituted the “Main Lesson” concept, a 1.5 hour thematic lesson that incorporated concentration exercises, then memorizing a poem relating to the topic, then the story-telling section that introduced new material, and the Main Lesson book, that held the students work. We taught 30 minutes of music daily, using the recorder, and had weekly concerts. We had plays, art classes by community members, visiting teachers who worked with movement exercises, and a myriad of other techniques to engage the students and teach that they were valued members of society. They had fun. They learned to play duets together and read music. They placed great value on other kid’s talents and found ways to communicate across gang lines.
The school was so popular that parents requested that their kids go there, and that was amazing for that population. They kids asked to come back.
We had four or five people do their PhDs on the program and we did extensive research on student participation and scores in math and reading. Grades went up. Absences went down. We received grants to develop a model program and we did.
The demands on the teachers was great. They had to learn to teach fascinating lessons, memorize poetry so they could teach it, draw,paint, and play the recorder. They had to go to Summer Institute in Sacrameno every year. They grew and the kids benefitted.
As soon as I retired, the school was changed because no one wanted to continue the extremely hard work that it took to train the teachers and continue the program.
I can testify that these programs not only work for at-risk kids, but that they are desperately needed for all at-risk kids. If these types of schools were placed in the inner cities, and children were involved from the elementary grades, at-risk would become a extinct term.
With the extensive training we received, we learned that children should not be required to learn to read until they are 7, and that play is vital to the imagination, socialization, and to build a love of learning. Our current focus on academics far before children are ready is creating a culture of stress and failure for our kids. Teachers should be allowed to teach and kids should be allowed to learn.
I hope everyone who reads this wonderful article on Finnish education and will demand that our education system changes and our kids are given a chance to BE kids when they have the opportunity. Share this article! Discuss it together! Be proactive and change this horrible school system that we have allowed to run amok.
Than you, Mr. Doyle. You are absolutely right.
YOU bet. When the kids are motivated and learning is fun, things change. I saw it happen, too. Learning has been murdered by the con-men that run eduction intros nation. Con-men ran for Senate and on is running for President. Eventually, the con fails… the pipes leech lead. Int he case of the schools, the kids lose.
We are far from a 1950’s family ethic. An infant in institutional daycare was not common (because mom or grandma was around), preschool for a child under 4 years old was considered unnecessary, kindergarten was half day and heavy on play, like the Finnish model , and after school days, until junior high, kids made their own way home and then we’re expected to make their own fun.
Families now are so stretched for time, and teachers are so tethered down and so much of public school budgets now go to pensions and not students that a pressure cooker has been created. In our school, parents are the ones railing against homework because, they say that it cuts into family time. We’re talking third graders and 30 minutes of homework. I’m not sure what needs to change first, the schools or the families.
A half an hour of homework is reasonable, 2 hours is not. Plus take into consideration that some kids take longer than others to finish an assignment so even a half hour could be easily doubled.
With the CCSS there is additional homework practicing reading and math questions similar to those found on the assessments.
When the principal at a suburban elementary school advises parents to limit their child’s extracurricular activities so they can focus on their assignments, something wicked is in the air (and it isn’t Halloween).
Don’t blame the teachers – this is what they are required to do under the current educational philosophy being forced down their throats.