Perhaps you are sick and tired of hearing about the wonderful schools of Finland. Well, I am not. They demonstrate that it is possible to do the right things for children and succeed by every metric. It is important to have a demonstration in real-life of an entire nation that gets it right; not just one school, that picks its students, but an entire nation. No high-stakes testing. No charters. No vouchers. No Teach for Finland. Every public school is a good school, regardless of its neighborhood (or, as we would say, its zip code [I don’t know if Finland has zip codes.]) I have visited Finland. I have toured Finnish schools. I have seen students of every age taking a recess break after every class. I have seen students displaying their artistic accomplishments. As long as there is Finland, we can all hope for a better future for American education. As Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg often says and writes, “we got many of our best ideas from the U.S.”
William Doyle, author and film-maker, is a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Eastern Finland, where he lectures on education and the media. This column appeared originally in USA Today.
He notes that Finland is experiencing social and economic problems. It has also seen slippage in its educational results on international tests. But it is doubling down on what proved successful instead of following the U.S.’s abysmal test-and-punish “reforms.”
He writes:
Social and economic pressures are increasing sharply. Inequity is growing among schools. Severe budget cuts are hitting vocational and higher education. High-performing students often don’t feel challenged, and Finnish children face problems common to many the world over — bullying, big drop-offs in math and reading skills, digital overload, and feeling bored or disengaged from school. The performance of Finland’s 15-year-olds in international tests has fallen in recent years.
The United States for more than a decade has responded to its own education challenges with a bizarre, bipartisan and ineffectual mix of mass standardized testing, de-professionalization of teachers, dismal quality “cybercharter schools,” the elimination of arts and recess for children, and the botched, now politically toxic Common Core attempt at national curriculum guidelines.
Finland is taking largely the opposite approach. It is doubling down on many of the things that made its schools great in the first place.
Finland has adopted a new curriculum, but it is nothing like our Common Core, which makes everything “harder,” even in kindergarten and first grade.
Finland’s brand new National Core Curriculum emphasizes a child’s individuality and says “children have the right to learn by playing and experience joy related to learning.” It says they should be encouraged to express their opinions, trust themselves, be open to new solutions, learn to handle unclear and conflicting information, consider things from different viewpoints, seek new information and review the way they think. Teachers are directed to give students daily feedback and measure them against their starting points, not other students. In grades one through seven, schools now have the option of dropping numerical grades in favor of verbal assessments. (Failing students will still receive a “fail” grade, and can be held back as a last resort.)
The new guidelines strengthen traditional roles of play and physical activity. Preschool and kindergarten students will continue to learn through songs, games, conversation and playful discovery, not military-style drilling and stress at ages 4, 5 or 6 as is increasingly the case in American schools. A number of studies have supported the advantages of play-based early education for children, including those from low-income backgrounds. Formal academic training in Finland will continue to start at age 7, when many children are best ready for it. That corresponds with research indicating that any advantage gained by earlier instruction, when children are not developmentally ready, washes out a few years later.
In addition:
Finland is also continuing other policies that work: Primary school teachers will still have to earn master’s degrees and undergo at least two years of in-classroom training by master teacher-trainers before being allowed to lead classes of their own. Grades one through nine will offer instruction not only in math, science and history, but also in two or three languages, physical education, music, visual arts, crafts and religion or ethics. And home economics, a rare subject in American schools, will be taught in grades seven, eight and nine.
No high-stakes testing. No vouchers. No charters. No Teach for Finland temps in the classroom.
Not “sick and tired” of hearing about Finnish schools, just cognizant of the vast differences of the Finnish demographics compared to ours in America. Their far smaller population is still mainly comprised of ethnic Finns who share a language and also societal norms. But I agree that we can learn much from their recognizing that teachers are professionals and they train and pay their teachers on the same level as other professions such as doctors and lawyers. And that all their teachers are in a union which is respected by their citizens.
Thanks Diane for reminding us of how we could improve even if our populace is so huge and diverse.
It seems to me that much of what Finland does — offering multiple recesses throughout the day, endorsing play-based instruction for young children, including the arts — is unrelated to demographics. I see no reason why we can’t learn from their example and follow suit!
Ellen,
We can learn from the Finns even if our demographics are different. Recess after every class is healthy for children and adults alike. An emphasis on the arts, physical education, and creativity would work in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society. Why not?
Agree with what you and Rae suggest.,
The demographic and population size differences are all but completely irrelevant. They have vastly superior “wrap around services” for families that are delivered outside of the context of schooling, THAT is a significant difference. Poverty in Finland manifests very differently than in America. It is far less of an influencer on student outcomes there.
When there is so little poverty, it can’t have much influence on children’s lives or their schooling.
I agree, and the poverty that does exist is in large part limited to the lack of wealth alone. No stress, no PTSD, no attenuated and burdened decision making, just simply less money for things beyond basic needs. Can we imagine such a thing ever happening here?
Why?
Because they aren’t dirt stupid!
Michael Moore’s latest documentary, Where to Invade Next, has a wonderful segment on Finnish education.
Here’s a clip, the whole film is worthwhile:
From the film
No homework.
Yet another thing which has nothing to do with ethnicity, diversity or population size.
Maybe it’s time to start trusting Moore again.
Having lived in Sweden for a couple of years, which is very similar to Finland in culture, landscape, and economy, there are huge differences between Scandinavian countries and America. But with that being said, there is absolutely no reason why we can’t emulate Finnish education. As long as they keep the technology takeover away from their schools, they will be the country to beat when it comes to education. The people in Finland aren’t nearly as high-strung as Americans are. They have much more peace and inner calm about things. That is also an ideal and societal norm Americans should pick up from our Scandinavian counterparts!
Kevin,
Sweden made the mistake under a conservative government to adopt Milton Friedman’s ideas, authorized vouchers and for-profit school operators, and has experienced an increase in segregation of all kinds, as well as declining quality of education. Sweden and Finland are at opposite poles. The Finns say that their success is based on what they learned from America!
When I was talking about Sweden, it was more about the cultural similarities, not their education differences. I wrote about the train wreck that was their voucher program when I began my blog a couple of years ago. That was very bad for them. I didn’t live there then and I would have been firmly against that system.
Sahlberg says and writes, “we got many of our best ideas from the U.S.” Unfortunately, the U.S. has pursued a”bizarre, ineffectual” reckless path including test and punish and monetization of our children and schools. None of what the U.S. has chosen to adopt in the last fifteen years has any evidence or much merit.
Fortunately, my career spanned over three and half decades in public education before billionaires tried to dominate our policies. I was a part of a school district that provided a rich, education for its students from all socio-economic levels. This integrated district offered a comprehensive education for its diverse student body with the arts, sports and supports for struggling students and families. The district valued its staff and invested in meaningful professional development. I had the privilege of working with caring professionals and seeing poor students escape poverty, go to college and pursue middle class lives. Our system was “successful” for the vast majority of our students. Even during this relatively halcyon period in education, many of our urban schools in America were very troubled. We have failed to address the under funding of urban schools and the societal problems that harm our poor young people.
Why does the solution to every social, educational, and demographic problem involve making the USA into a European country? The beauty of the USA is the inclusion, in the Constitution, of the 9th and 10th Amendments. The worst thing to happen to education was the hijacking of educational programs by the federal government and the inclusion of Progressive ideas in the classroom to breed Democrat-party voters. If Democrat social and economic programs had not destroyed job opportunities and the ability of people to make a living in and invest back into their local communities, the gap between the rich and poor would not be as great. If Finland and the rest of Europe is so great, why are they on the verge of another, major economic crisis, on the verge of a humanitarian and social crisis, and are responsible for two World Wars? European policies cannot easily be transferred to America, and heaven help this country if they are.
Who would provide training for new teachers? The barely-qualified teachers we have in our schools now? The education system in this country is a joke because of it’s long-standing alliance with liberal, lefty policies and politicians. The system needs an overhaul -but not a conversion to a European system.
RWHP,
I was educated by the very system that you say is a “joke.” This is the system that made America the world’s greatest power. Why do you have such contempt for your own country?
Diane –
I was educated in this country in public schools. I have served (note, served, not worked) as an educator for children in impoverished, gang-infested southwest Chicago. I have lived in and worked in four countries outside of the USA, serving as one of three American workers on a staff of 800 people. There is no greater country than this one.
To interpret my criticism of the educational system in it’s current state as a criticism of this country demonstrates the divisiveness and dismissive mentality of the education community that is unwilling to contemplate criticism. My guess is that you were not educated in this as a student in the last 20 years.
The education system in this country is a joke if students graduating from public institutions rank at the bottom of most international indicators, and if more and more institutions of higher learning are having to provide remedial support for incoming freshmen.
I agree that the system has become a cash-cow for predators upon the students in failing districts. I agree that the system is rigged to benefit the rich while squeezing the poor.
I disagree that by asking for a comprehensive discussion of political policies and for a complete overhaul of the education system I am showing contempt for this country. I disagree that by criticizing a profession I love and have participated in for nearly 20 years I am showing contempt for teachers, as has been indicated by other readers.
It seems the quickest response to my postings is to tell me I am contemptuous, despicable, racist…
Let’s keep in mind that the end goal is the same – to improve the quality of life for the people who are suffering and who are in need.
No one is suggesting making the USA into a european country, not at all. We are demanding that those who know less than nothing about education step aside and let the actual professionals run the system, like they do in Finland. That idea has nothing to do with Europe vs America and everything to do with making the best decisions possible based on facts and evidence, something America is being prevented from doing by a few hyperwealthy fools.
I taught for 44 years and under right and left administrations. There was the era of no tracking which lasted about 5 years. The other more significant development was the spread of cognitive based lesson design. I am not sure what you mean by progressive ideas inculcated by Democrats to create Democratic voters. Because I was a graduate of Indiana University, I only saw the Right Wing Conspiracy at work. I mean that literally by the way.
RWHP,
Are you another conspiracy theory nut like Donald Trump?
There never has been and never will be a conspiracy to turn children into liberals. But there is a clear and present danger because of right wing corporate education reform to brainwash children.
In addition, do your homework and you will discover that a third of public school teachers are registered republicans. Almost half are registered Democrats who are more moderate than left wing, and the rest are like me, independents that can’t stand the two major parties but swing either way deepening on who they think is bad and badder.
In fact, I worked with hundreds of teachers over the thirty years I was in the classroom, and only knew a few that were far left and an equal number that were far right.
But even the left and right extremists didn’t attempt to brainwash the children because some children came from conservative and/or moderate homes and their parents would have complained.
What most if not all teachers do is what the far right doesn’t want them to teach. It’s obvious that the far right wants a compliant and easy to manipulate population. They don’t want children who are taught to think critically, ask questions, and learn how to solve problems, because that means they grow up to think for themselves and will challenge the billionaire autocrats and any nut cases from the far right and far left.
Lloyd –
Resort to name-calling. That helps your case.
Make sure you add on racist troglodyte, bitter-clinger, hillbilly, uneducated right-winger, contemptuous detractor, xenophobe, elitist, capitalist… come up with something original.
Let me know when you think of other things to call me, I’m sure without knowing anything about my background, education, or experience you won’t be able to include it all.
Do my homework? Yes – to you as well. Make sure you include a good look at the genesis of the public school system, the leanings and tendencies of the current top-ten education schools and their home cities, and the current status of the governments of the largest school systems in the country, and the current statues of the governments of the poorest cities in the country. Don’t forget the political endorsements by the teacher’s unions in those cities across the last presidential, state, and local elections.
I must say, I am thankful for the vibrant discussions this forum provides.
RWHP,
It’s not name calling when what comes out of your flying fingers proves the title fits.
HU,
Is that you?
hahaha, I have the same guess as yours. May.
RWHP: Ah yes, who wants universal health care, everyone’s covered and no one goes bankrupt from medical expenses? Medications are 20% to 60% cheaper than in the US. It’s much more important that the CEOs of the drug and health insurance companies rake in millions in compensation.
Your disparagement of US teachers is truly despicable as well as being false. Your distorted and disparaging view of US education is what is in need of overhaul.
I was in Finland for 2 weeks visitng relatives this summer and noticed not one drug commercial on TV – it was a pleasant change,
Joe – I am not sorry if you are offended. I will let you know that I have SERVED, not WORKED, as educator for more than 15 years in the most impoverished neighborhoods in Chicago. I say served, as I believe there is are elements of education and educators that have taken the duty to invest in the future and thrown it out the window. With the help of teacher’s unions, a job in education HAS become a money- making venture, rather than a service industry. In addition, there is a consistent lowering of educational expectations across all levels, including teacher preparation programs. I have observed fresh graduates of teacher prep programs who known little more than their middle school charges. I have observed state licensing programs lower passing criteria to fill the need for teachers. My statement about a concern for the level of education of supervising teachers is a valid concern when the lack of education of the teaching population is projected across the time span it takes to generate new teachers. Education in the USA needs an overhaul across all facets, and the start would be an admission by educational professionals that there is a problem.
To RWHP:
Could you define the REAL meaning of Conservative, Democrat, and Libertarian?
People love freedom of expression, BUT people need to learn and to accept the consequence and the responsibility for each and all of their actions.
IMHO,
1) Most of established families want to sustain and to control their own wealth and power = they want to PRESERVE and NEVER SHARE their namely TRADITIONAL attitude and values = CONSERVATIVE
2) Most of Middle class with higher education and good soul will fight for egalitarian principles where there are many loopholes for con artists to abuse, and for politicians with lip service to misrepresent people’s trust = DEMOCRAT
3) Most of free will people WITHOUT responsibility to themselves and to society abuse their human rights in order to commit crime against society = LIBERTARIAN. Back2basic
From what I gather of your listing, neither Conservatives, nor Libertarians have higher education or good souls.
Interesting, and your definition of Democrats provides a nice way for them to explain their behavior away. I believe the goal of education itself has been lost in the political process with the intent on both sides to gain wealth and power. I believe the responsibility of educators has gone from teaching content to serving as surrogate families due to the collapse of family structure and the creation of nearly 24 hour day care necessitated by the need for parents to work more hours to meet basic needs, due to a lack of solid economic opportunities. Has pumping more money into social welfare programs improved or exacerbated this problem? Take a look at Chicago, Milwaukee, Philly, LA, NYC… what will turn the tide? Where does taxpayer funding come from without jobs? Where do jobs come from without educstion? Where does education come from without good schools and committed, educated, caring teachers? Where do good teachers come from? They don’t come from people who follow the highest dollar -amount into the suburbs.
RWHP,
For sure, the GOP thinks that school choice will solve all the problems you describe. The Democrats support a massive infrastructure program to rebuild our crumbling bridges, tunnels, roads. This will create jobs and alleviate the economic distress that destroys families and communities.
Yes – rampant typos in a comment criticizing the education system. Next time, I’ll avoid the cell phone and use a real keyboard.
RWHP (Duane, you think it’s Harlan?) writes this:
“If Democrat social and economic programs had not destroyed job opportunities and the ability of people to make a living in and invest back into their local communities, the gap between the rich and poor would not be as great.”
Pure and simple, that’s a flat-out lie.
The evisceration of the American standard of living, the proliferation of the financial sector, and the hollowing-out of the American economy began in earnest with the Reagan administration.
Economic opportunity is going to worsen significantly across the world, due to concentration of wealth (Thomas Picketty’s unassailable research). As an example, the 6 heirs to the Walton fortune have wealth equivalent to 40% of Americans combined. And, the share the richest 0.1% have, is growing rapidly. With middle class demand, in decline, which limits market growth, expect more desperation, anger, and lashing out at those we perceive as “others”. It’s what happens when resources diminish. We begin to resent those around us who have a little more than we do and those below us, whose class we fear we will fall into. The wealthy in their far distant enclaves, escape resentment because we don’t see them. They own the politicians. They have the money for PR campaigns like “Fix the Debt”, aimed at destroying Social Security.
I think it’s safe to say that teachers don’t express their political views in class.
There are things to learn from the Finnish which apply to any educational system, and has nothing to do with politics: longer breaks, no homework, more playful classes.
As we learnt it from Mary Poppins
A spoonful sugar makes the medicine go down
In the US, we often invest a lot in medicine and forget the sugar.
I think you’re wrong about sugar. The average American consumes their body weight annually in sugar, and studies show sugar is more addictive than heroin.
Yeah, we need to update Mary Poppin’s song to “70% dark chocolate helps the medicine go down.” 🙂
Or just quote a different part
In every job that must be done
There is an element of fun
You find the fun and snap!
The job’s a game
Then cut the part about cake and continue with
robin feathering his nest
Has very little time to rest
While gathering his bits of twine and twig
Though quite intent in his pursuit
He has a merry tune to toot
He knows a song will move the job along
How about 85 percent dark chocolate?
That’s best! I am sure Julie Andrews will understand.
Isn’t July Andrews a couple of hundred years old by now. It must be all that dark chocolate.
Shanghai, China, recently ranked #1 in every category on the PISA, also got most of its ideas about how to improve education from the U.S. back in 1999 when Shanghai sent teams of educators to learn from our traditional public schools. Sad to say, NCLB, RTTT, and the Common Core Crap has changed almost everything that was good and now the Chinese are doing a lot of what the U.S. once did. I even read recently that China has decided to get rid of one of their three high stakes tests, the one at the end of intermediate school.
Teams of Chinese educators and entrepreneurs are also present on mnay university campuses, both as observers and as teachers. The UCLA math department has a preponderance of Chinese professors as does UC Irvine where they are most visible in the sciences. So obviously our public universities must be doing much that is innovative and worthy of their emulating us.
Even if China gets higher test scores (and we don’t know if they do, since only students in Shanghai take the international tests), I would not want to be like China. It is an authoritarian system with tight restrictions on freedom of speech, press, religion, etc. No thanks!
Yes, Dr. Ravitch, we and musician agree with you. Here is the song,”I wouldn’t want to be like you” from Alan Parksons Project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOwFVowEugQ
The Alan Parsons Project – I Wouldn’t Want to be Like You
…
I don’t care
What you do
I wouldn’t want to be like you.
Being civility, people cannot accept to be like communist and fascist.
Being the richest or the smartest, or the most powerful individual or country WILL NEVER BE WORTHY AS COMPARED TO being humanitarian individual or country. Love. May
PS: Please forward my thanks to Dr. Carol Burris for her note. I received her note on Tuesday, September 6th, 2016.
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Good for Finland! Our educational system could learn a lot from the Finns.
Again, the point of America’s political and moneyed elite forcing market-style reforms in the face of overwhelming proof they are an abject failure is simply this: money. 1.) The money earned through print and software publishing markets created under this awful paradigm as well as transforming the workforce into a churn-n-burn temp pool of wage-slavery that pays measly, and 2.) long-term sociopolitical gain by dumbing kids down over time by implementing a ridiculous drill-n-kill curriculum thus widening disparities in all facets of American life: societal, economic, and ESPECIALLY political. As the late comedian George Carlin pointed out: “They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated citizens capable of critical thinking […] They want OBEDIENT WORKERS! OBEDIENT WORKERS! People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly [miserable] jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it.” It’s coming true. As a teacher of high school English, I do NOT whatsoever teach Common Core nor do I care for the arrogance of David Coleman or his insistence on close reading as the answer to reading woes. All of it creates a boring, repetitive, disengaged environment, the EXACT psychology of the cube: more or less reading and editing reports which, in turn, creates the abject apathy the Ownership Class depends on so young people do not become self-aware, self-determining citizens through the use of play which our old standards allow. I follow our old state standards and been having enormous success.
“Companies Moving Away From Performance Reviews”. Goldman Sachs and GE are ditching annual standard performance reviews. The new feedback is based on trust. “Ata
boys”, a simple phrase acknowledging a job done well is returning, after years of predictable failure from micromanaging and employee put-downs. Shame that, for years, Arne Duncan exemplified the latter (with aid from Gates). The Microsoft self-labeled “partner in education” manager interviewed in Entrepreneur magazine , said “Teachers will have to shift or get off the pot”. It reflects the prior, ugly and counter productive dictatorial style.
The crime here is that Bill Gates already knows that performance reviews based on VAM results in total failure.
“The Terrible Management Technique That Cost Microsoft Its Creativity.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/03/the-terrible-management-technique-that-cost-microsoft-its-creativity/#4a733e374ac5
Knowing this begs an answer to the question: what is Bill Gates real agenda as he does everything possible to dismantle and destroy an education system that was once envied, studied and copied by other countries from Finland to China.
The agenda is ugly. Gates has to pay for good PR and, has to buy people to promote his plot. I hope his fail is colossal and, goes down in history, as a righteous exemplar of what happens to men, who using their ill-gotten riches, attack American democracy, who put kids in “human capital pipelines” and, who exacerbate the decline of vulnerable communities and people.
Linda,
I expect that the only way to get through to autocrats like Gates is to continually shame them in public when they use their money to subvert democracy, to destroy the rights of the people, and to harm students and teachers.
Yes, if this war against community based, locally controlled, democratic, transparent, non-profit, traditional public education continues, eventually word-of-mouth from the millions of victims and their friends and families will overwhelm even the misleading and lying propaganda that Bill Gates buys with his billions.
Agree with both Diane and Lloyd.
On a desert island, the first person cast off would be predator, Bill Gates. His education vision is a fraud. It’s nothing more than the hackneyed cost-cutting, that incompetent and unproductive Wall Streeters honed in hostile takeovers. The butchered education that thug, Bill Gates, promotes, is appropriately labeled, “human capital drain”.