Michael Moore visited Finland with a camera crew to learn about its education system.
How could a nation post high test scores on international tests when its schools emphasize creativity, play, physical activity, and the arts and ignores standardized testing?
Watch his video and see what you think.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds like my book. But no one has listened for 50 years, why would they start now.
I thought the video was interesting. In addition to not having standardized tests, and emphasizing play, teachers in Finland have have more autonomy over how content is delivered. What is standardized is that all schools in Finland are equitable. There are no poor schools that suffer from disinvestment, and there is not rating and ranking of schools that we have in the US. There is no corporate education “reform” movement led by billionaires and corporations. Finland is GERM free, and that is what America needs to work towards. America was much more like Finland before so-called reform took hold.
It was interesting to see that schools in Finland have some diversity, but nowhere near the numbers of poor people that we have in the US. There are no vast pockets of poverty. Finland is a small country that does not have is not as much income inequality that we have in the US. Finland is also a much safer country. Americans would never send a seven year old on a subway alone and call it independence. We would call it irresponsible.
Child poverty rate in Finland is under 5%.
The child poverty rate in the US is about 20%.
Pasi Sahlberg has often written that Finland got its best education ideas from the US.
The US has abandoned them.
“Child poverty rate in Finland is under 5%.
The child poverty rate in the US is about 20%.”
Assuming that’s true, I might also assume that has a lot more to do with differences in international test scores of American and Finnish students than playtime, teacher qualifications, and standardized testing.
Real tears in my eyes. Tears of rage for. The damage done. A career of door shit in my face for advice of principles and practices described here. Our system is nothing short of being abusive.
Exactly. I had a Finnish exchange student in my classes a couple years ago. That’s precisely the word she used to describe our system. She also called it “insane.” More on that: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/one-way-to-make-high-school-suck-less/
The American Sheeple have allowed this to happen!!!!!!!
Moore paints a very incomplete picture. It’s really hard to know what really goes on in any school much less a whole nation’s school system. I still await a comprehensive and fully credible account of Finland’s schools.
Read Pasi Sahlberg’s book “Finnish Lessons.”
A few things are certain about the nation’s schools:
The grades from K-8 have no standardized testing.
There is a 15-minute recess after every class.
Teachers have time to plan and collaborate.
Entrance into the teaching profession is very selective.
I’ll try to read this.
I’d like to know how much direct instruction? Is science “integrated” a la NGSS? Do they have “literacy” class like we do, or traditional English (Finnish, in their case)? Are “progressive” style methods waxing or waning there, and what do teachers and students think of them? Do elementary teachers there have stronger liberal arts backgrounds than those here?
I can’t answer all your questions. Finnish Students Learn more than one language. Teachers are very well educated.
Ponderosa, I haven’t read a whole lot yet, but what I have read suggests the system is run so differently from ours that questions like yours don’t fit into the “teacher-directed vs–, content-based vs—“ matrix. Curriculum and pedagogy are developed/ discussed at the school bldg level, w/what appears to be admin/ teachers working cooperatively as a single team. Teachers seem to have ultimate authority on how they teach. Their college reqts are deeper and broader than ours, including long periods of clinical training. The whole national system is different in the sense that everyone rich>poor attends local nbhd public schs w/equivalent funding. And sports are community-based, not school-based.
Although the puff pieces & glosses speak of what we might categorize as “inquiry learning,” there is no lack of emphasis on content in descriptions of national standards. There are some specifics here & there (e.g. at Timothy Walker’s youtube channel): all I’m getting so far is small classes w/lots of hands-on (e.g. biology learning about respiratory system using actual animal organs). There is a yearly multi-school project where children learn community & biz economics by working in a sort of giant Sim City. Elemsch kids have a short day; there’s ittle hw at any level & no stdzd tests; lots of exercise/ free-play breaks, plenty of arts/ music.
Finnish students have choice among well-funded public schools.
Ponderosa, there’s a Sahlberg blog post that clarifies Finland’s recent ed reform requiring more emphasis on interdisciplinary teaching. Press reaction claimed they were scrapping traditional subjects, going “project-based” etc [not true]. His example demonstrates the interplay between govt ‘steering’ and the curriculum decisions made on the ground at indiv schs to implement as they deem appropriate. http://theconversation.com/finlands-school-reforms-wont-scrap-subjects-altogether-39328
The standardized test playbook isn’t working-doesn’t work. Common Core and the standardized test was largely about making money. If CC and the Test were about changing education for the better, educators would have been involved from the beginning. The disappearing and shortened recesses are very detrimental for students. It would be interesting to examine if there is any correlation in the rise in depression with the implementation of the Common Core. “The results show that depression increased significantly among persons in the U.S. from 2005 to 2015, from 6.6 percent to 7.3 percent. Notably, the rise was most rapid among those ages 12 to 17, increasing from 8.7 percent in 2005 to 12.7 percent in 2015.”
Depression Is on the Rise in the U.S., Especially Among Young Teens/https://www.mailman.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/depression-rise-us-especially-among-young-teens
Interesting: almost every article on Finnish ed I read said they built on & implemented ideas borrowed from US. Obviously not our ed-reform, which they see as madness. I suppose they’re referring to experiments, innovations, & our excellent research over the yrs, none of which are implemented in our own pubsch sys today. Sad.
Finnish educators reinterpreted Dewey, not George W. Bush, Margaret Spellings, Sandy Kress, Rod Paige, and Arne Duncan.
Thanks Diane, that makes sense. I need to read Sahlberg’s book.
Yes, they borrowed. But not from the U.S.
Read Pasi Sahlberg. He documents Finland’s debt to US Educational thought.
“Read Pasi Sahlberg. He documents Finland’s debt to US Educational thought.” — I have this book and I read it. Thought, maybe. But not the structure (up to and included either regular academic high school or vocation-based school), nor the approach to curriculum and cross-subject interrelation, nor the concept of free comprehensive education for all.
“As a result of its 1944 peace treaty, Finland had to allow Communist parties to participate in national politics. In 1948 elections, three political parties received nearly equal seats in the Finnish national Parliament: Social Democrats (50 seats), Agrarian Centre Party (49 seats) and Communists (49 seats). The new political environment had activated working-class families who insisted that their children should also have opportunities to benefit from extended public education. The idea of a comprehensive school that was based on a unified curriculum and accessible for all entered education policy discussions. The political education committees played particularly important roles as the idea of comprehensive basic schooling for all Finnish students was finally realized in the early 1970s.”
Click to access Paradoxes-of-improvement-SER-2011.pdf
Best documentary ever! Not just Finland, but France, Germany, Italy… every country except for Chile, Sweden, China and South Korea does education better than the United States. Why? They treat their children as people rather than as capital.
The curse, the miasma, that has made a wasteland of much US K12 education will not be lifted until the federal standardized testing mandate is eliminated.
This could happen IF the national teacher’s unions came out forcefully for its elimination. It could happen very, very quickly. We need teachers in the streets demanding that this nonsense stop. These tests cost billions we cannot afford. They have not closed achievement gaps and have not improved outcomes. They have DRAMATICALLY DISTORTED both curricula and pedagogy. They have stolen the opportunity for a humane education from kids for decades now. Enough. Enough. Enough.
Our unions have to step up. It is obscene that they haven’t.
Do the unions care about teacher empowerment and autonomy? Then they must care about this. They must make eliminating the federal standardized testing mandate job 1.
Maybe there is no poverty BECAUSE the education achieves people who can live in community far better: who see that work is necessary; Who are less likely to become addicted.
HOW I wish!!