Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
news.bbc.co.uk
Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
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Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#2Culture.
The system is derived from their cultural values and works because of the cultural values. It's been shown again and again in educational studies: some systems are certainly better than others, but culture is the primary factor.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#3Summary:
1. Finnish parents read with their children. 2. Low immigration - so "Finnish as a second language" is not a problem there. 3. Education and educators are valued highly by Finnish culture. 4. And contrary to all our K-4 efforts, kids don't start school to 7.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#4Genetics?
The article doesn't even pause to consider the possibility that Finnish people, a small and relatively isolated population, might just happen to be, on average, genetically just a bit smarter than world population at large. While thinking about these things is horrendously unfashionable, it should be considered before we start assuming that we can replicate their success by copying their school system.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#5Higher education in Finland is free, therefore education level is high. If I remember right, almost 60% of people have some kind of higher education, university or polytechnic. Education is valued here.
And it is also said that entrepreneurship is not that valued in Finland because of high education... Most of the grads want to work for big companies & goverment positions.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#6There are 5 M inhabitants in Finland.
How much do they spend in their education system? Does it scale to a country of, say, 50 M inhabitants?
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#7Genetics? The article doesn't even pause to consider the possibility that Finnish people, a small and relatively isolated population, might just happen to be, on average, genetically just a bit smarter than world population at large. While thinking about these things is horrendously unfashionable, it should be considered before we start assuming that we can replicate their success by copying their school system.
Equally unfashionable is the idea that there are advantages to homogeneous societies and classrooms.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#8Culture. The system is derived from their cultural values and works because of the cultural values. It's been shown again and again in educational studies: some systems are certainly better than others, but culture is the primary factor.
But there are noticeable differences in how schools are operated in Finland ("The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.") that should be looked at in trans-national comparisons.
The detailed reading I am doing currently in The Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers Need to Know
http://hub.mspnet.org/index.cfm/13083
draws together research from various countries in various parts of the world that don't have a common "culture," but do have common teacher training curricula in teacher training programs (which are not even at university level in some of those countries) and common characteristics in math textbooks across languages and common characteristics in elementary school classrooms. Those characteristics are very important to look at if they result in success across varied world cultures.
After edit:
It's been shown again and again in educational studies
What particular studies do you have in mind? Citations, please?
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#9Summary: 1. Finnish parents read with their children. 2. Low immigration - so "Finnish as a second language" is not a problem there. 3. Education and educators are valued highly by Finnish culture. 4. And contrary to all our K-4 efforts, kids don't start school to 7.
You missed what I think is the key point:
5. instead of making a big deal out of kids being "behind", they recognize that everyone learns at their own rate. Kids don't get labeled as "dumb" or "incapable", they just keep being taught.
Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?
#10Higher education in Finland is free, therefore education level is high. If I remember right, almost 60% of people have some kind of higher education, university or polytechnic. Education is valued here. And it is also said that entrepreneurship is not that valued in Finland because of high education... Most of the grads want to work for big companies & goverment positions.
I don't get it. Why would entrepreneurship not be valued because of high education?