What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
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What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#2Remarkable... I wish the US system were more like that but I can't see it happening. My high school was nothing like that. Montessori schools seem to lean in that direction though. Can anyone with first-hand Montessori experience comment on that?
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#3This was posted earlier on Hacker News:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126608
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#4"... one of the lowest percentages of immigrants of any Western European country: only two percent of its 5.2 million residents.
And a substantial fraction of Finland's immigrants consist of spouses of Finns, Finnish-speaking citizens of Russia (there are pockets of Finnish-speakers throughout the forests of northern Russia), Estonians, whose Uralic language is closest to Finnish, and Swedes (Swedish is the second official language). Third World immigrants make up less than one percent of the population."
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#5Interesting article, I think that while America has a long way to improve our education system, Americans sell themselves short. America has sprawling metropolises with a lot of urban poor. Trying to improve their education by throwing a couple of books their way is dismissive of the large problem at hand.
But also on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a lot of the brightest minds in the world. Most of the top universities in the world are based in the United States, and our top students obviously do well in the global arena.
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#6This was posted earlier on Hacker News: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126608
Unfortunately the URL I submitted is different, so the duplication wasn't caught.
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#7Remarkable... I wish the US system were more like that but I can't see it happening. My high school was nothing like that. Montessori schools seem to lean in that direction though. Can anyone with first-hand Montessori experience comment on that?
That's the problem with Montessori. It's unclear what they actually believe. If you go through the mainstream literature on various educational theories, the proponents of each theory make a clear case about what this method does for children and why it is better than other methods, with some set of empirical results. With Montessori if you want access to their materials then you have to pay.[1] It's like the Scientology of the education world.
[1] With the exception of the original books from 90+ years ago.
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#8"... one of the lowest percentages of immigrants of any Western European country: only two percent of its 5.2 million residents. And a substantial fraction of Finland's immigrants consist of spouses of Finns, Finnish-speaking citizens of Russia (there are pockets of Finnish-speakers throughout the forests of northern Russia), Estonians, whose Uralic language is closest to Finnish, and Swedes (Swedish is the second of…
Jesus, as if there weren't enough populist demagogues blaming every problem on immigrants already, now we have to put up with you here on HN.
http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf011210.htm
Have a look at the rankings at the bottom, and then explain why Canada, with about 3-4 times more immigration per capita, outscores the US.
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#9I'm Finnish and I would say "I don't know". Article paints quite a rosy picture which isn't necessary true. Finnish schools(elementary to high school) are very boring. There are almost no other activities, no special classes, no school sports(only p.e. for everybody), no advanced classes and teaching is mostly done with books, paper and board.
Teachers maybe still care little bit about there students and think the main difference is that we are expected to learn and know more from the start. I started learning a second language when I was on first grade and third language on fifth grade. The bar is set high for everyone.
Getting to a college through admission test is quite a pain in the ass if you want to study medicine, law, economics or engineering in a decent city(and there is like three). You need about 6months of study and probably a training course for the test.
Edit: And I would say that low immigration helps. Over 12years of schooling, I didn't have a single classmate that didn't speak Finnish as native language.
Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
#10"... one of the lowest percentages of immigrants of any Western European country: only two percent of its 5.2 million residents. And a substantial fraction of Finland's immigrants consist of spouses of Finns, Finnish-speaking citizens of Russia (there are pockets of Finnish-speakers throughout the forests of northern Russia), Estonians, whose Uralic language is closest to Finnish, and Swedes (Swedish is the second of…
Jesus, as if there weren't enough populist demagogues blaming every problem on immigrants already, now we have to put up with you here on HN. http://www.siteselection.com/ssinsider/snapshot/sf011210.htm Have a look at the rankings at the bottom, and then explain why Canada, with about 3-4 times more immigration per capita, outscores the US.
Don't bait him. His SEO technique is to spam more popular blogs/forums with links back to his, and to get into these types of arguments, producing more link opportunities for him. Worse, we may get more of his constituency moving in. (There goes the neighborhood).
The best method to protect the site from being inundated with more stuff like this is to try to stay as hacker-focused as possible, perhaps relegating the race/gender/IQ trifecta to the same status as religion and political discussion, or to accept the likely degradation in discussion.