Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

Post by tokenadult » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 9:26 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #31

rdouble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American schools not only "don't try very hard to engage in best practice," that sort of thing is often explicitly forbidden. My cousins are teachers in Americorps and preparing their own lesson plans or using outside materials are not allowed under their employment contracts.

How old are your cousins? Americorps seems to recruit (only recruits?) twenty-something, recent college grads. The people I know who've gone to work for them were certainly in that age group. Other teachers I know (15+ years of teaching) seem to have a fair amount of freedom in their lesson plans and materials so I wonder if this is an issue with Americorps, younger teachers, or perhaps I've just known some fortunate…

Post by jlmendezbonini » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 9:30 PM UTC

cadr wrote: post #28

chrismealy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland's schools were terrible forty years ago.

Just wondering, has the wealth distribution changed in that time?

  Mid-2000s  2000   Mid-1990s  1990  Mid-1980s  Mid-1970s
  0.269      0.261  0.228      n/a   0.207      0.235

Post by Duff » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 9:41 PM UTC

shaggyfrog wrote: post #6

Benjo wrote: post #5

It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. I don't see how this author can fail to make any mention of the vastly different demographics in Finland as compared to the US. Certainly the US system has problems, but acting like the solutions are so easy doesn't help anyone. Finland has one of the most even wealth distributions in the world. The education problem in the US, as far as I can tell, is…

I just happen to have watched the documentary mentioned in the article (Waiting For Superman) a couple of nights ago. It found that children from the middle class are just as effected. The issue boils down to the pervasiveness of bad teachers in the system, and an inability to get rid of those teachers and reward/promote good teachers.

Post by diogenescynic » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 9:56 PM UTC

Duff wrote: post #52

thomaslangston wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confirming this. The experience of a Americorps recruit is barely comparable to the average experience of a professional teacher. Americorps recruits are sent to the worse schools, partly because those schools cannot afford more professional teachers.

"Worse" translates to "urban" or "rural" schools. Think about what that means. (Hint: It's not a money issue)

Post by stan_rogers » Tue, Aug 23, 2011, 10:07 PM UTC

nandemo wrote: post #29

dusklight wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When all is said and done, I wonder if Hitler will have done more good than evil? For all the things he did when he was alive, one of his lasting legacies has been, he has made it incredibly shameful to be racist. Most people don't dare to be publicly racist anymore .. they use euphemisms like "immigrant" instead.

Good Lord, just because someone is pointing out that a certain problem might be in a way related to immigration, it doesn't mean that someone is racist. Can you really not see that "more immigrant kids in Finland" might lead to "more kids who have learning problems at school"? Simply because immigrants to Finland typically don't speak Finnish, are poorer than the average Finnish citizen, etc. This is far cry from say…