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Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#31

Post by Jtsummers »

rdouble wrote: post #27
tokenadult wrote: post #26

From the interesting submitted article: "Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers. Teachers use the extra time to build curriculums and assess their students. Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depths of winter. Homework is minimal. Compulsory schooling does not begin until age 7." The bit about teachers having time to pre…

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 teachers.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#32

Post by rdouble »

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…

22 & 24, I think.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#34

Post by gerrys0 »

chrismealy wrote: post #4

Finnish teachers make 100% of the national average for their level of education, compared to something like 60-65% for American teachers.

This is the key takeaway for me from the article (and also supports my own beliefs). If teachers in the US started earning like doctors and lawyers ($100K-$200K), then many of our education problems would go away. Why? You'd start retaining good teachers, and attracting new, good teachers. Then these folks would continue to solve education problems. You'd be amazed at what highly paid, motivated professionals can accomplish. But low-paid teachers, no matter how dedicated, get burnt out a few years into a career. Bad teachers would eventually work their way out, due to increased competition. (Read the article about how applications shot up.) Some of the money (thought not all) for higher salaries is in education, but it's just not being spent in the right places.

The 2nd interesting point I took away is the ability grouping. Not grouping by ability works for young children, say K-6. But once older, the gap is too much for a unified curriculum. Taking this concept further out, Americans need more vocational high schools, like Finland. College is overvalued in this country, and a large segment of high school students are being misled by the college myth.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#35

Post by Ironballs »

I do not know if it was mentioned in the article as I did not read it fully, I'm Finnish and am sort of tired of reading or hearing about this particular subject, but it is worth mentioning that all Finnish teachers are required to have a Master's degree to qualify as teachers (even kindergarten ones). Since higher education is free (there are no private universities in Finland), the threshold to study to become a teacher is very small, and usually there is quite a surplus of teachers in popular fields, in hard sciences as an example.

Those that select a teaching curriculum in the university spend 1-2 years interning in schools during their studies. Most people end up taking up teaching curricula just because it is a sure way of getting employment especially if one is studying a field in which employment is scarce outside of academia, say, philosophy.

I myself am studying computer science and I plan to enroll in a teaching curriculum should life in academia turn out to be boring, mostly because a) teaching is fun b) it pays relatively well c) a three month paid vacation from June to the end of August is a plus and d) it is a respected profession.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#36

Post by pasiaj »

hugh3 wrote: post #20

These sorts of articles always smack of cargo cultism. First we say "Holy crap, country X is doing better than the US in standardized test Y !". Then we pick out all the ways in which country X is different from the US. Then we throw out the ones which we don't like and assume it must be the other ones which are responsible. Therefore, if we hold childrens' hands more then they'll do better in tests and if build a bi…

You are spot on about the cargo cultism. Ever since the first great PISA-scores, we've been getting hoards of visitors from all over the world, trying to understand what makes our system good.

The problem is, even our own politicians aren't really able to comprehend the reasons. Most politicians aren't able to look at the Finnish system in a way that would question their own political views, so all the statements concerning what makes the Finnish system good are just the same old talking points, with cherry picked details from our system to fit them.

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#37

Post by [deleted] »

hugh3 wrote: post #20

These sorts of articles always smack of cargo cultism. First we say "Holy crap, country X is doing better than the US in standardized test Y !". Then we pick out all the ways in which country X is different from the US. Then we throw out the ones which we don't like and assume it must be the other ones which are responsible. Therefore, if we hold childrens' hands more then they'll do better in tests and if build a bi…

[deleted]

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#39

Post by dirtyaura »

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.

I'm quite sure that it's not because it's easier to get rid off of bad teachers in Finland. My mother is an elementary school teacher here in Finland, and if I recall correctly, I've never heard that somebody was sacked because of bad teaching. Sometimes teachers take long sick-leaves due to psychological stress, when they have problems with their class, but that's an another topic of it's own.

Maybe it's more controlled in Finland who can end up as a full-time teacher. Teaching is still pretty popular career choice (esp. for women) and not everybody who wants to be a teacher gets into university to study for a degree. What is the situation in US, is it popular choice anymore?

Re: Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

#40

Post by a3camero »

gerrys0 wrote: post #34
chrismealy wrote: post #4

Finnish teachers make 100% of the national average for their level of education, compared to something like 60-65% for American teachers.

This is the key takeaway for me from the article (and also supports my own beliefs). If teachers in the US started earning like doctors and lawyers ($100K-$200K), then many of our education problems would go away. Why? You'd start retaining good teachers, and attracting new, good teachers. Then these folks would continue to solve education problems. You'd be amazed at what highly paid, motivated professionals can acc…

$100k-200k would probably bankrupt just about every US school system.

Why do you think bad teachers would work their way out of the system due to competition? Ontario pays teachers generously and as a result has a glut of teachers (widespread unemployment amongst new teachers, people going abroad, certainly many of these people would be good teachers). There's no "competition" because the challenge is to get on the supply list, and then get hired into the unionized workplace. Once you're there, don't worry about getting fired. The main struggle is getting in, not avoiding getting out. High pay does necessarily lead to the sort of competition that I think you have in mind.

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