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Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

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Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#61
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, Finns speak a Finnish, a Finno-Ugric language, which is said to be really easy to learn. It's phonetic, and technical words tend to be built out of simple Finnish words, not a weird mash of Latin, Greek, and other words. This makes it easy to do sciences, as you don't have to teach as much wacky vocabulary. (Note, I don't speak Finish, this is just what I've read). I've also heard that Lithuanians (who also spe…

The only part of education where the language matters is when it comes to spelling, and the key factor there is the distance between the spoken language and the written language. In Finnish, these are close, i.e. words are spelled "as they sound", the rules are simple and consistent and there are few special cases, and as a result Finnish children have a much easier time learning how to spell compared to Danish or En…

The Finnish language is one theory. There's lots of derivative words and it's really easy to know the meaning of a new word. Look from here: http://finnish-and-pisa.blogspot.com/

There's one example of the derivation:

'kirja' - 'book'

'kirjailija' - 'writer'

'kirjailla' - 'to embroider'

'kirjailu' - 'embroidery'

'kirjaimellinen' - 'literal'

'kirjaimellisesti' - 'literally'

'kirjaimisto' - 'alphabet'

'kirjain' - 'letter' (of the alphabet)

'kirjallinen' - 'written; literary'

'kirjallisuus' - 'literature'

'kirjaltaja' - 'typographer'

'kirjanen' - 'booklet'

'kirjasin' - 'font' (in typography)

'kirjasto' - 'library'

'kirjata' - 'to write down, to make a note of'

'kirje' - 'letter' (document)

'kirjeellinen' - 'by letter' (adj.)

'kirjelmä' - 'letter, note, message'

'kirjelmöidä' - 'to complain (by means of writing)'

'kirjoitella' - 'to write' (now and then)

'kirjoittaa' - 'to write'

'kirjoittaja' - 'writer' (person who performs a writing work)

'kirjoittaminen' - 'writing' (action)

'kirjoittautua' - 'to get enrolled, to log in'

'kirjoittelu' - 'writing' (now and then)

'kirjoitus' - 'writing' (result)

'kirjoituttaa' - 'to have ... written' (factitive of 'kirjoittaa')

'kirjuri' - 'scribe'

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#62
post #8

Finland's schools are great because they are full of Finns, in the same way that schools with many Finns in the US do very well. Hong Kong and Singapore's schools are great because they are full of Chinese, in the same way that schools with many Chinese in the US do very well, even in poor neighborhoods: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/16/local/me-lincoln16 To begin with, the eight students agreed on a few gener…

Don’t downvote this guy. I don’t agree with him but it is an interesting point that should be addressed. It could be true. Science should advise.

Few more points that might interest you http://hardwick.fi/blog/?p=2097

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the $5000 isn't being distributed evenly. The schools that rich kids go to, public or private, get orders-of-magnitude more funding than the ones poor kids go to.

Do you have figures? I very much doubt if that is the case.

Just checked for Pennsylvania (2009-10 academic year), and while the biggest spenders are over double the lowest spenders, there are no order-of-magnitude-difference pairs. Also, only two of the top ten spenders (per student) were in the top 10% academically.

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#64
The problem is that what works in Finland won't necessarily work elsewhere. For example in Finland teach is a high prestige job in a large part because Finland doesn't have the range or number of alternative professional careers available that countries like the US have.

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#65
post #55
post #8

Finland's schools are great because they are full of Finns, in the same way that schools with many Finns in the US do very well. Hong Kong and Singapore's schools are great because they are full of Chinese, in the same way that schools with many Chinese in the US do very well, even in poor neighborhoods: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/16/local/me-lincoln16 To begin with, the eight students agreed on a few gener…

Afro-caribbean and first generation American chiming in here. I can assure you it is a cultural and institutional racism here. Being colleagues with other 1st generation Ghanaians, Nigerians, Haitians, and Jamaicans it is a recurring issue amongst the black community. Where 1st gen children who keep their culture of origin do well academically (if their culture demands it) but subsequent generations absorb more of th…

>Where 1st gen children who keep their culture of origin do well academically (if their culture demands it) but subsequent generations absorb more of the african-american culture which shuns academia.

You can't really change a culture though. Is there any way you think it can be fixed?

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#66
post #60

It's funny that the article starts off criticizing standardized testing but immediately turns to international standardized test results (PISA) as the foundation for the rest of the article. It could well be that Finland has a better educational system, but - playing devil's advocate here - how do we know that it's not just (inadvertently) optimized for the PISA?

Well, the PISA testing started at 2000 and the current Finnish system was established back in the 1970's. Finland has always been pretty much at the top of the class with PISA studies. The fame came mostly as a shock for the nation, as we have always had pretty common lil'brother & grass-is-greener attitudes towards the rest of the world.

Also: the stuff measured by PISA (Math, sciences & reading) is only around 50% of the national curricula. The rest are about foreign languages, arts & excercise, religion, philosphy, history etc... There are more art, craft & music classes than say, mathematics. While wasting less time teaching and learning in classroom than most (http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2010/04/09/less-school-higher-...). If I were to engineer a PISA-breaking education system, I would probably not approach it like that.

(The curricula (.pdf): http://www.minedu.fi/export/sites/default/OPM/Koulutus/yleis...)

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#67
post #64

The problem is that what works in Finland won't necessarily work elsewhere. For example in Finland teach is a high prestige job in a large part because Finland doesn't have the range or number of alternative professional careers available that countries like the US have.

What is this based on? For someone living in Finland, this seems very far from the truth.

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only part of education where the language matters is when it comes to spelling, and the key factor there is the distance between the spoken language and the written language. In Finnish, these are close, i.e. words are spelled "as they sound", the rules are simple and consistent and there are few special cases, and as a result Finnish children have a much easier time learning how to spell compared to Danish or En…

You don't consider language important in conveying ideas, thinking, etc?

What are you talking about?

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#69
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article does consider that though: They insist that Finland cannot serve as a model because it lacks racial diversity; but they fall silent when one points out that Finland has the same demographics as Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway, yet gets superior results. I am troubled by this “lacks diversity” argument, because it implies that African-American and Hispanic children cannot benefit by having highly…

Wow. I looked it up. You're right, Finland does much better internationally than most of the other Scandinavian nations. I would not have expected that result. One of the reasons I like HN is because sometimes, reading through comments, I see things that just blow my perceptions out of the water. I enjoy going back and reformulating my arguments.

Not to steal HN's thunder but that was a direct quote from the article.

Re: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t).

#70
post #55
post #8

Finland's schools are great because they are full of Finns, in the same way that schools with many Finns in the US do very well. Hong Kong and Singapore's schools are great because they are full of Chinese, in the same way that schools with many Chinese in the US do very well, even in poor neighborhoods: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/16/local/me-lincoln16 To begin with, the eight students agreed on a few gener…

Afro-caribbean and first generation American chiming in here. I can assure you it is a cultural and institutional racism here. Being colleagues with other 1st generation Ghanaians, Nigerians, Haitians, and Jamaicans it is a recurring issue amongst the black community. Where 1st gen children who keep their culture of origin do well academically (if their culture demands it) but subsequent generations absorb more of th…

Hey, they have to sit in those bleachers ...
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