Worldwide, people are cooing over the Finnish educational system, and in many cases, rightly so. Finland, while spending far less money per pupil than many other nations, including the United States, still manages to score far higher on international educational comparisons (e.g. PISA). What are Finnish schools doing that we don't? How have they achieved such elite educational status, while America continues to score far lower in these rankings?
Dr. Pasi Sahlberg has written a thought-provoking book entitled Finnish Lessons, and also lectures widely on the success of the Finnish educational system. Dr. Sahlberg is a native Finn who started as a classroom teacher, but now works most closely with OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), which sponsors the PISA tests, while also serving as a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.
Dr. Sahlberg is very candid in his opinions about why Finland has experienced such success, and his answers may surprise more than a few. Obviously, a full treatment of this topic is well beyond the scope of a single blog entry, however, those who discover a deeper interest in the topic may of course refer to his text.
Here are some of Dr. Sahlberg's major points:
-All teachers must attain Master's level training before they are allowed to enter the classroom.
-Becoming a teacher in Finland is in some cases harder than becoming a doctor or a lawyer. That is, the profession of teaching is highly regarded in Finland, and as such , it draws the very best and brightest the country has to offer.
-Finland believes in, and proffers by way of its investments, a deep and abiding faith in the value of public education. The public education system is well funded by all political parties which take office, and this in turn produces and maintains stability in the educational sector.
-Finland seeks to identify students in need of special assistance at early ages, and offers them early interventions aimed at ameliorating or eliminating deficits.
-The Finnish poverty rate for children is the second lowest in the world at 5.3%, while America's poverty rate for children is a whopping 22%. That is, there are over four times as many children growing up in a state of poverty in the United States of America as compared to Finland.
-Teachers are highly regarded professionals in Finland. The public in general trusts its teachers and its schools, and teachers for this reason have a high degree of autonomy, freedom, and choice in determining the best educational strategies to use in a given situation. They are encouraged to be innovative and creative, and to foster that same innovation, creativity, and lateral thinking in their students.
Finland has ONE standardized test which students MAY elect to sit for. It occurs towards the end of their entire educational career (around high school by our standards), which means that students are close to the age of an adult by the time they do so.
-Ironically, Dr. Sahlberg points out numerous times that many of the techniques which Finland has used to create one of the world's most successful educational systems were first described and designed here in the United States.
There are many other points which Dr. Sahlberg makes, and his treatment of the topic is obviously far more thorough, but hopefully this will give readers a very rough and ready understanding of some of the key differences between the Finnish and American educational systems.
I read a funny quote a while back which has acted as the title for this entry: "If you want to live the American Dream, move to Finland". Obviously, this is meant to be taken a bit tongue in cheek, as the ideal circumstance would rather be to build and sustain an educational system here in the United States which would become the envy of Finland itself. It would foster a deep and abiding love of learning, and a life-long curiosity in our world. It would use positive reinforcement and reward based systems preferentially over punitive and punishment-based systems. It would inspire students to learn, rather than force or scare them into it. In short, it would be a system which esteems and embraces the unique gift which a child offers to the world, and it would seek to identify and maximize the special aptitudes of each learner. Children would be highly regarded, yet still understood as learning, and offered effective, supportive guidance in their path towards independence and the successful realization of their goals.
I grew up in the United States. I believe in the United States. However, I have to say that I am very concerned about the direction of education in America, and specifically in New Jersey. I have heard too many stories of children suffering panic attacks, crying and refusing to go to school. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?? How can the rhetoric lie so far from the reality? Children are our most precious resource, and if we do not preserve and sustain their faith in our way of life, then what will become of our country? We MUST invest in our young. We MUST put their welfare above our own. And not just the welfare of our own brood, but that of all children globally. I appreciate that money and resources are not always easy to come by, however, it appears to me to be more a matter of priorities than profits. Finland, for example, is a far smaller and less economically dominant country than America, yet they manage to maintain a far smaller poverty rate in general and as applies to children. It all seems to me to be simply a matter of priorities. And, as with so many before us, we also will reap what we sow.
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