What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
Via COD:
High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don’t start school until age 7.
This article about Finnish schools is an interesting read. Finnish schools seem to be very different than American schools. They have a more relaxed approach with teachers having more freedom and an emphasis on helping the slower students catch up. The students seem to be out performing us on many levels, and the drop-out rate is substantially less than in the US.
Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. “In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs,” says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.
And yet the pressure of the American culture is still noticed there. Despite the fact that they are doing better than us some seem to want to change for the worst to meet our standards. Something that I think is a terrible idea. It seems to me to be tossing out what makes them work in order to fit in with a country that is not working.
Some educators say Finland needs to fast-track its brightest students the way the U.S. does, with gifted programs aimed at producing more go-getters. Parents also are getting pushier about special attention for their children, says Tapio Erma, principal of the suburban Olari School. “We are more and more aware of American-style parents,” he says.
There is a video with the article that shares more on this.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I read this article with great interest and forwarded it to my mother who is 100% Finnish-American (my grandparents immigrated as children around 1900). What I teased my mother about was the complete lack of genetic evidence of intelligence. The article focused on teaching techniques, a homogeneous society, etc… and nothing about Finns just being genetically bright people! Ha, ha! I’d like to claim that prestige since I am 50% pure Finn myself! But all in all an interesting article.
Carol
March 13th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
[...] Learn Me Good hosts the 162nd Carnival of Education, the March Mathness Edition. Take a look at Dave on Ed’s post about how school administrators are quick to jump on calling for change to match whatever is the latest fad in education, but slow to provide teachers with the training required to make the changes work. What fad is he talking about? Well, all of them — but you remember the talk a couple of weeks ago about the Finns getting education right? Mom is Teaching has some comments about the Finns beating Americans. [...]
March 14th, 2008 at 5:28 am
[...] We Fix The Failing School System? by Summer Minor I started a discussion the other day asking why Finnish students are so smart. The teaching methods, styles, and ideas used in Finnish schools seem to be so different from the [...]
March 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
As an American living in Finland, I can only mention 3 little tidbits of information that might temper the ultra heartwarming feeling this article exudes:
1) Finland has one of the highest alcoholism rates in the world
2) Finalnd has the top suicide rate in the world
and 3) Finland has the highest rate of single occupancy housing in the world
All that shimmers is not gold.
P.S. my wife is a high school teacher and strongly disagrees wit this article
December 25th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
> 2) Finalnd has the top suicide rate in the world
Now surely as a smart American you should know that that is false. Globally “Finalnd” is in 15th place (2005, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_rate). Too high, sure. But it’s too high in most rich countries anyway.
Finns consume alcohol below the european average but the differences are in drinking habits.