Critical Reflection
Education is extremely important, since this forms are children into the future, and what they will be. There are many different ways of educating and each one has pros and cons. After reading the articles” “Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?” by Paul E. Peterson, Ludger Woessmann, Eric A. Hanushek and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadon EDUCATION NEXT Fall 2011 and “Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?” By LynNell Hancock SMITHSONISAN MAGAZINE Sept 2011, followed by the video “The Finland Phenomenon” by Tony Wanger, I realized we can learn many things from them.
We keep trying to prepare are students for the twenty first century but in the meantime, are students were falling way behind the Finns in their academic achievement and progress. ‘America ranked twenty third while Finland came in first.’ The rate for the students’ dropout keeps on increasing and so is the crime rate. America ranked Finland the highest in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) for many years, in addition the fifty percent of American teachers quit after the first five years of teaching whereas in Finland the teachers stay till they reach retirement. Therefore I believe we can learn a lot from the Finns Education just a Dr. Tony Wagner, author of the “Global Achievement GAP”, profoundly stated after his visit to Finland, “We have to look at Finland as a laboratory for 21st Century educational innovation….They have done research and developments to create a world class educational system!”
So firstly, the school day in Finland is shorter it does depend on how many courses they are taking that specific year, but even though it is shorter. Researchers found that ‘Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day.’ And ‘Spend less time in the classroom than American teachers.’ This shows that the average school day in the U.S. is much longer and more intense than the Finland school day. In addition they have much more brakes, each session is around forty five minutes, followed by a fifteen minute brake, this is not found in the United States. ‘Walker describes the value of a fifteen minute after a forty five minute class.’ The kids are just more engrossed in the learning, have cleared their brains so that new information can enter. Moreover they spend way more time playing outdoors which is extremely important for children of all ages to spend time outdoors. ‘Children spend far more time playing outside, even in the depth of the winter’ When children play outdoors and they air out in-between classes they can concentrate better on what is being taught. School is Finland is mandatory for only nine years, ‘Compulsory schooling does not begin until the age of seven.’ Imagine that we have the little kids at home till they are ready for school, Finland offers free schooling for young children from age five, but school is only mandatory from age seven. What do they focus on in the primary care mostly play and social development. The Finns believe that there is no point in rushing children to start learning and get them stressed out, as Louhivuori says ‘We have no hurry, children learn better when they are ready. Why stress them out.’ This is so true since we see that many young children do take stress from school and this does not help them learn better. Therefore the ‘Compulsory schooling does not begin until the age of seven.’ Imagine if we get the children at age seven, they say most children are familiar with the alphabet. But to start teaching children at such an age, is way simpler. It will be easier for the children, as they will understand the material faster and easier and without any stress. Whereas for the teacher it will be a whole chunk easier if all the kids will start learning when they are at a an age where their brain is more developed they will learn it faster and be more willing to learn.
Another thing that I observed in the Finns classroom that is not so strong in the United States, is the calmness. The teachers in Finland work extremely hard to keep a calm peaceful environment in the classroom. In one of the writing I read when professors went to observe schools in Finland they wrote, ‘What struck us the most was the calm pace of the lessons and the relaxed attitude to learning.’ So what they saw was a very calm classroom, while being engaged in a lesson, there was a real class in session, yet, the atmosphere was really calm. They continued by saying that, ‘This relaxed attitude to learning was shared by the teachers and the students, and permeated the classrooms and the school corridors.’ So they do not have all the extra stress that is not really necessary. They were also struck by the ‘low noise level in the classroom and in the school corridors,’ which is quite unusual in most schools in other countries.
Furthermore, the teachers in Finland teach on a very different style than the teachers in the United States. The teachers in Finland teach much more hand on, with the kids involved in the lesson. In the video you saw a coach teacher observing a teacher give a lesson, he said his goal is to see how much she can get the class engaged, the coach teacher wanted to see that in every possible place where she was able to give the lesson over to the students she did. The goal in Finland is ‘to have sixty percent student talk time and forty percent teacher talk time.’ This is a lot of the lesson or rather majority of the lesson in the students hands. Whereas in the average American classrooms ‘it is roughly eighty five percent teacher time.’ This is much less engagement of the students which also leads to less motivation. Another way in which they get the kids so involved is having kids do the work, for example in a math class instead of the teacher writing an example on the board and calling on kids to help out by explaining, they have huge blackboards so that more than one person can use the board at once and show how they did the example. They use show versus tell, show me clearly explain your thought. This helps the teacher understand what the student is thinking and follow the train of thought. Additionally I observed that the Finn teacher kept using advanced technology to engage their students, they take a great advantage of the smart board, they use it all the time to help them explain their ideas they are currently teaching, introduce new concepts or to get kids motivated. Likewise they encourage the kids to use technology, they have some classes that are mostly done on the web, they have a ‘chat’ with the class. Mostly they focus on a specific project so what they would do the teacher explains the project and what needs to be done the kids post it online and ask questions via the web. This motivated the kids to do more research and keep furthering their education, while all the time, becoming better thinkers.
‘There are no mandated standardized test in Finland.’ This means that the pupils in Finland do not take tests or quizzes on a daily basis. Well the question is how do the teachers know if the students actually understood what is being taught, which kids need extra help and so on. So the answer is that the teachers in Finland spend an enormous amount time on creating the curriculum, revising it, and assessing the kids, as stated, ‘Teachers use the extra time to build curriculum assess their students. Homework is minimal. So besides for the fact that they do not get tested on a daily basis, they do not have a lot of homework, not even every day. They achieve their high standard through assessing the students they give them enough time to do the work and projects in class, while they work on it teachers go around and observe. In addition teachers call over their students to assess one on one and see where they are up to.
Finally the teachers in Finland are given an enormous amount of trust by the school authority to figure out the best method to teach their class, ‘Finnish teachers have a lot of professional freedom and opportunities to influence their work and the development of their schools.’ This means that the teacher can decide what needs to be covered in the classroom and they are trusted to do it right, therefore they try to prove themselves. They accomplish this usually by working together and alongside other teachers in the school ‘they decide on teaching methods, the teaching materials used as well as pupil and student assessment, often in cooperation with other teachers. Most teachers also participate in joint decision-making, drawing up of local curricula as well as acquisitions.’ Teachers also follow this slogan of “whatever it takes” they do whatever it takes to get the students to achieve. Besides they give the teachers many benefits, they must all be college graduates, this makes being a teacher a very looked after and important job.
To summarize, I feel there is much we American can learn from the Finland Education system. The way the classrooms are more relaxed and the children do not feel that there is that much that is expected from them, yet they have an inner strive to do so, and the way they support their teachers and aspire them is remarkably. Yet not all of it is suitable for the American culture. Therefore, we as educators need to keep are eyes open and use our intuition, to see where we can incorporate their methods and where not. I believe that if we do that, incorporate new learning and standers according to what’s needed we will be able to raise the bar an up the level of the American education.
Works sited:
1. Five Things We Can Learn from Finnish Classrooms
Retrieved from: https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2017/08/29/Teach-Like-Finland/
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— Research Associate Dr Anna Mazenod
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/grouping-students/2016/06/01/no-need-to-stress-were-in-a-finnish-classroom/
3. Teachers in Finland – trusted professionals
http://www.oph.fi/download/148960_Teachers_in_Finland.pdf
4. Peterson P. (August 17, 2011) “Are U.S. students ready to compete?” Education Next Retrieved February 17,2019
https://www.educationnext.org/are-u-s-students-ready-to-compete/
5. The Finland Phenomenon: El mejor Sistema Educativo del mundo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2JGeGNxlh4&feature=youtu.be