Finnish Recipe for Education: add kids, add educated parents, add universal health care, hold the poverty and stir.

US education is about money and politics, and as a result most high school kids read at about a fourth grade level, and educators still haven't figured out what any fool can see in 5 minutes exposure to the typical hs.

Absolutely. Handing control of public services to the UnfetteredCapitalists was a BEEEEG mistake. Moving the MBA's into the driver's seat to reduce costs and maintain sales may be fine and dandy for car manufacturers and the like. But public education? I'm sure those MBA's could show you all sorts of colourful powerpoint presentations to make the case. But school enrolment is not a purchase, neither knowledge, graduates, nor wisdom are products, and improvements during the next quarter do not justify the means. Keep the MBA's in consumer goods and financial services. With MBA's running everything, the precious freaking bottom line will squash everything that's important - education, health, water, air, sanitation, infrastructure, the law, the environment, peace, prosperity, the whole ball of wax.

The last thing most US administrations want is an educated, insightful citizenry. They need to be able to fool enough of the people, enough of the time. The US is the only country where elected leaders can totally ignore the empirical evidence collected in 95% of the world (by population), and then call themselves "conservative."

The key point in this article is that Finland has a culture that actually Values and Reveres education.

In contrast, most American schools have, for decades, supported a culture which reveres and values a culture of Ignorance.
A culture in which displaying too many signs of Intelligence gets the student slapped with the label of "GEEK".
A culture in which parents proudly display bumper stickers declaring:
"My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Roll Student".

Why do I have the feeling that schools in Finland don't worship their Jocks, either...

That whole "powerful union" thing is very important, too. Without that, the teachers, who we'd hope would know a thing or two about teaching, have no say in what teachers do, only the MBA's holding a sword over their heads would have any say. And those MBA's would likely quite arrogantly feel that their education cost much more than the teacher's, so that's how it should be. Say can anyone answer this - who was the first US president with an MBA?

What the article mentions in passing is the political structure under which its schools function. The Finns manage public education at a national level.

In the US, we cling to the politically popular but effectively absurd model of "local control" in the belief that people in a community know best how to educate their children. While certain affluent cities and counties have the resources and attitudes to maintain high standards, the vast majority of local school boards are run by narrow-minded jamokes whose primary concern is funneling education funds into the pockets of local businesses.

As others have noted, we don't want good schools for everyone in the US.

jj

jesusofjonesboro, actually, the article makes a point out of saying that schools and Teachers are allowed a great deal of Autonomy.

Instead of high stakes testing and public humiliation, the Fins appear to believe that Pride in Accomplishment is what motivates Schools, Teachers and Students to excel.

Sounds like a winning strategy to me.

The conservative junta has brainwashed the majority of citizens into believing that every social problem must be solved by lowering taxes or generating profits. It is just smoke and mirrors to keep scared white people in political power, while casting aside less fortunate souls.

A majority of well educated children turns into a nation that sustains economic growth at home, providing better jobs, and then eases the tax burden on individuals.

Walmart public schools and Elite charter/religious schools will be the result of these despicable policies.

Finland is an extremely homogenous culture compared to the US. I wonder about the implications of that.

It sounds from the article above like Finland rejects the idea of education as indoctrination to maintain the status- quo. That mindset, coupled with a military budget adaquate for national defense but not for global domination gives both the means and the method for educating every child to their greatest potential.

While not everyone is intellectually suited to go to a university, my understanding is that in Finland all college expenses are paid for qualified students who maintain their grades while studying. If this is true for all other post-secondary training then the Finns have very wisely invested themselves in the development of their greatest resource, their people.

One of the most important lessons that Americans have to learn is this: Your hubris stands in the way of your progress. Your idea that you have to go your own way, while totally ignoring the progress of others, is leading you pathetically down some of the most idiotic paths that they would be hilarious if they weren't so destructive.

You want to do your own thing. It's not a bad idea at all. But it's one of those ideas that have to be tempered. You will ask why should the United States temper its trailblazing tendency when it's succeeded in so many areas, blah, blah, blah.

The answer is that Americans are indoctrinated to ignore the negatives and look at only the positives, so when your grade is a lousy C you pretend it's an A. And you've maintained a policy over the past century to liberally fuel your trailblazing machine with petroleum, giving you the luxury to make massively stupid mistakes over and over while others around the world took more sensible, frugal paths. Now your chickens are coming home to roost.

This is why many progressives don't care if Mkkkain is elected prez - we want him to create another right wing catastrophe to make Americans finally sober the hell up. Just look at healthcare. Your friggin Demok criminals are totally ignoring that healthcare costs one half in other countries. Your Demoks are going to jam down your throats yet another consolidation of capitalist control over your markets and your society and your healthcare costs will continue to increase beyond double inflation to triple inflation over the costs elsewhere!!!

The costs of education, food, energy, shelter, transport, everything is inflated in America, enslaving you to your capitalist masters, the top 1% in your class hierarchy, beloved thanks to media culture, and the liberals on the left are just as entrenched in it as the conservatives on the right.

There are a LOT of accordians in Finland. Make what you will of that.

Just to put things in some perspective, see Table 2 in

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008016_1.pdf

which has the results the article is referring to, including the scores.

Note that Finland stands out in general, not just vs. the US. Their score was 563, followed at quite a distance by Canada with 534 and Japan and New Zealand with 531 and 530, respectively. The US ranked 21 but it wasn't "horrible". It's score was 489, not too different from Norway (487), Denmark (496), or France (495).

Basically we in the US are not the only ones who have something to learn from the Finnish.

I would like to know about the average health and welfare of Finnish children even before they start formal schooling. Starting at age seven means the most critical and formative younger years occur mainly in the home and local environment. Stuff these younger minds up and the job of education is made much harder. Of course its great to hear at least one country reveres teachers and learning as a high point of culture.

Why do we need an education to flip burgers or pull a trigger?

All education will do is increase expectations of living comfortably.

And we would not want that, would we?

How else do we dumb down the rabble?

jake newton: You said, "Finland is an extremely homogenous culture compared to the US. I wonder about the implications of that." But the article says, "Eleven percent of Helsinki's school children are immigrants, and they are expected to constitute 23.3 percent of the city's schools by 2025." Perhaps the Finns expect their immigrants to adopt Finnish culture -- like the American "melting pot" attitude that prevailed when I was a kid.

tonkatsu said: "...most American schools have, for decades, supported a culture which reveres and values a culture of Ignorance. A culture in which displaying too many signs of Intelligence gets the student slapped with the label of "GEEK". Sad, but true. When I entered a new school in 7th grade, it took about a month of humiliating comments about my "showing off with big words" (just my usual vocabulary) before I dropped it down to my classmates' level; I couldn't stand being ostracized. And that was long ago; it seems a lot worse now.

Another thing I'm curious about, in the Finnish schools: Do they start teaching kids a foreign language in first or second grade, the way many other European countries do? I have a hunch that being fully bilingual boosts children's intelligence. Any Finns reading this? Do you know? Thanks!

It's going to be nightmarish as America reaps the results of its profit and conformity-driven Puritan contempt for really knowing anything outside of The Bible (the most ignorant book in the world). Across the board, studies confirm education as the #1 "investment" (return average of $14 for $1)---look at all we got from the G.I. Bill after WWII, from computers on---but I think the right wing has noticed the concomitant social progress in the country since then, too. My war-vet Dad had received a racist streak from his education which I could see in childhood, but which he completely changed before he passed away. And teachers have been the butts of pseudo-progress since then: most of the teachers and prof's I know live like ex-cons. Well, we're going to find out why it is a cliche: If you think education is costly, try ignorance.

The NCLB Act was also a backdoor draft for the military. First they cut funding for colleges and raised tuition to get that dream out of reach for most Americans. Then the law threatened to withhold federal funding for roads from any states that refused to comply with NCLB and simultaneously handed military recruiters access to virtually all pertinent student records.

That means if a kid is failing all of his classes in his junior or senior year and just got suspended for swearing at a teacher, and his folks are poor, America's military recruiters can call him up and suggest a way out: enlist.

C'mon people. The coincidences are right there. Cheney was in Iraq under Reagan and Bush I. Was Sec of Defense in the Gulf War. Then Halliburton's Chief (wrote Iraq War plan). Was a founding member of PNAC that suggested a 911-type of event would help America. Then after 911 pushed the Iraq intelligence lies to new levels of absurdity just to allow him to impliment his war plan. These people are sickos.

In addition, the NCLB actually punishes the inner city schools. What sane teacher would want to invest their life into a school that has been terminally threatened (to be closed) and judges your performance based on the "standardized" test scores of severely neglected children?

Dubya and Co never had good intentions with this one.

I noticed that they said that top high school graduates in Finland compete to enter teacher training schools. This is different from the U.S. and may be related to the differing outcomes. In the U.S. top high school graduates go on to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and stockbrokers, etc., not primary or secondary teachers. The advent of affirmative action meant that increasing numbers of top performing women and minority men were no longer trapped in teaching as the only professional career available.

Also, in the U.S. we have some pretty intense ideological struggles happening between the ed schools on one side and parents and students on the other with regard to what schools should be providing. An example of this is holistic or progressive education versus standards-based academic achievement. (BTW, "progressive" in this case doesn't necessarily mean what you assume it means. I consider myself politically progressive but do not agree with proponents of "progressive" education.)

I worked in a fast-growing school district through the '80s, and got to know a lot of Asian refugees. I learned from some of the Hmong and Vietnamese that teachers in their culture were right up there with God.

In my job capacity, I also worked with a few teachers, and became acquainted with many from all grades. I came to the conclusion that teachers were about the dumbest group of people I'd ever known. They knew their subject well enough, I guess, but except for a small number of them, knew little else.

I learned that they had to spend most of their time on paper work required by the government, both state and federal, and it was the aides who got to work with the students. Testing also took up a whole lot of time. I can only imagine what that's like now, with the NCLB mandate in place.

cicero confused pointed out that Canada was number two after Finland.

Maybe Canada's also a nation the US should be looking at to learn how to educate our children.

Imo the problems go very deep into basic cultural values and the schools by themselves can not make the changes that would result in a better education in the US.

It might be helpful to read something witten by an educator from Finland explaining why they have been so successful.

Well, this article tells me that not only is the US shameful, but also is Canada; not as much, but still needing to improve, and to learn from Finland. F.e., standardised final exams certainly apply in Ca, and not only some small percentage sample is used. Ca also publishes school rankings, so encourages the spirit of not improvement but competition, this materialistic "value".

There may be more negatives about Ca's educational system or systems (not being sure if federal is involved in this, or if its only provincial systems), but I wonder about higher-ed. in Finland, specifically meaning in terms of the costs.

Education as an or the end, instead of a means to an end, this is excellent pedagogical paradigm!

I don't know how much that exists in Ca, and figure that it does to some extent; but I think it's far more about elitism and means to get jobs other than in teaching, while of course teaching is what some do aim for too. The education here is likely or surely better than in the USA, in general anyway, but Finland shows there's improvement to be made here.

Education as an end in itself? I like that.

I flip burgers everyday..and read CD at night...Great article. I also teach in a private system that starts kids ideally at 7 years (but like most jobs doesn' t pay all the bills). It's nice to hear about teachers being valued.

To my Czech friend:

I'm actually "Finnish-American" but I think I can help you.

The thing you gotta understand with Finns and lanuages is that the friggin' ROAD SIGNS are in Finnish, Swedish, and English in that country.

I'm talking within the national highway system, but also a lot of other "official" signage and major "business" type stuff outside of tourism.

These people aren't impressed with TRI-lingualism, let alone BI.

The Swedish is because they're the largest minority ethnic group, and the English I'm not quite sure.

Keep in mind also that the Finn's "official" use of Swedish is more impressive than most folks in the U.S. might think. Finnish and Swedish are significantly different languages, I know most people think of Finns as "Scandanavian" but really they're more "Baltic", like Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, and the Swedes have spent a fair portion of the last 500 years having Wars with Russians in Finland.

I'd take a guess that your average Secondary School graduate in Finland would be considered "Fluent" in 2-3 languages depending on how well they did in English. I'd guess most would also be "passable" in 1-2 additional tongues.

Keep in mind I'm trying for "average" here, I met quite a few people that would be thought of as truly "super-geek polyglot" at a University in the U.S. but did not see themselves as very odd in Finland.

Going to a French film in Helsinki, realizing there were no subtitles, then realizing that I was the only one this was a problem for even though none of us were actually, y'know French, was a fairly humbling experience.

As for the Homogeneous culture thing. Yeah, its pretty much all Finns, except the Swedes, my guess is more of those immigrants in those stats are EU style Latvians and Poles and Hungarians than "Southern Refugee" types but I coudn't say for sure.

As far as the U.S. emulating Suomi: I think its a good goal, but you gotta remember the Finns have "Sisu" and we don't.

There's not even a word for "sisu" in our Language, so we shouldn't aim to high, right?

And know, I don't know what Sisu really means either,

I told you I'm Finnish-AMERICAN.

But I do know this:

Remember when backpacking in Finland, "In the Kingdom of the Blondes, the Black-haired man is King."

Got dark hair and decent cheek bones? Just pick between Goth/Metal or Folk/Hippie for your style and book passage to Helsinki.

You'll thank yourself, and maybe, if your feeling generous, you'll thank me too,

-matti

AdeleTheCzech:

Yes, most Finns know how to speak English. They start the kids young. I think they have other choices as well - French, Spanish...

I was born in Finland and went to school there through grade one and part of grade two before our family moved to Canada 56 years ago.

Although we didn't start school until we were 7, my sisters and I already knew how to read and write when we started school. I can't speak for other families but reading and writing was important and our parents encouraged this. They also stressed how important education was.

At that time, from my persoanal experience, English (nor other languages) were not taught in those grades. When I started school in Canada they first placed me in the first grade because I could not speak English. I learned English quickly, as most kids do, and the school suggested that I be placed two grades ahead - to grade 4 because my math, reading and writing skills were at that level. My parents only allowed me to skip one grade as they wanted me to remain as close to my age group as possible. I sailed through grade 3. I came in first in the school's spelling bee after only being in Canada for about a year. My sisters did well too.

Fast forward 25 years: I went back to Finland as an adult and lived and worked there for several years. My 12-year old son came with me and I had hoped that he would learn to speak Finnish through his Finnish friends. No such luck. All the kids knew how to speak English and were delighted to have an "English" kid to practice their English on. My son struggled with some of the other subjects (naturally he got straight A's in English) as his Finnish peers were more advanced, especially in math.

I was greatly impressed with the standard of living there. I was impressed with how modern and progressive the Finns were. There is universal health coverage. I saw no poverty.

What a lot of neo-conservative ideologues don't understand is that private enterprise and good social programs are not mutually exclusive. Capitalism/private enterprise thrives in Finland (i.e. Nokia, KONE, etc. - huge global corporations) and yet at the same time, they have excellent social programs - health, education, long paid maternity leaves, etc. etc.

Now I haven't been there since the late 70' and I'm sure there have been a lot of changes with free trade and globalization, for an example the 11% immigrants attending school and rising to 23%.

When I was a child, Finland was as homogenous as you could get - the first black person we ever saw was a porter on the train we took across Canada. We hadn't even seen any Italians, Greeks, Asians - ever. What a world of wonder and delight when we came to Canada and saw all these exotic looking people.

Even in the late 70's Finland looked pretty homogenous to me.

p.s. Hope I didn't sound like I was blowing my own horn writing about skipping grades and winning spelling bees - I was pointing out the superb educational system in Finland, in which my sisters and I were beneficiaries.

Lessons From Finland: The Way to Education Excellence

The secret is the cold winters!

Hey Matti,

If you have SISU, then you are SISUKAS.

You're right about the black-haired man and Finnish women. I don't know what it is but even my mom swooned over some of the movie stars from the 40's who had brown eyes and dark hair. (i.e. Tyrone Power, Robert Taylor)

I remember the Finnish women making a huge fuss at the hotel I worked at when Latino-type, or Greek/Italian looking men registered at the hotel. They were all giggles sneaking around trying to catch glimpses of them.

Just as our education reflects a dysfunctional society so too does every other aspect of America like health care. Until the collective is functional, everything created with American minds will be narcissistic in nature because this a common motivation/mind set among Americans.
The racial disparities found in everyday life are similarly found in our education systems. The hierarchy of socioeconomic classes that feeds narcissistic thinking is translated into the children receiving varying levels of education. What would happen if everyone were allowed to go to college? If everyone were allowed to compete for the top jobs? Why the vary basis of American capitalism would crumble. We have to change the mindset of society, so it can be seen in all we do.
I thought it was interesting that the Fins focus their curriculum on philosophy. Maybe there is something to this. One needs to have logical thought processes in order to succeed in other subjects. When a student graduates and enters society, they need first and foremost logic and judgment in thoughts/arguments. Perhaps, we need to focus on this subject more.

I went to school in Finland in the 70's and 80's in a small town of 80 000 people, and in the 90's I attended a university in the capital, Helsinki. Some observations:

Almost everyone could read before school started at age 7 --- perhaps because every kid learns to read by reading comics and watching foreign-language tv with Finnish subtitles. We got excellent libraries within a bicycle ride from where we lived.

Teachers gave us quite a deal of homework. Lots of writing of compositions. We had quite a good discipline in the classroom. In middle school, troubled kids had their own class. You could choose which level you want to study math or languages. There was no grade inflation. On the scale of 4 (fail) to 10 (perfect A), most got 7's and 8's. 9 was great and 10 was almost too good. If you got a perfect score in an exam, nobody thought that was not because you were "smart" -- it was only because you had tried hard. Out of 30 kids, maybe one or two got 10's. Also if you did not do as well as expected, you knew that only you were to be blamed, since you didn't work hard enough.

At age 10 (3rd grade) we must choose a foreign language such as English. At age 13 (7th grade) we start learning Swedish (again compulsory), and at age 14 (8th grade) we could choose another foreign language (e.g. German, French). In high school, we continue learning these languages and even pick a fourth one.

After middle school, at age 16, kids went either to a vocational school to learn a profession or to high school. These schools are tuition-free.

High school in Finland is hard - you have to be basically university-grade material; only about 1/2 of all kids go to high school, but most of them go there to continue to a university. Graduating high school has involved a certain prestige in Finland, and to complete it you will have to take a national matriculation exam composed on Finnish, Swedish, English, math and other electable subjects. You have to write two original compositions in your mother tongue, then do a composition/reading/listening/grammar exam in each of the foreign languages including Swedish. Passing this exam gives you a chance to apply to a university. There are no standardized tests like the SAT.

Universities don't have a "general" curriculum - high school graduates have already received the general education they need; we apply directly to a department (such as Dept of Math, Education, Law, etc.) or go to a School of Business. Usually people enroll directly for a Master's program. It's usually possible to graduate in 4 years. The universities are tuition-free.

You can't get to a university based on recommendations. It won't help if you're rich or famous. If you do well in the national matriculation exam, it will help, but you will have to pass an entrance examination that is specified by the school where you're applying to. It could involve studying 5 books cover to cover, in the special subject you want to study, then answering multiple choice or essay questions.

So although Finns may start late at 7, I think that those graduating from a Finnish high school already probably have the education level of an average university graduate in the U.S.

I want also to say that Finland is no Korea or Japan - there is no "examination hell", and young kids don't study day and night to pass exams to get to prestigious schools. Practically everyone attends public schools, and the quality is quite uniform although some (high) schools may be more famous and desirable than others. Most Finnish elementary-school kids have a wholesome childhood, with 3-month summer holidays without homework. Only when you want to go to high school the things will get rough; also entering a prestigious university can be tough.

See there, a son is born
And we pronounce him fit to fight
There are blackheads on his shoulder
And he pees himself in the night
We'll make a man of him, put him to trade
Teach him to play Monopoly and not to sing in the rain

- Ian Anderson
Thick As a Brick

Finland also has a very unique language, Finnish, that has very few cognates with other languages in Europe.

And more interestingly to me..is that there is no pronoun disticnction made between male and female..no "he" or "she" no "his" or "hers" I've heard someone who was a native Finn have difficulty in English remembering which pronouns were for males and which for females.

Finland has a distinction as having less sexism and is considered a pioneer in womens rights. Maybe imo because the language itself is free from the constant reminder of what sex a person is.

Even respecting the same educational ethos and employing the same methodology, I don't believe the US or the UK would be able to educate its young people to the same level as Finland. For one thing, it would mean a wholesale repudiation of the template of our far right, psychopathic corporatism/crypto-fascism.

But two factors stand out, even in the ideal scenario:

a) Successive, increasingly rampant corporatist governments in our countries have piled immenses stresses on the populations, by endless predations on their means of economic survival. This very obviously affects family life, and the psychological stability of the young, as well as their parents, under the cosh in the workplace.

b) Would it not take a few generations for our countries to produce teachers educated to a comparable level as their Finnish counterparts? If a Finnish high-school graduate is at a roughly equivalent educational level as a US/UK graduate, finding comparably-trained teachers for our high schools would be difficult to say the least, but how about university lecturers?

As it happens, a moral compass for the young is a more pressing problem in the UK than even the deficiencies in their vocational and academic educations, since we seem to have a pandemic of children culling other children and adults with knives, stones, boots, etc, often just to record the playful incidents on their mobile phones, and have a good chuckle at the video recording afterwards.

And who are they going to get their moral compass from? Their parents and their grand parents were similarly marginalised and discarded. But one thing is for sure, it appears less and less likely to be from our politicians, either at local or national level. They're mostly, themselves, just "wrong'uns", it would appear.

How about this, from the Wikipedia article on Finland:

"Finland has thriving services and manufacturing sectors and is a highly democratic welfare state with low levels of corruption, consistently ranking at or near the top in international comparisons of national performance.

Finland is eleventh on the United Nations' Human Development Index[4] and ranked as the sixth happiest nation in the world.[5] According to the World Audit Democracy profile, Finland is the freest nation in the world in terms of civil liberties, freedom of the press, low corruption levels and high levels of political rights."

Colleen:

Finnish women got the vote in 1906.

Finland has had a female president since 2000: Tarja Halonen.

And to think that pundits on US tv are still questioning "is America ready for a female president?" I don't know why Americans keep saying that America is the greatest country on earth - "the shining city on the hill", etc. whereas they are so backward in so many areas including women issues. Many countries have had women presidents/prime ministers (Iceland, Norway, Finland, etc. even countries that oppress women - India and Pakistan) and I'm sure they didn't debate endlessly "are we ready for this, are we ready for this" (I'm sure an Obama counterpart would have had a chance too but some of the northern countries don't have too many Obamas)

And talk about ignorant and lack of education paraded around mainstream tv to millions of viewers: Sherri Shepherd on The View, said that there were no people or cultures before christians/christianity. What about the Greeks, the Romans, etc. asked co-host Joy Behar, and the answer was "nope, there was no one before Jesus, that's when the world started."

Then Whoopi Goldberg, another host, said tongue-in-cheek, "is the world flat?" and this Sherri said "well, I don't know, I've never really thought about it" . She was not kidding, she was serious.

My quotes are not necessarily accurate word for word as I'm writing from memory.

This show should be a comedy, not a discussion panel with Barbara Walters. Talk about catering to the lowest common denominator. But obviously the show makes a lot of money.

I keep writing that, since little to nothing is known about the reliability and validity of NCLB-mandated standardized achievement tests, little to nothing is known about what they actually measure.

Another way of framing the problem is by contrasting who students are--children--and what they do with who they're assumed to be and what they're supposed to do--input mechanisms that output facts. Suppose a "group of academics in the field of Education get together and decide that, from now on, their field is going to be called Educational Sciences. Since now they are 'scientists' they assume that a thought pattern that worked so well in other branches of Science should work as well in their field…and they get into trouble; the pupils don't know that they have become categorical objects (and as such simplified) and keep behaving as when Education was not yet declared a Science" (Jorge Goldfarb, January 31, 2008).

Some of you will be aware of the UNICEF report that placed child wellbeing lowest in the USA, out of 21 industrialised countries. I live in the UK & this country was no 20. Shock, horror. And guess which countries were at the top? Right, the Scandinavians!
Here's my blog post on that topic, since I was observing life in Stockholm at close quarters over summer 2007.

http://coachzee.blogspot.com/2007/07/masculine-or-feminine.html

CoachZee,

Read your blog post. Yes, one could describe the feminine/masculine poles as humane/civilized and ADVANCED, as opposed to cave-man/neanderthal testosterine driven mentality. The latter dominating the US culture.

Reading a bunch of pseudo-socialist rant against capitalism and then having the nerve of calling themselves "progressives" is really funny, just as funny as the belief that bigger government and more taxes can magically solve the education problem and fix poverty in a country 60 times bigger than Finland.

Almost as funny as "notsonaive" comment about how the mere fact of having a women president is a sign of "progress".

PS: Fuck you.