"The Fabulous Finns"

Is the Finnish educational system really all that fabulous? 

There seems to be such focus on the way the Finnish have approached Education. Many people are looking at the Finnish Way and gawking in wonder at their success. I believe we can all learn from each other. We can learn a great deal of important methods and strategies from the Finnish, but everything that works for them may not necessarily work for others. Some of the best primary school teachers I know would never be able to get through the initial teaching training course in Finland. Their true dream and talent would never be a reality as the Finnish Way focuses such responsibility and trust on the teacher itself. However, I believe we can learn about how the Finns approach education and how learning gets done.

What the Finnish do well:

• The Finnish people regard intrinsic motivation as important (From Pasi Sahlberg, Video 1)
• The learning focus is on the 'whole child', "learning by doing", and trusting the teacher (From Truth about Finnish Schools)
• "They let children be children" (From The Washington Post Article) 

What is an unfair comparison to the U.S. educational system (From the NY times article):

• The size of the country compared to the U.S. 
• The student population (ethnicity, economic status) is homogeneous compared to the heterogenous population of students in the U.S.  
• Government decisions and family priority is drastically different in both countries and cannot be compared

I believe through all the research provided that countries can really learn from the Finnish Educational system. I believe in many of the ideals put forth in Finland. For example, their emphasis on understanding the whole child. Students should feel a sense of pride and ownership in their learning instead of a consistent feeling of competition and comparison towards each other. Students should be able to be children longer and focus on play therapy at a young age instead of the pressure of Kindergarten classes and learning how to read so young. As students get older their passions are focused on and intrinsic motivation is clearly seen. Even with these beliefs, comparing Finland to the United States is unfair and not possible.

Personally, I enjoyed the competitive aspect of school. I wanted to perform well. The motivation of working harder so I could compare with or do better than my peers, helped me push through school.

Finland made sure over the years that their political reforms did not change the foundation of educational reforms in the country. The U.S. political state impacts the educational standards of the whole country (Video 2). The GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) focuses on standardization and teaching to the test. The Finnish Way focuses on personalization, trust, and the student as a whole (Diagram of Two Global Narratives shown above).

Overall, we can learn a lot from the Finns about providing a more personalized system that is rooted in collaboration. However, they deal with a very different population than many schools in America do (NY Times article). The focus should steer away from the "Fabulous Finns" and more on how schools elsewhere in the world can meet the needs of their students and teachers. As Professor Linda Darling-Hammond puts it, "Finland could be an excellent model for individual states, noting that it is about the same size as Kentucky." (NY Times article)

So, the Finns are pretty fabulous because we can learn from them. We do need to focus on what works best for where we are though. We can all learn from each other. We need to understand that comparing educational systems is very complex and many factors need to be considered.

Thanks to the Finnish Way, schools across the world have been able to get outside their box and at least think about their perspective and programs. Stop looking behind your shoulder when your own country's system needs to focus on improving one aspect at a time.

Sources:

Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeMM-hL0KFY 
Video 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RJ50IePHU 
Video 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf65Z_gqH1U
Video 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOfZL_J5fo 
Diagram of Two Global Narratives
Five Reasons Finland Educational System is better
The Truth about Finnish Education 
Washington Post Article
From Finland, an Intriguing School-Reform Model  (NY Times article)