US and Finnish Educational Reform Trajectories: a comparison
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- Опубликовано: 27 май 2024
- An examination of the education reforms of the last six decades in FInland and the United States. For resources and more information, please visit www.christinemccartney.net
music by Devotchka: www.devotchka.net
In Finland, good educational policies are not just the result of politicians supporting educators. Infact, a lot of the politicians ARE teachers, to the point that in the largest political party, its not unusual to have 20% of the municipal election candidates to be teachers.
While people in every country respect and value education, in Finland teachers are given the same respect as religious leaders and are taken much more seriously. This is not about respecting stability, it is simply that teachers have the capablity to do what is right for their students, and the government simply lacks to political power to shake that status quo with edicts.
In short, teachers are responsible for the education, not the government or businesses.
The thing with America's SOL's is that as long as you are a good guesser, you can pass. We've figured out a pattern at least with Virginia's tests: every two questions the answer is C. We are not encouraged to do the absolute best, just do enough to pass. I will not be 'college ready' by any standards and that's just what the government wants.
I teach Spanish in a high school in Texas. One student that doesn't want to be there will ruin the class for everyone. I really wish that students could pick the classes that they want to take. That's the dream.
Sometimes students are pushed by their parents to do a subject and don't get a say.
thank you for this comprehensive overview. I will be showing it to my cast members of Byron Youth Theatre as we will be doing a Forum Theatre gig titled " have Your Say" about the current education system in Australia and how it could be improved!!
Thank you, Christine, for another insightful report.
wow this deserves a lot more views than this, well researched and illustrated!
A huge difference between Finland and the U.S. is that in Finland, decisions regarding education are made by educators. In the U.S. most of the people making policies and decisions about the education of children have never taught a day in their life. There are principals, district supervisors, and even teacher coaches who have never taught in a classroom yet these are the people literally telling teachers what to teach and how to teach.
Educational autonomy is dangerous to a corporate run government in the United States. People who are taught to learn and think on their own might question and then challenge why we have a political system where money equals free speech and corporations are people (at least according to our supreme court) ,and deserve protection under the 14th amendment of our constitution, which was originally created to protect the slaves who were freed after the Civil War. In this case, it's best to have students who can be taught to the test, and never question what is going on around them, and those who do challenge the system are sent to a privately run prison.
+collegeman1988 If you're conspiracy theory is the product of our education system than we have indeed failed.
Excellent video, thank you for this.
We need top teachers in our schools that show and model great learning and teaching of all students not just the average. America can adopt certain aspects of Finland or any other countries great education system if they are willing to cut out the middle people. Those are the school boards that just drain the money out of the schools or teacher salaries. Just like medical changes we can make educational changes.
School boards where I teach are voluntary...they don't get paid.
This is quite a nice presentation but it does not make clear why Finland students are tested among the top in math and science internationally. In fact, it mentions they started to stress Arts and physical ed without properly explaining that it only happened after this country achieved fantastic results in math and science by following the curriculum somewhat similar to Common Core. Only after they achieved their goals in those areas critical for developing deep understanding of science and technology, they started to shift focus to the other subjects, which is very wise move considering they want to get a well-rounded education. It should be made clear what kind of NATIONAL CORE CURRICULUM Finland has, otherwise talking about greater autonomy and student choice make it look like progressive education that killed American school as the latter was not based on rigorous curriculum and well-educated teacher force.
I read a finnish teacher's account of teaching in the US. Her complain was that US schools were too micromanaged and controlling. It sapped the enjoyment of teaching out of her and she contemplating quitting teaching altogether despite the fact that she had loved teaching in Finland.
So I think there is definitely an issue in HOW teaching is done in the US.
i like to watch Sir Ken Robinson and Pasi Sahlberg. they can collaborate together i think. : )
Educating reasoning ability, inovation, and flexibility not memorization. For example I saw student labor 3 days over a multiple choice question that have no right answer but they could not decide to write his or her own answer on the side of the answer sheet because it is machine graded. Another example that the student keep using the wrong formula that the teacher give them and dare not to differ and so no moon landing.
Education reforms should be timely
Thanks
I know, but it would have been too tiny for the graphic :)
I wish we could adopt some finish education system in the U.S
Gilbert Shiroshana : apples can be harvested when the soil is suitable for growing apples trees. So rather than worry about apples, why not focus on fertilization of soil first?
I am from Nepal and lead a school in Kathmandu called John Dewey School. Is there any person or organization willing to support me in establishing Finnish-type education?
Mabye you should take part to the politics...
Hi qwerty, what do you mean politics?
Kumar Thapa Just that if there isnt an organisation alredy mabye you could start one.
With the help of the internet it is much easyer to find people with same ideals as you have than back in the old days.
Atleast you could start some discussion about the matter if nothing else and mabye it could later reach into politics who knows.
Why don't you contact a Finnish University?
An homogeneous population is an advantage for keeping the society focused on national goals such as a better education for all. Once Finland starts to become more "diverse" politics will switch from keeping a good education for all to pandering to the "diverse" agendas of each racial group. Eventually private education steps in to cater to the rich ones (under the cover of "freedom") and public education is left to the poor (under the cover of "equality"). Class then starts to follow race under the applause of the left - that need causes to occupy well meaning middle class women - and the right - that need slaves to serve the psycos of high finance.
The end result is what we see in the US. Eventually Finland will catch up.
Or perhaps not. Putin will never allow a Detroit or a New Orleans right next to St.Petersburg.
So perhaps the trend will be reversed and Finns could be spared the fate that awaits the US.
homogeneity is not the reason for success. the key is a well implemented system that genuinely wants to improve education for the students. Look at singapore. they are topping the charts nowadays because of a superior system, not homogeneity. singapore is highly diverse with 4 languages, 4 major religions and 3 broad enthinic groups with even more sub categories all living together.
The homogenuity doesnt mean shit. Norway is homogenous
lol... finland size was wrong at the start of the video
Maybe the USA needs to strip the Union Politics out of the Education System and remove the Department of Education both which are obstacles to kids and adults to learning?? Just an idea.
Neither of those things is what Finland did though, they simply chose to follow very different policies. I think you need to focus on the specific policies more than the institutions enacting them. At least that is the take away I get from this video.
The US seems to have consistently followed a path of more tests, control and centralization, while Finland was giving ever greater autonomy and flexibility to schools and teachers.
haha! Points well taken. I was living in Finland when I made it too. smh Shame on me :)
Want to know more about politics? Watch it here -
Haha, well, how was you supposed to know anyway :D And as said, the video itself is fine :)
Ha! I am from New York :)
Just saying, there are a whole bunch of videos about this topic by channels like GCP Grey and Born to Learn. You should check them out... (I'm not trying to advertise, just helping out)
We got a whig historian over here!
Interesting subject! But it's funny to see cultural differences in video desing. For example, we don't eat our school meals from paper cups (I suppose the one with a star was like that), our money is euro and our graduation hats are black-and-white. But I suppose that wasn't the main point to pay attention to, the video itself was very easy to watch ;)
Finland
to be fair, US has 50 times more students to educate than Finland...Finland has barely 432000 students in school.
So what? us has 50 states. think from the standpoint of each state, and now you're dealing with a very similar population to finland. never understood this 'big population' argument.
Size is not relevant in any way. If your school design was created to produce obedient workers and soldiers, that's what you'll fucking get. And Government should not be allowed to have anything to do with the schools at all. The compulsory pubic schools in America are shit, and all should be closed. Schools should be run and funded by parents, and teachers should be allowed the creative freedom to actually teach. If you want to know the history of how our schools became so rotten, read John Taylor Gatto's books, especially his opus "The Underground History of American Education." Our schools were modeled after the totalitarian society of the Prussian Empire. That is what is wrong with them.
Suomi mainittu torilla tavataan
Papulation? LOL You have a funny Midwest accent.
Must be from upstate, like Buffalo.
Should we teach students to think or to work? Too much home work reduce the ability to think and it only produce the rewriting the teacher idea which is nothing new. And most of science books are obsolete and only reduce to creating consumers to feed the retirees.
First and foremost idea of testing is that there should not have test preparation so that we can measure the effectiveness of the programs.
You know common core is awful when teachers take any possible opportunity to steer away from it. I think IB programs should be more widely available too.
+Kyle M The idea that Common Core is awful is widespread among people who may not understand the difference between the original idea of teaching to the standards using different approaches thus addressing student needs and a ridiculous stress put on testing. While the first approach brought great results to countries such as Finland, Singapore and a few other Asian countries, that amount of testing that we see here in the US is probably four-five times higher than necessary. Remove testing, educate prospective teachers, provide professional development and put more trust in teachers, stress responsibility, not accountability and the Common Core will bring the real results.
as an ib student i can agree with the fact that my teachers hate common core and only use it if its required...
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What the lady says about current Finnish school system one should not take at face value. For example, the teachers for primary and secondary schools are certainly not among the academically best of their age class. It is a silly claim in any nation, if you think of it for a while. Far from that, and teachers' working conditions are often quite hopeless. A high fraction of teachers do not even have permanent positions, and they are left unemployed during the vacations. They support themselves on social security summer time.
The learning outcomes in, e.g., mathematics and physics have been falling for at least two decades, and the national university curricula have been adjusted accordingly. Much of the teaching is exam and grade oriented, and the school offers little to help students in their professional or practical lives. You get what you measure, don't you? Many of the students get their innate creativity and self-esteem crushed during their school years by mechanical drill of matters for which they have no inclination whatsoever. As many of the other nations with above average Pisa ratings (mostly in Far East), the suicide rate skyrockets.
There are a lot of wishes to somehow export the "excellent" Finnish education practices abroad. In other words, this plainly means an attempt to capitalise on the relatively high Pisa score that Finland still has. Thus, it would we wisest to regard the ubiquitous praising of the Finnish educational excellence as what it truly is: a commercial message.
Briefly: Finland is a nation that now has an excellent future behind itself. We have raised a nation of overeducated underachievers. It now seems certain that we won't be able to keep up the high standards of living that were obtained during the era of Soviet trade.
I think there is a danger again in over simplifying things in this video. From my perspective anyways the Finland's model doesn't seem very balanced either. I think there needs to be room for both academic and non academic pursuits and not if you're a failure in the system well you can always go into vocational training if you are to dumb for anything else.
+Luke B I'm not sure if understood you right, but I'm from Finland and academic studies are supported also. I could go and start studying in a university even at my 30's now and government would support my studies same way that in vocational studies.
USA education is terrible. Government and people act as if teachers were second class citizens or slaves. Salaries are low and the professionals in education are discriminated against.