The wispy 7-year-old had recently arrived from Thailand speaking not a word of Finnish. It is designed to help children keep up with their subjects while they conquer the language.
Rintola will teach the same children next year and possibly the next five years, depending on the needs of the school. English begins in third grade, Swedish in fourth. By fifth grade the children have added biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry.
Not until sixth grade will kids have the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not publicized. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us. I had come to Kirkkojarvi to see how the Finnish approach works with students who are not stereotypically blond, blue-eyed and Lutheran. They argue that the United States has little to learn from a country of only 5. Yet the Finns seem to be onto something.
Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education policies similar to those in the United States. The year-old boxy school building sat in a wooded area, around the corner from a subway stop flanked by gas stations and convenience stores. Half of its first- through ninth-grade students have learning disabilities.
All but the most severely impaired are mixed with the general education children, in keeping with Finnish policies. Working in teams, the 7- and 8-year-olds raced to see how quickly they could carry out their tasks. They really learn with it. The school receives 47, euros a year in positive discrimination money to hire aides and special education teachers, who are paid slightly higher salaries than classroom teachers because of their required sixth year of university training and the demands of their jobs.
There is one teacher or assistant in Siilitie for every seven students. In another classroom, two special education teachers had come up with a different kind of team teaching. Each had students of wide-ranging abilities and special needs. Summa asked Kangasvieri if they might combine gymnastics classes in hopes good behavior might be contagious. It worked. This year, the two decided to merge for 16 hours a week. Every so often, principal Arjariita Heikkinen told me, the Helsinki district tries to close the school because the surrounding area has fewer and fewer children, only to have people in the community rise up to save it.
Until the late s, Finns were still emerging from the cocoon of Soviet influence. No way. Finland is leading the way because of common-sense practices and a holistic teaching environment that strives for equity over excellence.
Staying in line with our print-minded sensibilities, standardized testing is the blanket way we test for subject comprehension. Filling in little bubbles on a scantron and answering pre-canned questions is somehow supposed to be a way to determine mastery or at least competence of a subject. What often happens is that students will learn to cram just to pass a test and teachers will be teaching with the sole purpose of students passing a test.
Learning has been thrown out of the equation. Finland has no standardized tests. Their only exception is something called the National Matriculation Exam, which is a voluntary test for students at the end of an upper-secondary school equivalent to an American high school.
All children throughout Finland are graded on an individualized basis and grading system set by their teacher. Tracking overall progress is done by the Ministry of Education, which samples groups across different ranges of schools.
A lot of the blame goes to the teachers and rightfully so sometimes. Teaching programs are the most rigorous and selective professional schools in the entire country. The concept of the pupil-teacher dynamic that was once the master to apprentice cannot be distilled down to a few bureaucratic checks and standardized testing measures.
It needs to be dealt with on an individual basis. While most Americans and other countries see the educational system as one big Darwinian competition, the Finns see it differently. Sahlberg quotes a line from a writer named Samuli Paronen which says that:. Ironically, this attitude has put them at the head of the international pack. There are no lists of top performing schools or teachers.
Many school systems are so concerned with increasing test scores and comprehension in math and science, they tend to forget what constitutes a happy, harmonious and healthy student and learning environment. Many years ago, the Finnish school system was in need of some serious reforms.
The program that Finland put together focused on returning back to the basics. Instead, they looked to make the school environment a more equitable place.
Here the Finns again start by changing very minute details. Students start school when they are seven years old. There are only 9 years of compulsory school that Finnish children are required to attend. Everything past the ninth grade or at the age of 16 is optional. Just from a psychological standpoint, this is a freeing ideal. Finland alleviates this forced ideal and instead opts to prepare its children for the real world. They are reading and then I'm going to ask something what did they find out from the book?
I think we all are ready now. But it's still less than in many countries in Europe or in the world. Yeah, that's OKAY. One cake for the cameraman, one cake for me and two coffees.
How much is it? Do you have tips? In Finland, school lunches, like books and excursions, are free. There are plenty of options for bad weather days too. It seems like it's such a rich school, you must get more money than other schools? This legislation forms the basis for Student Welfare Committees comprised of principals, special education teachers, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and counselors.
Committees meet regularly to discuss individual students and staff, and to create personalized support plans. These may include emotional or academic support services or intensive supplemental support, which benefits 10 percent of Finnish students. School psychologists and social workers on the Welfare Committees meet with students individually and then make referrals to outside services as needed.
During school, all students and staff eat free, healthy meals prepared on site, and active, outdoor play and social breaks throughout the day are the norm. We noted plenty of comfortable areas for students and staff to congregate in every school we visited. Photo by Vanessa Wilkins. Many schools and programs in the United States, such as Communities in Schools , have already created successful local partnerships with social service providers.
Funders and policy makers should support the coordination and development of wrap-around services to take the burden off of schools, and foster community and family engagement, which we know helps students succeed. Educators and policy makers interested in adapting Finnish approaches to the American context must be mindful to create culturally competent learning environments that serve all children.
Finnish policies are intended to promote equity by balancing socio-economic diversity across school boundaries, providing native language services to immigrants, and reducing barriers to nutritious food, health, and social services that contribute to disparities in the United States. However, student rights in Finland prevent the disaggregation of data to determine whether these inclusive measures truly do result in better outcomes for immigrants and historically underserved populations.
Any effort to improve educational outcomes must include data-driven equity practices and community-led solutions.
Student art is displayed prominently in all schools. These primary school portraits hint at a desire to support a less-homogeneous student body. Finally, reforms to our current system must coincide with new solutions for excellence and equity.
In the United States, collaboration between public and private sectors, and a cultural emphasis on leadership and entrepreneurship have led to the creation of completely new school models in small pockets across the country.
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