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What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?



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nishtikeit




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 02 2008, 1:50 pm
[url]http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7Bp8YFw7Yy1n9bdKtVyP7KBAcJA_20080330.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top[/url]

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? (part of article,bold added)
Finland's teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
February 29, 2008; Page W1

Helsinki, Finland

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers.

Finland's students are the brightest in the world, according to an international test. [b]Teachers say extra playtime is one reason for the students' success. [/b]WSJ's Ellen Gamerman reports.
The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. In the most recent test, which focused on science, Finland's students placed first in science and near the top in math and reading, according to results released late last year.
The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: [b]well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students.[/b] "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it's done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus, has no sports teams, marching bands or prom.


Fanny Salo in class
Trailing 15-year-old Fanny Salo at Norssi gives a glimpse of the no-frills curriculum. Fanny earns straight A's, and with no gifted classes she sometimes doodles in her journal while waiting for others to catch up. She often helps lagging classmates. "It's fun to have time to relax a little in the middle of class," Fanny says. [b]Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker students rather than by pushing gifted students ahead of everyone else. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress[/b].

At lunch, Fanny and her friends leave campus to buy salmiakki, a salty licorice. They return for physics, where class starts when everyone quiets down. Teachers and students address each other by first names. About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats.

The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines. Teachers must hold master's degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom.

[b]Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students [/b]to national standards. "In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs," says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.

One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.


Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance. But even the best universities don't have the elite status of a Harvard.


Students at the Ymmersta School near Helsinki
Taking away the competition of getting into the "right schools" allows Finnish children to enjoy a less-pressured childhood. While many U.S. parents worry about enrolling their toddlers in academically oriented preschools, the Finns don't begin school until age 7, a year later than most U.S. first-graders.

Once school starts, the Finns are more self-reliant. While some U.S. parents fuss over accompanying their children to and from school, and arrange every play date and outing, young Finns do much more on their own. At the Ymmersta School in a nearby Helsinki suburb, some first-grade students trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness. At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up their own skates or put on their own skis.
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Ruchel




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 02 2008, 4:20 pm
Quote:
High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night.


nice!

Quote:
They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted.


same here

Quote:

with no gifted classes she sometimes doodles in her journal while waiting for others to catch up. She often helps lagging classmates.


oh the memories... I helped when the teachers allowed me. not so often. I also often had to hide I was doodling or whatever.

Quote:

class starts when everyone quiets down.


same here... but not out of choice from the teacher!
Quote:

Teachers and students address each other by first names.


wow!
My uncle's best friend, though, is a maths teacher in Israel and he does that with his children. He has managed to "save" many "bad" pupils.

Quote:


One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading.


this is good. So many kids, even Jewish, "hate" reading Sad


Quote:
Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance.


same


Quote:

some first-grade students trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness. At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up their own skates or put on their own skis.


wow! even in hs many kids were driven!
free meals? that's nice


interesting article!!
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montrealmommy




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 02 2008, 4:37 pm
dh is a big big big fan of the finnish way of educating. He hates the whole gan katan/nursery school idea! Early childhood education and moulding drive him nuts!!! He would go bonkers if I showed him that article. He won't let me do letters or # with ds in a learning way - he lets ds guide us (ds is only 3 btw). When ds shows interest, we jump on and encourage, otherwise dh doens't like the whole pushing method b4 they are even in school. He promotes free play and creativity. He has seperated books which don't allow kids to think/imagine. Although I sometime find his methods a little extremem, I do see the benefits. ds is an incredibly creative child and quite resourceful. He thinks for himslef and does for himself (I also take some of this responsibility as I am a big believer in many of the Montessori principles). compared to many of his peers, ds is very self sufficient and mature and I credit dh's reasons for this.

I love the minimal hw and less pressured society so that kids can be kids and not little adults!

about dh, both in-laws are educators. fil is a child psychologist, one of the leading in the country. Many of dh's ideas come form how he was raised!
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Motek




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 02 2008, 4:47 pm
nishtikeit wrote:
kids don't start school until age 7.


oh my, so much for headstart programs and the overrated importance of formal early childhood education

If they're home until age 7, does that mean that Finnish mothers do not work outside the home, I wonder.

hmmm, let's see, where are those posts about mothers asking for advice about their bored 15 month old babies and sending toddlers to school "for their own good," of course ...
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Ilovechoumous




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 09 2008, 10:52 am
I heard that since they dont start to learning how to read until the age of 7, and the parents dont pressure them to, that they put an emphasis on comprehension and not reading and writing. perhaps that extra year of just comprehension gives them an edge?
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HindaRochel




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 09 2008, 11:04 am
It might help build memory skills/listening skills.
Before she read my second daughter, fourth child, had a tremendos memory and great math skills. Perhaps later reading tallies with better skills in the above two areas which would lead to better learning all around...at least in terms of testing and applying information.
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shayna82




 
 
    
 

Post Sun, Mar 09 2008, 11:34 am
I definitly think that the kids staying home until after 7 is a big factor.
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