Feed on
Posts
Bookmarks

What makes Finnish kids so smart?

March 3rd, 2008 by COD

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.

It almost sounds like a homeschool co-op somewhere. It’s not. It’s public school in Finland.

Tags:

| 6 Comments

6 Responses to “What makes Finnish kids so smart?”

  1. on 04 Mar 2008 at 7:33 am   Meg L

    I read that article over the weekend. I found it interesting that the teachers had such freedom (and encouragement) to look at each child’s needs.

    I found it surprising that the article said that the success was because the kids are “responsible” – huh?

    I didn’t find the lost year of the exchange student surprising though. Our German exchange student from last year lost a year by coming to the states. She had fun, but wasn’t happy about needing the extra year.

  2. on 04 Mar 2008 at 8:47 am   Chas.

    I’m from Michigan, and I don’t know where the heck Colon, Michigan is. Wonder if the Finnish student would have had a different experience in a bigger city. Regardless, this article was verrrry interesting to me.

  3. on 04 Mar 2008 at 9:30 am   don

    I think the main difference is in the overall objective. Their school system is designed to educate; ours is designed to train the workforce.

  4. on 04 Mar 2008 at 11:06 am   Doc

    I thought ours were designed to properly socialize…?

  5. on 04 Mar 2008 at 11:36 am   Ulrike

    Don’s obviously from Iowa, where SF 2216 passed this week. “An Act concerning state and local measures for preparing a student for a career or for postsecondary education, including a statewide core curriculum for school districts and accredited nonpublic schools and a state=designated career information and decision=making system.”

  6. on 05 Mar 2008 at 4:39 pm   Pinki

    I’ve always been a fan of Summerhill’s ideas, and this is a good, modified, modern application of those Summerhill values in action.
    One thing it didn’t cover is parental interaction in the education of Finnish children (article says kids are independant). Do both parents work in Finland like in the US? I’m going to check it out.

This is a personal blog. Anything expressed here is at best my opinion and my opinion only. I'm not above making stuff up to start a conversation, so you are probably better off just not taking anything I write here too seriously. Comments are owned by whoever posted them.