http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-why-finland-has-the-best-schools-20160324-gnqv9l.html
Please read the above article in the link.
“The Harvard education professor Howard Gardner once advised Americans, “Learn from Finland, which has the most effective schools and which does just about the opposite of what we are doing in the United States.”
Following his recommendation, I enrolled my seven-year-old son in a primary school in Joensuu. Finland, which is about as far east as you can go in the European Union before you hit the guard towers of the Russian border.
OK, I wasn’t just blindly following Gardner – I had a position as a lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland for a semester. But the point is that, for five months, my wife, my son and I experienced a stunningly stress-free, and stunningly good, school system. Finland has a history of producing the highest global test scores in the Western world, as well as a trophy case full of other recent No. 1 global rankings, including most literate nation.
In Finland, children don’t receive formal academic training until the age of seven”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-why-finland-has-the-best-schools-20160324-gnqv9l.html#ixzz449PgXci6
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March 28, 2016 at 12:06 am |
It’s so simple and effective, isn’t it!
I wonder how the Montessori method compares to the Finnish approach. The trouble with the Montessori, which seems an excellent manner of teaching, is that it isn’t available to everyone, only those who can afford it.
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March 28, 2016 at 12:12 am |
The Montessori schools were the pre-schools in Holland back in the forties and fifties. In fact all pre-schools were called Montessori schools. I went to one as a very young boy during or soon after ww2.
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March 28, 2016 at 1:22 am |
Finland clearly has the right idea of how to educate. Too bad that other countries don’t follow common sense regarding education.
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March 28, 2016 at 5:56 am |
Reblogged this on auntyuta and commented:
I wished we could adopt a similar system in our schools. Somehow too good to be true?
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March 28, 2016 at 7:01 am |
For that to eventuate, Aunty, the Government would have to stop funding private schools. It will never happen because most people feel that the prestige attached to little Johnny or Sarah to have gone to an exclusive private school is given them a leg-up. Yet, figures show that the drop-out rate from universities is larger from the private school students.
Private schools are so entrenched in the English type of education I doubt things will improve.
Don’t get me going on private boarding schools either.
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March 28, 2016 at 9:43 pm |
It is such a good way of educating, and it has been there as an example for some time now and yet no other country has the courage to try to follow. I suspect you need a different social setting to start with… it is never easy for cultures to change, but it would be worth the effort.
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March 28, 2016 at 10:27 pm |
Finland is often mentioned in Australia but as the years go by, education remains in a limbo and we keep falling behind.
The schools tend to encourage uniformity much more than individual innovation or questioning the status quo.
Go to the web-sites of schools and it is all about the proper uniforms and how to always make sure one has the right socks or length of hair, ear-rings. There is a school here in Bowral and girls all wear those ridiculous long Jane Austin skirts. Parents are keen to let it be known they can afford the ‘right school’.
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March 28, 2016 at 10:56 pm |
Excellent article, and the question remains: why isn’t everyone doing it? The reply to the use of uniforms is always that it favors those who can’t afford more expensive clothes, but in my view it makes it even worse. Finland seems to have the right idea.
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March 28, 2016 at 11:36 pm |
The most expensive clothes are those that have been torn to bits. If my mum was alive she would take out needle and thread, offer to mend the skirts or trousers of many young people.
The poverty stricken look is so in I am ashamed to wear my jeans looking totally un-worn and un-damaged. People must think I am very poor.
Shall we all sell up and move to Finland? Form a new colony in the Tundra called Nuova Australis?
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March 28, 2016 at 11:43 pm |
And if you thought Finnish education is so good, wait till you get a Finnish partner. The best (or parras).
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March 28, 2016 at 11:43 pm |
Wouldn’t it be great if all schools followed Finland’s example. What a great system. Thanks for sharing this article with us, Gerard.
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March 29, 2016 at 1:16 am |
What’s so terribly ironic is that the article describes — with some cultural differences — the sort of education I had as a child and youth. We used to do it that way in this country. Then, the bureaucrats and etc. took over, and things started going downhill.
I’ve always said — and still believe — that the education I had when I graduated from high school was as good or better than that of many college graduates today in the U.S. In some cases, it was better than that achieved by some master’s level students. And it wasn’t all Latin, languages, and literature. It was assumed that civics, geography, world history, art, typing, home-ec and shop classes would be part of our education, too.
The truth is, I loved school, even though I had problems with math and science. The number one thing my teachers taught me was how to learn — that’s a skill that seems completely out of favor today.
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March 29, 2016 at 3:45 am |
To actually like school is what my Finnish partner has been saying too, Linda. She and her large family all wanted to go to school because they liked it. Another good thing was that a warm and nourishing lunch is/ was provided to all primary school children. ( No sweets and choc-top biscuit lunches)
It is different here in Australia. My brothers were given the ‘cane’ by (un)Christian brothers back in the late fifties, early sixties. The use of the cane or belt has only been banned from schools a few years ago. Unbelievable.
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March 29, 2016 at 3:48 am |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2015/11/21/punishment-at-schools_n_8528598.html
“Corporal punishment was officially abandoned in public schools in NSW in 1990 but it was still used in private schools until 1995. Victoria led the way, abandoning corporal punishment in 1985 in public schools and 1986 in private schools while Queensland abandoned corporal punishment in 1989.”
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March 29, 2016 at 11:18 am |
The Finns are doing something right. Very right. Norway was concerned a few years back as their scores were markedly behind the Finns, yet they have a similar system and almost completely public schools throughout. What do you think coukd have been the difference between Norsk and Finns.
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March 30, 2016 at 4:31 pm |
In England pupils are assessed and tested to the nth degree, and it’s getting more rigorous. When I was still teaching, I tried, as far as possible within the constraints I had to work under, to incorporate Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences in my lessons.
One of the main problems with the English system is that it’s dictated by politicians who have no educational expertise or understanding beyond their own schooldays, which means public (i.e. private) education, since virtually none of the government attended state schools.
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March 30, 2016 at 9:43 pm |
Yes, an education split between the public (private) and state is what we have inherited in Australia from England. It is an archaic system that seems to triumph in keeping the status quo on all levels, a fear of change and innovation.
We chug along nicely but never at much speed. Most times are spent at the station reflecting on a past landscape.
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March 31, 2016 at 9:11 pm
So true.
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March 31, 2016 at 8:22 am |
I have decided not to visit the websites of the private schools you mention – it is not how you are but how you appear.
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April 9, 2016 at 3:13 am |
Love the bit…about not the weather but the clothing being the problem. Saw this on dateline about Denmarks kinders.
“Children are running wild in the mud, climbing high into trees and playing with knives, but no one is telling them off. Dateline follows life at kindergarten… Danish-style.”
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/story/kids-gone-wild
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