This clip about Finland's education system makes me wonder, again, why our education system in the United States is so lacking. Obviously there is a system that can be duplicated, a system that is doing things right, so why am I not hearing more about school districts in the U.S. following Finland's example?
Ah, yes, the citizens of Finland support the wonderful education system in their country, they are participants, they expect teachers to be professionals and they treat them as such. How are teachers commonly viewed in our own country?
If your child attends a public school in the United States, can you even imagine 3 teachers in their classroom as shown in Finland? A teacher designated to help struggling students? Amazing.
I pulled up this article to research Finland's school system a bit more: http://www.finland.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=162937&nodeid=41807&culture=en-US and what struck me is the time of day students get out, between 12 pm and 2 pm. They are not spending crazy, long hours at school in a formal learning environment. If you read the article, you will see the attendants are available at the playground after school, since most parents do work full-time. Children are still being children, playing, engaging, enthusiastic about the process of learning.
Is this Utopia? Obviously not, because it is happening, it is real, it can be done. Come on United States, admit you have a system that is severely lacking, throw up your hands, look to Finland and make our education system better for our children right now!
So, I'm WAY behind the times on reading this post. I really liked that clip Heather. Those are some amazing statistics and wouldn't I just LOVE to teach with two other teachers (with MASTERS degrees) every day. It's fabulous.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't we do it here? It's like the video clip said, NO ONE CARES. To most Americans public school is an entitlement and they are not vested in it at all. If something goes wrong then they point the finger at the teachers and tell us that we are the ones to blame. It's really hard. Everyone wants it to change, but no one cares enough to actually do something about it. It's really sad.