Wednesday, December 05, 2012

They Finnish first

Finnish children don't start school until they are 7 years old. They have no exams or homework until they are well into their teens. There is one mandatory standardized test, taken when children are 16. There are no 'comprehension levels' - all children, clever or not, are in the same classroom. 30% of children get extra help during their first 9 years of school. 66% of students go on to college. The difference between the weakest and strongest students is the smallest in the world. 93% of Finns graduate from high school. Elementary school students get 75 minutes of recess per day. Teachers only spend 4 hours a day in the classroom. The rest of the day is spent preparing lessons and interacting with other teachers. Teachers get 2 hours per week of professional development. Finland has as many teachers as NYC, but only around half the students. All teachers must have a Master's degree, which is fully subsidized. Teachers are selected from the top 10% of university graduates. High school teachers with 15 years of experience get 102% of what other graduates make. Finnish teachers have the same status as doctors and lawyers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really thought-provoking. And kind of angry-making, considering the sort of budget cuts and excuses we hear as teachers for why plans proposed to us for cutting money won't hurt the kids or make our jobs more impossible than they already are. Stupid bureacrats. The system sucks....but I feel like there's nothing we can do. H.

Karl Plesz said...

We can do something, but it would take a ground-swell of parents and teachers to band together and force the government to do something. Education hasn't been an election issue in years, so nothing can be done until it is. The biggest obstacle I see in reforming education into something we can be proud of is this rising tide of anti-socialist dogma that looks upon any societal help as an unsustainable 'entitlement'. We need to hear from intelligent people who will speak up, speak out and make these windbags look like the uninformed byproducts of a sub-standard system that they are. Wow, I think I just ranted right then.....