Is Finland the ideal educational standard for us to follow?

clunked

Time upon time we are being told how wonderful the Finn's education system is and that rote learning, exams, homework etc are backward. In other words what might be considered as a traditional education is being put down when compared to the Departments and NCCA's ideal. They are both fond of quoting the OECD when it suits so the executive summary of an OECD report on Finland is interesting:

“Narrow qualifications and a lack of foundation skills
among vocational education and training graduates
reduce adaptability to structural change. Difficulties to
access employment for the low-skilled is one of the
main sources of income inequality.
–
Strengthen foundation skills in vocational education
and training.”
http://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Overview-OECD-Finland-2016.pdf

Tom Dunne

Is there one ideal system?

Now I know I should put on a suit of armour when I mention PISA in this forum , but the Economist had a recent article on education: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21711247-reforming-education-slow-and-hard-eminently-possible-what-world-can-learn

clunked

A quote from the Economist article


'The top performers treat teachers as professionals and teachers act that way as well. They have time to prepare lessons and learn from their peers. They tend to direct classroom instruction rather than be led by their pupils.'

evolving_doors

Hmm Finland, works in practice. I wonder if it would work in theory!

Education is a complex ecology so it's more than a matter of aping some of the strategies and assuming the exact same outcome will occur.

Here's what pasi has to say ....

he [pasi] noted the international experience was mixed and “choosing selectively you can justify any position you like”. Therefore, he recommended that Ireland concentrate on “what is the best for the Irish system in the long run” rather than what other countries are doing.

article from Irish times.

TheDriver

Its similar to Marie Montessori, ideal world would benefit immensely.

feardeas

I wonder is there something awfully wrong with what we have.

I understand the need for the ability to think not to mention to do so critically. However my experience is that the problem really lies in an inability or nervousness around articulating the thinking. This may spring from shyness or fear of bring wrong or being laughed at or mocked. This leaves us with teacher talk along with a few others depending on the group. I often wonder if I'm doing something off putting but I don't really think I am. I try group work from time to time. I'd be glad to follow whatever model that would help in that way.

Also, I think there's a lot of buzz words now. Like guide at the side etc. Also see the emphasis moving to play at primary. This seems to be what the educational psychologists would suggest, certainly the guy that is a contributor to Moncrief on Wednesdays. There's no problem in a school that can't be laid firmly at teacher's door in much of what he says. I heard him the other week criticising a teacher who felt that it might be time to for a child who is 8 and a half to leave the teddy bear at home. It can, he feels, be used to develop literacy. Now maybe I'm cynical, and I'm in secondary, but holy God I couldn't believe it.

I digress a little. Finland has the blessings of the NCCA so I guess it's bound to come.

Tom Dunne

There's a wonderful paper on "The grammar of schooling" written by Tyack and Tobin. Its basically exploring the issues around why schooling has not changed dramatically since the industrial era, including examples of initiatives that were attempted and failed in spectacular fashion.

So yes, there is an aversion to change, with reasons that are multi-faceted and complex.

evolving_doors

Tom Dunne wrote: »

There's a wonderful paper on "The grammar of schooling" written by Tyack and Tobin. Its basically exploring the issues around why schooling has not changed dramatically since the industrial era, including examples of initiatives that were attempted and failed in spectacular fashion.

So yes, there is an aversion to change, with reasons that are multi-faceted and complex.

I think it's because the external 'change initiatives' are prescriptive to all teachers at once which is a challenge to a teacher's sense of professional autonomy, so hence the resistance.

I remember a few years ago we were shown the almighty interactive whiteboard and told that we'd all have to 'get with the program' as it was the way forward... no such luck with that.
Conversely, newer teachers take it upon themselves to set up their own interactive space and just run with it themselves (at their own cost unfortunately).
The change comes from within.

So maybe harking back to the Finnish system then...(Keep in mind that the average teaching time per day quoted in the article is 3 hrs.. wonder if they have to do S&S!)

As described above, the national core curriculum is really a framework rather than a roadmap, leaving teachers an enormous amount of discretion to interpret that framework, select their own textbooks and other curriculum materials, and then design their own lessons, all of which require time. In some schools the process of curriculum development is undertaken collaboratively by teams of teachers, while in smaller schools the responsibility might fall largely on each individual teacher.

https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46581035.pdf

I'd also agree with this final part :

One critical observer suggested that Finland doesn’t really have a reform strategy, by which he meant that there were no central initiatives that the government was trying to push through the system.

Basically, support the teachers and change will come in good time.

Questions like, 'Do we need to have Irish compulsory?', 'should there be a school uniform?' 'shouldn't we be teaching coding?' to my mind are all secondary. The 'education' takes place in the interaction between teacher and the student and the topic in hand. Sure, there's a body of knowledge that a student needs to carry forward to third level, but surely it's more than 'training for a job'.

jjdonegal

From what I've read on the system (admittedly only a few hours of articles/chapters, etc) I'm impressed by it. Would need to read a lot more to confirm my view but I think some of the vision behind the new JC is similar to the system in Finland. However I know that does not necessarily mean it would work here.

I love the regard and professionalism that is attached to teaching in Finland and likewise I like their model which allows for and supports PLCs and collaboration within schools which is what some of the schools I have worked in severely lack.

rainbowtrout

There was a thread here about that very question 2 years ago, and I posted a long reply to it, which I'm not about to type out again. And to be honest my view hasn't changed all that much


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=94913144&postcount=7



But in a TL;DR way: Ireland wants Finnish results, but with Irish resources. If the powers that be are willing to reduce contact teaching hours from 726 at second level to 553 (upper secondary school in Finland) and reduce pupil - teacher ratios from 20:1 to 13:1 and perhaps start promoting teaching as a profession to respected by society rather than denigrated at every opportunity, then sign me up, I'm all in.

Redser87

feardeas wrote: »

I wonder is there something awfully wrong with what we have.


I heard him the other week criticising a teacher who felt that it might be time to for a child who is 8 and a half to leave the teddy bear at home. It can, he feels, be used to develop literacy. Now maybe I'm cynical, and I'm in secondary, but holy God I couldn't believe it.

I digress a little. Finland has the blessings of the NCCA so I guess it's bound to come.

Off topic but yes theoretically there are loads of uses for teddies at primary level... they can be used as a way of getting a child's thoughts out in the same way that the dramatic mask can be a good way to address thorny issues. That's all theoretical though, in practice the teacher is probably concerned about teasing and the child's ability to stand on their own two feet.

Back on topic, we could learn from the Finns but there is a wider culture that surrounds their educational system. We can't just transplant their system without having wider cultural and political aspects in place - respect for education and the role of the teacher being a major one.

amacca

rainbowtrout wrote: »

There was a thread here about that very question 2 years ago, and I posted a long reply to it, which I'm not about to type out again. And to be honest my view hasn't changed all that much


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=94913144&postcount=7



But in a TL;DR way: Ireland wants Finnish results, but with Irish resources. If the powers that be are willing to reduce contact teaching hours from 726 at second level to 553 (upper secondary school in Finland) and reduce pupil - teacher ratios from 20:1 to 13:1 and perhaps start promoting teaching as a profession to respected by society rather than denigrated at every opportunity, then sign me up, I'm all in.

Just on the 20:1...thats an average value across the system as I'm sure you know
.....which I suppose can be misleading for the casual reader...as can the contact hours and not realising all the extras those entail

For other readers benefit many teachers in this country can be faced with 30:1 and more at times.

rainbowtrout

amacca wrote: »

Just on the 20:1...thats an average value across the system as I'm sure you know
.....which I suppose can be misleading for the casual reader...as can the contact hours and not realising all the extras those entail

For other readers benefit many teachers in this country can be faced with 30:1 and more at times.

I do know that, but if the Finnish PTR is 13:1, they probably have classes bigger than 13 and also smaller. Overall their classes are still going to be smaller than Irish ones.


Maybe a better way of looking at it would be teacher allocation. Ignoring specific school allocations for resource etc, a school of 400 students in Ireland will have an allocation of 20 full time teachers. In Finland that same school will have 30.77 teachers. Massive difference.

Mr Teeny