
The Finland Phenomenon (2011) guides us through its journey in exploring Finland secondary education system. It starts with Dr. Tony Wagner, a senior Harvard researcher, interviewing the students. No homework in 6th grade. Most students have clear views of what they want to be. They share the same simple value: it is more important to love your work instead of being rich.
The film demystifies the teacher training in Finland. There is a high bar for qualified teachers. A master degree is a must. Teachers design their lessen plans and should have skills to stimulate students to think and engage. 60% student and 40% teacher in a class conversation.
The Finland has transformed education to a trust based system successfully. 45% pupils going to non academia area showcases how they treat every professions equally. No child is left behind.
Key takeaways
- Finland understands their disadvantaged in natural resources. Therefore, they want to make brain power as their competing advantages and education becomes a key focus in the past decade.
- Finnish pre-school focuses on developing kids’ social skills.
- A teacher is paired with a student for several years so that they can understand a student’s learning pattern well.
- Homework and test are little. Project based learning is heavily implemented.
- Entrepreneurship skills are embedded in senior years when they are taught with marketing and business strategies.
- Given student’s self motivated capability to accomplish projects, teacher trust students and can spend more time in children who are behind.
- Academy excellence and a master degree holds teaching job’s bar high.
- Teachers treat each class as a laboratory experiment which they need to discover the best way to unlock student’s potential.
- A trust based system between the government, schools, teachers, parents and students is the key to make the education success. Teachers are respected and trusted for their profession by parents. Students are trusted by teachers and parents given their self directed foundation. Government trusts schools to elevate civic education.
Reflection
I think the trust is the key element in Finnish system. The documentary didn’t manifest how the trust system was built. My hypotheses is that it starts with training teachers with good quality and the clear vision of their education. The vision of Finnish education seems to equip kids to self-learn with highly critical thinking capacity. In this way, teachers can give more individual time to children who are behind.
I like the notion that every teacher should see each class as laboratory experiment as it inspires teachers to try different innovative ways to really — unlock learner’s potential.
Going back to my education in Taiwan, I used to be the one who teachers would put more focus on because of coming from an incomplete family though my academia performance is fine. Besides, I’ve seen my junior high school teacher relentlessly effort to help students with disadvantaged backgrounds regardless of how helpless she felt. No child left behind is surely in Taiwanese educator’s heart.
The mindset that I didn’t see in Taiwan is the laboratory experiment teaching style. I don’t remember any teachers in the class trying to engage students at the beginning by utilizing different media that speak to the new generation. There is no project based learning while students are crammed with lots of homework and tests.
Intrigued by the Finland phenomenon, I hope we can have more systems that nurture life-long learners and unlock every potential fully.