Happy Humans=Effective Learning
Who knew that caring more about a person’s well being than their standardized test score could produce successful results in the classroom?
BAM. Shocking intro that makes you think about something done.
Now since I started this series questioning American exceptionalism I figured it’s only right to research other countries and see if there is anyone who is doing it better. Education was a hotly debated topic all throughout the election cycle, what with Bernie Sanders offering up the idea of free education and Betsy Devos being sworn in as the Secretary of Education with no experience at all.
In December of 2011 a leading authority on education reform from Finland named Pasi Sahlberg, who also happens to be the director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility, spoke about his expertise at a private school named Dwight in New York. His visit was of particular interest because their country has ranked at or near the top in the PISA survey every year since 2000, this survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science.
The biggest differences between the American school system and Finland’s school system:
- Finland has no private schools. From pre-K to a Ph.D., pretty much every person who goes to school in this country attends a public school. There are a small number of independent schools that exist there, but even those are publicly funded. This is truly significant, not just because it was ironic that Sahlberg was giving this advice at a private school, because this (plus other factors I will get into later) shows how high of a value the government places on education.
- Part of Finland’s education reform plan includes giving students less homework and more creative play.
- Finland does not do standardized testing. They are less concerned with creating a competitive environment and deciphering which students, teachers, and schools are the best (like the U.S.). Their main goal is to create a healthy and positive learning environment that is most of all equal, the ways in which they make equity a priority are detailed in points 4 and 5.
- Finland spends money on being able to provide the children with free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance. *This is where my title comes into play* Students should be treated like human beings that are worth more time, attention, and money from the state and federal government because they are humans. They deserve this treatment no matter how well they do on a standardized test. Sahlberg noted that American leaders in education always have the same concerns about accountability for teachers and keeping track of academic success for students (which is how they defend doing so many standardized tests and cutting funding for schools that don’t perform as well). He states that when they were starting their plan for reform in Finland they did not focus on these areas as much as they wanted to create equal opportunity for students and clearly their unselfish approach has been paying off in the form of highly educated students.
- Finland respects their teachers and treats them as a valuable and integral part of society. According to Sahlberg, educators there are “given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility”, unlike here where the job of being a teacher (not professor) in the U.S. is not a highly paid or desired position. This is just another example of the value that they place on all of the moving pieces in the education system, unlike here in the U.S. where unfortunately spending billions of dollars on the military is deemed more important than all citizens having the opportunity to receive a decent education.
It would really do us well to follow their example and choose humanity.
