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‘You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.’
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.’
Kahlil Gibran, On Children
We can not aim to prepare our children for the careers of the future.
We live in such a dynamic world that what was a norm 10 years ago,
almost certainly will not be our reality in 10 years. The education of
the future is much more challenging, shifting further away from
‘spelling and formulas’ towards the development of cognitive thinking
where children are given tools to develop their-own world, when their
time comes.
Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, to name just a few, all started as
small companies with a few people with an idea, a talent, and motivation
to innovate. So, to educate leaders and innovators of the future, we
need an education system that nurtures the love for learning and
promotes creativity and innovation.
Finland is this century's icon of educational reform success, with
its students repeatedly winning all the top results in international
rankings. Some four decades after Finland overhauled its educational
system, many countries try to learn from its example.
So, what are the lessons that we could learn from the Finish educational model?
1. Finnish have only public schools, the country has closed all the private ones. Before the reform, Finland had large learning
differences between schools, with urban students typically
outperforming their low income peers. Today, students do well
regardless of their socio-economic status.
2. The Finnish vision is that every child has some talents and those
who struggle in certain subjects are given an assistant to help them in
their progress. No one is left behind.
3. Within their educational reform, the Finns have at first,
eliminated the practice of separating students into different tracks
based on their test scores, and then they eliminated the examinations
altogether. Finnish children never take a standardized test. Tests are
not used to compare pupils or teachers or schools to each other.
4. Children in Finland start Primary School at age seven. The idea
is that before that time they learn best through play, and by the time
they get to the school environment they are keen to start learning.
5. Teaching is a prestigious career in Finland and teachers are
highly valued. All teachers are required to have higher academic
degrees and this guarantees the high quality of teaching.
6. The highly trained teachers have autonomy to make decisions about
what and how to teach, they participate in the design of the curriculum
of their class, supported by the very lean national standards (featuring
fewer than 10 pages of guidance for all of mathematics, for example).
The Finns also made sure that competent teachers who can shape the best learning conditions for their students are in all the schools.
7. Teachers keep the same pupils in their classroom for several
years. This helps the trust develop between the teacher and the
students.
8. Children study in a relaxed and informal atmosphere and teachers
use methods that encourage ‘thinking’, experimenting, project work, and
collaboration. In a typical classroom, students will not be sitting
down listening to the teacher, they would be working with other students
in small groups, completing projects or writing articles for their own
magazine. The teacher nurture independence and active learning,
allowing students to develop skills to understand and solve problems.
9. Finnish schools are generally small with relatively small
classrooms (around 20s). All students receive a free meal daily, free
health care, transport, and learning materials. They also have plenty
of holidays - compared to the Europeans, Finnish children spend the
fewest number of hours in the classroom.
The success of the Finish model is not within a competition based
environment that is highly relying upon exams, but it is built on the
idea that less can be more. There is a strong emphasis on relaxed
schools that nurture creativity, questioning, and in-depth subject analysis. Arts, music and sports are integral part of every child’s curriculum.
It is interesting that some of the alternative schools’ founders of
the last century (Steiner and Montessori) have worked on the exact same
principles when shaping their schools of the future. Their knowledge of
human nature and children development patterns have influenced the
pioneers of educational shift that is happening during the last few
decades.
Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized expert in human creativity,
talking about educational reform within the video "Changing Education
Paradigms," invites the educational bodies to re-think their policies
that advocate competition as the key driver of educational improvement.
Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that focus on creativity and
cooperation can lead to an education system where all children learn
well.
Author : By Natasa Pantovic Nuit,
