Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "How to escape education's death valley | Sir Ken Robinson | TED" video.

  1.  @zawyehtike3089  Hmm . . . Not sure where to start. I base my comment on reading, and meeting and talking with Finish college students studying in the US. The Atlantic ran probably the most extensive series of articles on the Finnish educational system about five years ago, and some of what they said was slightly exaggerated. The series is not a bad place to start, and then you could look for more nuance elsewhere. I guess I would say that a lot of what they do strikes us as counterintuitive, yet there is no doubt they spend the least per pupil of any European Union country and consistently score at the top in the PISA tests. They used to be first in the world; now they are "only" first in Europe. Entrance into the teaching profession is about as competitive as law or medicine (below the top 10% means you probably won't make it), all teachers must have at least a Master's degree, but once attained, the teachers are regarded as professionals and given tons of autonomy -- and then the schools themselves are highly egalitarian. It is ironic. They simply don't encourage competition, but cooperation, and do no standardized testing as we know it until about 6th or 7th grade. Everyone gets meals in school. Everyone gets 15 minute breaks every hour. School days start later and finish earlier, school itself starts at age 7 and is no longer mandatory after age 16 -- but most kids choose to continue, and a large proportion go on to college. They do not do a lot of homework, but are expected to study quietly during several time slots in class every day, so in a sense they have homework sessions in class, with immediate feedback. There is a lot of variety in the curriculum, but also uniformity, in that it is simply expected that everyone should and will attain a certain solid foundation in every academic subject, and be given an opportunity to practice various arts. They don't do tracking in the way we know it, or hear about it in Germany. Kids at different levels who are in the same grade study together in one classroom. Kids may even have the same teacher throughout most of elementary school, until their first serious standardized test at around age 13. They don't have private academic preschools or cram schools. All the kids become bilingual Finnish-Swedish, and most also learn English, so they graduate trilingual, but are not tested in English for their final high school exam ("matriculation"), only Finnish and Swedish. They do not allow corporate influence or control, or business-speak, to influence their profession. There is no notion of the student (or parent) being a "client" or "customer" in any sense; educators do not "deliver" the curriculum to students. Their system assumes corporation heads are no more knowledgeable about education than they would be about medicine. Teachers are really put on a pedestal, at least in that sense. I don't think any other high achieving country runs their schools that way. Most people -- even the egalitarian Finns -- believe that the single most important factor in their success is the thorough professionalizaton of the teaching corps. It is a really hard profession to enter.
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  2. Finland is outstanding, but not perfect.
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  3.  @varnikachandrasekara1478  I like how you said that. Refreshing!
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  4.  @zawyehtike3089  Small anecdote: we once had a logic puzzle in a linguistics class I took. Only a Finnish student and I could do it. Most of the rest of the class refused to try. That's what negative competition does to you? Maybe.
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  5.  @zawyehtike3089  I don't think the Finnish system has too much uniformity. Every educational system must have a core. Everyone has to be able to read. We are reading right now. In Finland, they do not have the draconian tracking of Germany. I think everyone should meet the minimum to go to college, so that it remains an option for them. They do not have to go. But when you finish high school, that possibility should be open. It's not fair to close the door on anyone at age 18. Now we know the brain is not even fully developed for another seven years.
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  6. Not even that! If you learn how to memorize, you can be in cool plays. :/
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  7.  Aberdonian DotCom  Ha ha ha. Wrong.
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  8.  @zawyehtike3089  I am very serious when I say, go back to Plato. The central question of education is: how do you know what you need to learn, until after you've learned it? This is not a trivial question. For example, I did not know until recently that I have some talent for acting, and that not learning how to memorize lines as a young person is a huge handicap for me now. In the US, we do not learn poems by heart as children. Many, many places teach children to recite poems by heart. How did they know to do that? Did the kids ask to do that? No. Purely a matter of culture. We often criticize school for teaching memorization. Only now do I know that is wrong. Some things should be learned by heart. I think "educational freedom" is a talking point more than anything else. I think those sorts of schemes create greater inequality, not greater opportunity. I think you might make money for yourself with the idea.
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  9. Teaching to the test has only gotten worse. Top-down directives have only become more massive.
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