Finn here. Results have been negative on this so far, at least for students before high school [1]. Most children at that stage aren't yet capable of self-directed learning. Problem is compounded by the distractive effect of digital equipment in class.<p>[1] <a href="https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_digital-based_curriculum_impedes_learning_researcher_finds/10514984" rel="nofollow">https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finlands_digital-based_cu...</a>
School should be like onboarding tutorials for a game.<p>You've just signed into the greatest MMORPG ever. This is planet Earth. You chose the Human species. You were randomly spawned in this country, which is here. You share this world with these other players and critters. Here's some of the common technology we use, and the basics of how it works, made possible by the players working in these professions. There are limited resources, for now, but there are other worlds out there.<p>What would you like to do?
After seeing so many posts on Finland recently, I feel an obligation to emphasize something (as someone who used to live in Finland): While it's safe, affordable, and definitely one of the best places to raise a family, it's nothing to romanticize. If you're not Finnish/Swedish, there's a lot of implicit racism and it's an upward climb for many aspects of life. I was speaking with someone pretty high up in the DNC: if you're an ambitious refugee, America is still the best place for you. You can drive taxis, pay for your education, and become a software engineer without anyone questioning you. I literally know a handful of refugees who got free education in Finland but were denied most job opportunities because of systematic racism.
The biggest problem preteen me faced as a curious and voracious reader was not knowing what I didn't know. With limited experience and limited knowledge of the world, I didn't know what phenomenon were actually interesting to me.<p>So, I became an limited expert in medieval weaponry, which didn't even serve me well in later D&D sessions because a "long sword is a sidearm damn it". Other kids became experts in dinosaurs.<p>How many kids would actually pursue learning about the phenomenon of "cafeteria services" and would that actually be something that was taught, that just seems ludicrous on the face of it.<p>Also, I have ADHD, the idea of pre-diagnosis me being dropped into this environment makes me wonder; would I have done better or far, far worse.
Finland is top of the world (But slowly dropping), famous for their teaching.<p>So they are abandoning it.<p>Classic 21st century.<p>You have a top heavy organisations with working systems, but managers have ladders to climb and salaries to justify.<p>"Finland’s schools were once the envy of the world. Now, they’re slipping"<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/finlands-schools-were-once-the-envy-of-the-world-now-theyre-slipping/2016/12/08/dcfd0f56-bd60-11e6-91ee-1adddfe36cbe_story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/finlands-scho...</a>
I wish Finland best of luck in this (no irony), but personally I am very skeptical. While a fraction of time spent this (and/or for some kids) this way may be great, I personally learned basics best in a more traditional approach of class time, a list of problems to solve and a book that I could read <i>alone</i> at my own pace. I will be very interested in what comes out after a few years, thanks for posting.
I'm a brit, so I'm both cynical by nature and I've watched the defunding of our public education system and (imho) it's conversion into a babysitting service.<p>A major tool in that process has been "reforms" where new approaches are selected for being cheaper and then sold as a "graet new way to build young minds".<p>That was the case when this same approach was introduced 15 years ago to my schooling: the school couldn't find a physics teacher for less than most supermarket workers earn, they had to have a physics teacher (with a degree) to teach physics, but if they taught geography, sciences and physical education as a combined subject and called it "cross curriculum", a geographer and a football coach could manage the whole thing for half the price.<p>It took two years for the failure to become apparent and another 2 to fix it. The school closed its funding gap. And only the kids suffered.<p>I really hope this isn't that.
As a Finn, this is really, really bad. Our performance in PISA and other metrics have been slipping and slipping from 2k.<p>We used to lead in education, with these changes we no longer do.
Lecture-style, didactic teaching is significantly better than conversational/Socratic teaching in most circumstances. I assume Finland’s new approach will perform similarly to the conversational style, which is to say poorly.<p>Students can get the best of both worlds if:<p>1. Students get the best didactic instruction for any given subject (supplementing your Calculus class with videos from the best online Calculus class can help achieve “best” here, in lieu of a really good teacher - hybrid online+in-person teaching can also be formalized as the default approach).<p>2. Students can be fast tracked to higher level classes if they are fast learners (with no formal limit on how high they can go)<p>3. There is no limit on the number of classes students can take and get credit for. Simultaneous with in-person instruction, they can take federally funded online classes that they get grades and credit for. Ideally, enrollment for the online classes should be on a rolling basis. If a student wants to start a new class at the beginning of November and spend each holiday break bashing out an online Intro to Python class that they’ve been itching to take, let them, and give them the resources they need between those breaks to solidify their learning.
"Finland has decided to change this in their educational system and introduce something which is suitable for the 21st century." - evidence?<p>"In Phenomenon Based Learning (PhenoBL) and teaching, holistic real-world phenomena provide the starting point for learning." - this sounds like the corporate market babble.<p>" choose from phenomena from their real surroundings and the world, such as Media and Technology, or the European Union." - and so Greek Literature fits into this how exactly?<p>Finland it seems has maybe the best education system in the world, and like a programmer never satisfied, has to do a ground-up re-factor?<p>"you are now thinking the PhenoBL way!" - this feels like a cult.<p>This all sounds interesting, maybe it's something they should try in district or two for a few years, before doing this across the country?<p>Why on earth would someone completely refactor an essential and integral aspect of social function in such a risky way without concrete evidence?
It was unclear to me if this means that you only learn the minimum about each subject necessary for the phenomena you are studying, or if it is more that the phenomena are used to make the subjects interesting to the students but you still learn the subject to the same breadth that you would under the traditional system.<p>Note that the "minimum necessary" approach could still teach the same breadth as the traditional approach if enough different phenomena were covered.<p>Even if you have enough phenomena to get full coverage of some underlying subject I would worry that it would lack cohesion. If you learn a subject piecemeal as it comes up as part of the various phenomena you are studying, it might be harder to get the big picture for that subject and see it as anything more than a bag of tricks.<p>This could possibly be avoided by careful selection and sequencing of phenomena.
We have that in Germany with regards to Science subjects in grade 5-7 (depending on the state / region). So roughly speaking there is a class about science topics where children would learn about things that would normally be taught in biology, geography, chemistry, physics. From what I hear no one is really happy with it (except principals who are more flexible assigning their staff to classes). So parents and teachers alike aren't very happy.<p>A fixed and subject based curriculum is easier to teach and and easier to pick up. The things you learn are presented in a proper order, that gives orientation. If you present them more interspersed its disorienting, and at times appears random.<p>And its beyond me how the "interconnectedness" of subjects cannot be taught within a classical subject-based model.
Some high schools in the Stockholm area, where I live, are having somewhat similar approach, although there are still official subject based exams done by the ministry of education.<p>My feeling is that this can work great for great and curious students, and not so much otherwise.
People who are in sports and music are an order of magnitude better when they start at a very young age and keep practicing methodically their whole life. If they didn't start at young age, no amount of practice will be enough to catch up. There's some part of the brain that is able to specialize before certain age.<p>I've been wondering if this would apply to other fields as well. What if someone starts programming at 5 years old and keeps practicing for 5 hours a day?<p>Maybe that's what's required to get the real genius out of people. I might be wrong but I think there used to be more extraordinary talent before the modern school system.
There are quite a few schools in America already doing this. A friend’s kids attended all the way to 18yo. They seem to have turned out ok, but I haven’t checked in recently. IIRC, they found jobs doing things they love.<p>They are given pretty much total freedom. At the end of the year they have to justify their time and what they accomplished.<p>Like another said, I don’t know if ADD me would have thrived here, but we’ll never know. People say boredom is essential for a variety of reasons, so maybe this works in the small but for a country.
Another approach would be to teach a child only one subject and base all lesson around that subject till college. For example, biology; all math examples would deal with biology, all fiction books would have something to do with bio, the classroom would be filled with biographies of people in biology, art would be based around drawings in biology.<p>You can do the same thing for car-mechanics, etc.<p>A series of small, extremely focused schools. Run these schools parallel to the mainstream, normal schools.
I'm curious. Is there anyone here that have their children in special schools for gifted children? Or were themselves placed in specific schools? Not just accelerated, skipping grades, extra activities, etc.<p>Which schools? Good/bad? Most notable effects?