Posted by Sara Schmidt on May 04, 2010 - 04:57 AM
Finland's school system is the most successful in the world in terms of testing and the traditional definition of success. If looked at closely, however, it's also successful in terms of whole child support, with an approach that takes every child's development, interests, and abilities into consideration.The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.
A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.
Finland’s Education Minister, Henna Virkkunen is proud of her country’s record but her next goal is to target the brightest pupils.
‘‘The Finnish system supports very much those pupils who have learning difficulties but we have to pay more attention also to those pupils who are very talented. Now we have started a pilot project about how to support those pupils who are very gifted in certain areas.’’
Tags for this entry:
education reform,
testing,
success,
student-teacher roles
Dana Bennis
May 05, 2010 - 09:33 AM
Great story and video about the exciting education approaches in Finland, thanks for posting about this. One other great article about Finland’s system of education is Linda Darling-Hammond’s piece from her new book, “The Flat World and Education,” which is also available at this link:
http://www.annenberginstitute.org/VUE/Summer09/Darling.php
Dana