The Wall Street Journal recently published an article about Finnish schools, which are both incredibly productive (Finnish teens rank among the smartest in the world) and strikingly unregulated: kids are given very little homework (about half an hour per night, on average), there are no honor societies and no valedictorians, and there is no such thing as a class for the gifted. Students would be mortified if one of their parents showed up in a classroom.
And they’re not little automatons: Like American kids, they waste hours online. Finnish teens dye their hair, pierce stuff, and listen to music their parents hate. It’s just that by ninth grade they are light-years ahead of American students in math, science, and reading. This is true throughout Scandanavia, in fact, which perhaps partially explains why the most successful tech startup of recent years, Skype, is a Swedish startup and not a Silicon Valley one.
Finnish first-graders walk to school, and their mothers do not typically walk with them. They choose their own lunches from a selection at school. They can walk around in their socks during class if they want to.
The teachers, who typically have master’s degrees in what is a highly competitive field, choose their own books to shape their curriculum. They are not paid much better than their U.S. counterparts, but there is a huge difference that will widen the eyes of anyone (like me) who has ever taught: they have tremendous freedom. It’s a competitive field, not because it is a high-paying job, but because it is actually a fun one.
Contrast this with what is happening in American schools: massive homework loads (especially in high school), parents hovering over their children’s work, teachers who are teaching a store-bought curriculum with (often) little enthusiasm, rules and regulations galore.
This came about, folks, because we insisted on it. As American colleges became increasingly competitive, we responded by becoming increasingly involved, to the point where we are doing our children harm. Three stories to illustrate:
1. When I was teaching high school English, I was asked several times during parent-teacher conferences what I was doing to prepare the kids for the “upcoming SAT.” I was asked this, in the first semester, by the parents of freshmen. (My unacceptable answer was, “Umm, nothing.”)
2. When Miles was a fourth-grader he qualified for an “honors school” in San Mateo. The students’ work consisted fundamentally of projects, which was great. When you examined the projects, though, it became immediately apparent the the parents were actually doing the work, right down to gluing pictures on to the poster board. On one open-ended project, in which I think Miles was doing something about Batman, one of the kids reported on “World War II: The Pacific Theater.”
3. This, from Grapevine, TX: Grapevine High School senior Anjali Datta holds the highest grade-point average of the 471 students graduating from Grapevine High School this year. In fact, Grapevine-Colleyville ISD officials believe her GPA of 5.898 may be the highest in the high school’s history.
It’s still not enough to make her the valedictorian, which brings a one-year college scholarship from the state. Her closest competitor’s GPA is 5.64. No one disputes that she’s the top student in her class numerically. The problem rests with another number entirely: Anjali rocketed through high school in only three years.
But a school district policy states: “The valedictorian shall be the eligible student with the highest weighted grade-point average for four years of high school.” A district spokeswoman said the district researched the decision for months.
“There was a lot of thought involved in this. There is no perfect answer,” she said.
She was denied the valedictorian’s scholarship. See? The rules-and-regulations inmates have taken over the asylum.
The schools, for their part, are merely responding to the desires of parents. You want more discipline? You’ve got it. More challenging homework? Check. You want us to spend school time teaching cooperation and conflict resolution? We’ll have an entire curriculum by fall. Even in the case of young Ms. Datta: a parent called the school to complain. (And, of course, no parent can be told by the school to simply get a grip.)
It’s too much. I know it is debatable, but I think I turned out to be reasonably smart with very little homework and with virtually no parental supervision of my schoolwork. I can’t imagine my mother showing up at school except perhaps to meet me in the principal’s office for some awfulness or other. And I finished school with enough math skill to know that 5.898 is a bigger number than 5.64, and with enough sense to figure out whom the valedictorian should have been in Grapevine, TX.
Finland is not some amazing new model: it is the ultimate in old-school. Kids running around relatively unsupervised, learning to make their own decisions. Messing up sometimes, and being scolded by parents and teachers who think well of them. Doing badly on tests, and thereby learning to do better. Doing their own work, and not being hovered over for the work they do.
Out with the new, and in with the old!
