Tales from Finlandia

What makes good teaching?

I have been researching this idea for the last year or so, as I have noticed a discrepancy between the quality of teaching/learning from one classroom to another; even within the same school and subject matter. It generally boils down to the teacher, but there’s a saying leftover from my restaurant days that I love “The fish stinks from the head.” In schools the head is the principal, and/or the school district. The teachers have to be motivated, inspired, educated, and held accountable to be good. In any other industry people are fired if they become complacent and quit producing results. The integrity of the corporation is on the line.

I read a great article in the Smithsonian Magazine the other day titled “Why are Finland’s Schools so Successful?” by LynNell Hancock. I have read other accounts about how good Finland’s schools were, but most gave statistics and didn’t really surmise the magic formula. I have provided a link so I won’t reprint the whole article but I do want to point out some interesting points and quotes.

Before any of you start suggesting that National funding of education is an act of communism or socialism, consider this: More citizens educated = more citizens employed = fewer citizens on social programs = fewer taxes. So overall the investment in improving our educational system would actually call for less social program funding.

The Finns recognized this as the article states, “The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellant of the country’s economic recovery plan… ‘If we want to be competitive, we need to educate everybody. It all came out of a need to survive.’”

Ultimately they discovered that they could spend less per student, “Ninety-three percent of Finns graduate from academic or vocational high schools, 17.5 percentage points higher than the United States, and 66 percent go on to higher education, the highest rate in the European Union. Yet Finland spends about 30 percent less per student than the United States.”

So what is the magic formula? Well the culture does play a role to a certain degree, but in my opinion the smallest role. What seems to matter, according to the article, is that education and teaching are respected fields, “teachers were effectively granted equal status with doctors and lawyers.” Pride in their jobs is a big motivator for Finnish teachers. Additionally they despise competition between schools and standardized tests. They focus their time and energy on teaching and finding better ways of teaching and making lessons instead of creating tests, administering tests, grading tests, analyzing test scores, and publicizing test scores. I do feel tests have a place: to identify students and schools that might require more resources. But I don’t think funding should rely on achieving particular scores, or that students should get stomach aches from the intense pressure exuded by all school staff during test time. As a Finnish teacher commented “’We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.’”

Clearly we can’t just imitate a bunch of Finns and walk off, hand in hand, into the sunset, but there is a lot here to cause us to ask how and why we are doing things they way we are. With this blog I plan to leave little nuggets of ideas that I feel could direct our schools to better serve our children, and ultimately our communities.

Teaching is Universal

I was going to post about my daughter's new arrangement of attending middle school from home. There is much of interest to talk about regarding the positive changes for all of us, and I promise to post on that later, but something happened today that is small, but huge.

Most of you who know me know I am deeply interested in teaching and learning; both with animals and with people. I am constantly contemplating the best ways to impart knowledge and I seem to figure things out in some unusual places. While there are differences in how one would go about teaching people vs. teaching animals (and each animal species as well as individual animals may require unique methods), the concept is strangely universal.

What I have found is that a teacher (and that term can be applied very loosely) must achieve three things in a particular order to be able to teach a subject. First one must gain respect from the student. Second the teacher must gain trust. And Third an effective teacher must gain interest. Without these three things, and without gaining them in order, quality teaching will be an extremely difficult task. I will discuss these three steps in depth, in the future.

Enough back story. Today I found a humming bird trapped in our garage and she seemed to be frantically trying to get out. She was hovering at the ceiling and couldn't seem to fly out of the door opening which was partially closed. At first I tried shooing her out but that just upset her more; so I stopped to think logically and called upon my horse/zebra training knowledge. I had to think like a humming bird. Whenever I train a horse or zebra or bear, or teenager, I am most successful when I try to think like my student thinks.

Instead of scaring the bird by shooing her I remained very still to calm her down. Next I slowly raised a bristle broom and held it still in front of her. She must have been tired, and the bristles must have resembled twigs because she rested on one of the bristles. She respected me for not acting as an aggressor, then she trusted me (or at least trusted the broom; I don't take credit when it isn't due), and then I gained her interest, as she was truly interested in resting and escaping. She let me slowly lower the broom and carry her out to the driveway. Once in the open she remained still for a couple of seconds, turned her head to me and made two small peeps (previously the only noise she made was from the buzz of her wings) as if to say thanks, and flew away.

Small but Huge, depending on your perspective.

I truly believe these three things will make a great teacher in any discipline; the trick is figuring out how to adapt to the culture and perspective of the students.

Anyway, I felt it was an accomplishment and a reinforcement to what I know about teaching.

Ciao.