Dear all,
Over the
break I will post a couple of Food for Thoughts related to the INTASE World
Educational Leadership Summit that I attend. I am going to start with the ideas
of Professor Pasi Sahlberg and the story of Finland’s Educational changes.
Prof. Sahlberg is Professor of Practice Harvard Graduate School of Education
International
benchmarking has become a common tool for policy learning and school
improvement. Finland has been the best performing education system outside of
East Asia as measured by OECD’s PISA survey. Professor Sahlberg used a decade-long
research project on Finnish education to explain how the essential of Finnish
society, politics and culture, had led to the model of Finnish educational
change
The realization
that Finland was doing something different emerged from the first round of PISA
data in 2000. From this data the OECD identified what they believed makes education
perform well?
-
Collaboration
-
Creativity
-
Trust bond
-
Teacher and leader PD
-
Personalization
From these
results a new movement of educational leaders and academic started to emerge
from around the world. This movement known as Global Educational Reform
Movement of GERM identified some key factors that are restricting the ability
of general education to get better. These are standardization, test based accountability,
fast track teacher preparation and competition between private and public
education.
Professor
Sahlberg talked about the importance of the balance between use of technology
in schools and traditional tools and practices. He illustrated his point with
the following video.
He explained
why he thought that Finland has such a good educational system and put it down
to smart policies at the government level. He explained that there are no
independent schools in Finland so everyone is served by the same system. That
for the past 10 years there hasn’t been any standardized testing in schools and
the only test students take is at the end of high school to determine their
university courses. His final point related to equity in society. Finland 40
years ago deliberately developed a strong equity policy for its society to
maximize the potential of a small population. He showed data that there is
overwhelming evidence that illustrates that socio-economic background strongly
links to their likelihood of success in school.
Prof
Sahlberg then showed how the system in Finland supported schools. The govt is
only responsible for policy and budget. Schools create and write their own
curriculums. Each school is managed by its own board made up of its own
community members and reports to local and regional govt. The district and
regions decide how the schools adopt national policies but they insist that
teachers and students are involved in planning and assessment.
The idea
behind the recent changes in the curriculum that is being encouraged by the
Finnish govt., the ones that I shared with you in a recent post appear to be
aimed at making learning more engaging, interesting and relevant to the real
world. The idea is not to dispense with all subjects but rather to have at
least one period that is integrated and developed by teachers and students. The
implementation of this will vary by districts and schools and Prof Sahlberg
said that some schools make completely revolutionize their curriculum if they
feel ready for such a change. He believed that the greater involvement and
engagement of students will lead to increased learning and will raise learning
objective across Finland.
Professor
Sahlberg’s conclusions that were relevant for us at ISHCMC were very
interesting. He stressed that:
·
We should celebrate failure regularly in our
school year and ensure that failure and success aren’t seen as opposites. “Fail
early-fail well”
·
Sitting is the new smoking, and that students
sat listening in a class to their teacher does the equivalent damage to their
health as smoking cigarettes. “Teach less-learn more”
·
All students should learn foreign languages
·
Differentiation is very important for helping
the more able students in school
·
If it sounds crazy it’s probably a good idea in
the end so give it a go.
If you are
interested here is a link to a recent article that further analyses the Finnish
education system .http://fillingmymap.com/2015/04/15/11-ways-finlands-education-system-shows-us-that-less-is-more/
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