“It must be very sad when your children start school.”
I stared blankly. A moment ago I’d been asleep on the couch, then the doorbell rang and here was this tall, blond man, blathering about school. Odd, but I had to respond…
“Well, yes.” I said as he stepped into the living room, “but it’s a good time, too. I mean..”
He interrupted. “I am Paavo from Finland and I have read all about your country. You take your children to school at six years old and you don’t see them again for twelve years! And then only for a summer before they go off to college!”
Now I was really puzzled. “No, that’s not right. They’re home in the mornings and evenings, on the weekends, the summers. They’re with us lots of time…most of the time, really.”
Paavo was frowning. “But that can’t be! I have been learning about your education reform—your country trying to be better educated—and it’s all about the schools! Every year, thousands of papers and presentations! Better train teachers, more data, more computers, fire bad teachers…that’s all your leaders talk about!”
“Well, yes, of course.” I didn’t quite get his point. “I mean that’s where education happens, in the schools. I mean, what else is there?”
He looked amazed. “In Finland, we think that the family and the whole culture are the most important part of education. We give children the right attitude, the belief that learning is wonderful and important. We teach our children to understand that working hard on their schoolwork is the path to success. After that, when we send them off, the role of the teachers is to explain the information and be guides to understanding.”
“You don’t care about good schools?” I was incredulous.
Paavo's eyes were wide. “Of course we do. We love and admire our teachers. They are critical. But we don’t expect them to make education happen. They are only a part of the solution—not even the main part. It is the family, the whole culture, that prepares young people to learn!”
Now I was upset. “I saw that exclamation pint! You’re yelling at me!. And…”
And then I woke up. And started to think. But that was no good so I waited until the first cup of coffee was halfway down.
Do the attitudes people have about the importance of education and about their own ability to be successful learners really matter? Are the Finns different in that regard?
I looked at the international education data: Finland up there among the leaders.
I read about Finland. Finns impart a different attitude to their children than we do here in the U.S. Young Finns are raised with a love of learning and a belief that being an educated person is both a good and a necessary thing. Family and society also tell them in a convincing way that everyone can be a successful learner.
Further reading developed an interesting comparison. White children in British mill towns have extremely low educational achievement, vastly lower than their ethnic analogs in Finland. Why is that when the governments of both countries put great emphasis on schooling?
The answer certainly appears to be in the culture. The young Britons are heirs to a centuries old culture of discrimination, the British class system that first directly and then subtly encouraged people to stay in their place. Over time, these former working class now welfare class people appear to have developed psychological barriers to learning more than the basics. They do know that education is essential for economic success, but don’t seem to think that people like them can succeed as learners. In other words, they don’t try very hard because they don’t think they have the ability and even if they did, “they” wouldn’t allow them to succeed.
The Finns, by contrast, never developed a native class system and have a very positive belief about their ability to learn. Just apply yourself and you can do it.
Hmmm. Should we really rethink education reform and give more attention to the attitudes toward learning that children bring to school?
I hope Paavo will knock on a lot more doors. I'd give him Arne Duncan's address if I knew it.
