
The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland - petethomas
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-of-finland/408325?single_page=true
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pavlov
I've lived my life in Finland. I don't know if the schools are all that (it's
been 20 years since mine)... But I can speak for municipal daycare /
kindergarten, as I have a 3-year-old daughter and I've been extremely happy
with the care.

The teachers and staff at the center are so competent and compassionate.
Playing is always at the forefront, but they have educational themes for a
full year that are cleverly integrated into the daily rhythm. The children are
always doing short trips that reveal new things of their daily surroundings in
the city. The social environment mixes children of various ages: there are
kids of age 2 and 5 in the same groups.

I know my child's life would be a lot poorer without daycare. And it only
costs about 200 euros / month. (We're paying the maximum price since we're two
working parents; with less family income the price would go down to nearly
zero. Also, children are eligible for daycare even if their parents are not
working.)

Giving our kids a rich social life and early education without the pressures
of a traditional school model is probably the one thing Finnish society has
figured out. (The rest is more or less a mess right now.)

~~~
Swizec
> Giving our kids a rich social life and early education without the pressures
> of a traditional school model is probably the one thing Finnish society has
> figured out. (The rest is more or less a mess right now.)

Coming from Slovenia, that's what kindergarten is _supposed to be_. The word
literally means "children's garden" and has nothing to do with school.

To quote wikipedia "literally children's garden, is a preschool educational
approach traditionally based on playing, singing, practical activities such as
drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to
school.".

I don't know what happened in the anglophone world that turned this joyful
concept into school. My girlfriend grew up in the US and considers
"kindergarten" to be the beginning of school school where they start by
teaching you how to read&write. Wikipedia seems to confirm this notion.

Maybe it's just semantics and word-meaning drift.

~~~
foobarian
I thought kindergarten would be equivalent to Croatian "vrtić" too, but it
seems to be the year before 1st grade. Before that there is a spectrum of
programs like daycare or preschool or playgroups which are more like what the
grandparent described. I've no idea why kindergarten took on such a specific
meaning in the US.

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DasIch
As a German - you know the country the word Kindergarten comes from - I'm
always amazed that people consider Kindergarten to be a school of some kind.

Kindergärten aren't schools in Germany, they don't operate like schools, you
don't learn to read or write, there is no math, in fact there aren't any
classes nor classrooms. A lot of the time you spend in Kindergarten is purely
socializing and playing with other children.

If there are groups, then only so that the _educators_ (not teachers) don't
get overwhelmed. Children are grouped randomly and stay in one group for as
long as they go to Kindergarten, so you have children from 3 up to 7 in one
group.

The activities that are organized or structured in any way are eating,
sleeping, singing, getting told stories, making things out of paper like
lanterns, a few physical activities and of course activities that happen
outside of the Kindergarten.

Kindergärten exist and are important not to learn math but to learn to
interact with other people, to make friends and to be a child until you are
mature enough to handle a school environment. That means that while typically
a child is enrolled in school with 6, some also enroll a year earlier or later
depending on the child.

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Throwaway1224
Grew up in the USA. Spent 8 years in Finland.

Finnish kids are taught by the parents to read long before they get to school.
Sure, it helps that the Finnish language is phonetic... But really, it's a
home environment that teaches that reading is fun and enjoyable and can get
you what you want.

Same goes for counting and basic arithmetic.

It's a cultural thing.

Teachers in Finland are not geniuses. The caliber of the teachers is, in fact,
higher than the USA, but this stems more from seats in schools as opposed to
"smart people wanting to become teachers".

The desirability ranking of what the average student would like to do goes
like this: Medical Engineer Law French Pyschology ... Education ... Waiter ...

So somewhere along this spectrum, you get a bunch of qualified people who
become teachers. There's only a limited number of seats for each profession
(driven by free education... you can NOT become anything you want to become,
you have to do better than the others on the entrance test). So you don't get
a disproportionate group of people getting a degree in History or Biology or
Pyschology. The number seats are arranged according to the needs of the
society.

And kids would rather be teachers than waiters (yes, there's a school for
that).

In Finland, teachers do NOT make more than engineers or doctors. They make
about one third (pre tax) of what doctors or engineers make.

Also, Finland is incredibly homogenous. Take that for what you will...

~~~
rjbwork
I'm from the US, but my mother read to me from the day I was born, and got me
reading before I turned 3, and reading full books for kids by the time I was 4
or 5. Unsurprisingly, I tested as "on a college age reading level" from the
3rd grade onward.

She also did basic arithmetic with me as well, and I ended up pretty good at
math and logical thinking.

I think a huge part of the education problem today is lack of engaged parents.
They don't concentrate on teaching their kids before they send them to school,
and once they're in school, they leave the teaching up to the teacher and do
not assist really.

~~~
throwaway12309
I've read to my kid since forever, my wife as well. We have a library that
rivals most school's and we read to him 2-3 books (at least) a day. He is 3.5
years old and can't read at all (heck, I think he recognises some words but
I'm not even sure of that).

At 3 I was able to do math (addition, subtraction and basic multiplication)
quite easily but basic reading only came to me at around 5 years old.

Kids are different, some learn to read earlier, others later, same with math,
same with diapers, same with everything really. My 3.5 year old can climb
trees like a 7 year old (better even if the kids around here are any
indication). Do basic math (he has the concept of multiplication and can do
most numbers times 2 or times 10). Recognises flowers and various different
birds. He knows most traffic signs. He can almost cook his breakfast with just
a bit of help with the oven. He does physics experiments (with our help). Are
we worried that his peers at school know more letters? No. Kids develop at
different speeds, but unfortunately, schools/kindergartens/parents expect
their little treasures to be the smartest, brightest unique snowflakes and
push them to it.

~~~
sanoli
It's great that you think this way. I see too much of this pressure with my
friends who have kids. They want to see them do math and read before they're x
years old, with x being one or two less than what the cheaper schools are
doing. My 3.5 says more elaborate sentences than the older kids, but never
showed any special interest in math, and I never felt that he was ready to
learn to read. It's _completely_ normal for a 3.5 kid to not be ready to learn
these things.

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lemming
I just finished the article, and saw a reference there to a New Zealand study
about Rudolf Steiner schools. I attended the same Steiner school as the author
of the study, and I would consider several people from my class to be
functionally illiterate. This mostly comes down to the quality of the school
rather than the philosophy - when I joined it was very new and run by a bunch
of well-meaning hippies who had basically no idea about education.

If you're going to have a child-led education system where you assume that if
the child isn't reading it's because they're not ready yet, you better be damn
sure you're not missing the signs of something more serious, because if you
do, when you come to address it it will be much more difficult the later you
intervene. It sounds like the teachers in Finland are probably good enough to
catch this - ours were not.

~~~
maus42
Well, here the kindergarten with child-led play isn't that much part of the
education system. Even the pre-school year is fundamentally just preparing
kids for the school, which is still very much teacher-led.

The written Finnish being very easy to spell and read also probably
contributes. There are only very few peculiarities that differentiate from the
logical 1-1 mapping between letter symbols and vocal sounds. Practically all
children all able to attain at least the basic functional literacy skills in a
couple of years. (I really couldn't understand the concept of spelling bee
competitions in US TV shows, like that one Peanuts animated film, until we
started English.)

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cassieramen
Michael Booth talks about Finland's schools in his book, "The Almost Nearly
Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia." He points out
that in Finland the most revered and treasured profession is teaching. The
smartest students, the most driven students, they all become teachers.
Articles like this are wonderful at pointing out that relaxed and
individualized teaching can succeed but they are glossing over an important
cultural norm.

~~~
shostack
How is teacher compensation over there? I always thought we'd see better
outcomes in schools if we paid enough for the best and brightest to become
teachers.

Fact is, they cannot live in many "reasonably priced" housing markets (let
alone the Bay/SF) on a typical teacher salary in the US.

~~~
pasiaj
Thecher compensation is a bit above the national average and they have long
vacations.

What is also very meaningful to notice is that due to high income taxes,
income redistribution, and generally flatter pay scale overall compared to
most other countries, a corporate lawyer isn't that much better off than a
teacher.

~~~
jkyle
> generally flatter pay scale overall compared to most other countries, a
> corporate lawyer isn't that much better off than a teacher.

The most important aspect of this is that when your nation's best and
brightest choose a career path, massive disparities in quality of life is not
a mitigating factor detracting from careers in education.

~~~
aianus
Good teachers are important, but they can only affect, what, 20 kids a year?
The best and brightest should stick to engineering and finance where they can
have a bigger impact.

~~~
jkyle
> The best and brightest should stick to engineering and finance where they
> can have a bigger impact.

Many of the best and brightest stay in academia, but at the university level.
Many others go into engineering and finance, but make no real lasting impact
mostly working on the day to day tasks of making the cogs turn. Currently many
of the smartest engineers in silicon valley have dedicated their careers to
selling targeted ads.

In the scheme of things, I'd be hard pressed placing selling X more power
drills a year or "yet another CRUD app" over building the foundation of a
quality education system.

~~~
aianus
Yes, but a quality education system requires thousands of people who can each
only affect ~20-100 people a year. It's not an efficient use of the 'best and
brightest'.

Meanwhile 55 engineers at WhatsApp can write software used daily by 700m
people. Or a handful of financiers can find a new way to securitize debt,
lowering interest rates for 100m borrowers.

~~~
lemming
_Or a handful of financiers can find a new way to securitize debt, lowering
interest rates for 100m borrowers._

Or they could find a new way to ignore investment risk in the interest of
naked greed, causing suffering for millions all over the globe.

~~~
aianus
Yep, the flip side to having a massive impact is that you also have a massive
impact when you're wrong. You'd still want the 'best and brightest' in those
positions than not.

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wahsd
It really feels like we are gutting our education system with this kind of
nonsense. It's so weird. We do so poorly in our education system, yet rather
than simply doing what the effective and successful education systems and
societies do, we decide that we need to change everything and now deprive
children of playing as if they are some kind of little adults.

~~~
pavedwalden
I think there's a real resistance against solutions that don't feel like
"getting tough". "increasing standards" and "raising expectations" are easy to
sell. The idea that children need to do childish things is dismissed as too
wishy-washy.

~~~
jessaustin
Services provided by the democratic state are vulnerable to feel-good emotion-
based mismanagement.

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krylon
IIRC, the Latin word "ludus" means both "game" and "school". I do not think
that is a coincidence.

The observation that one learns more easily in playful manner is probably
well-known in (but hardly exclusive to) hacker circles. In a way, it is
baffling that people would forget this, especially as it is not excactly a
brand-new discovery.

~~~
pjlegato
I think you're interpreting that backwards. "Ludus" originally referred to
educational training sessions to build skills for later performing activities
of direct practical benefit, mainly combat and political oratory. This is how
"ludus" means both "play" and "school." It's originally "play" in the sense of
"play-fighting," not in the sense of "having fun without a particular goal."
Unlike Greek academies, Roman schools were entirely focused on building
practical skills.

The idea of "play" as "having fun without any particular goal orientation" is
a thoroughly modern idea. The idea that school should be a form of "play" in
the modern sense is an even more recent one. It has no basis in ancient Rome.

~~~
krylon
So our Latin teacher lied to us! I should have known...

Thank you very much for the explation!

EDIT: In Latin class, our textbook was called "Ludus Latinus", and our teacher
made a big point of explaining how that meant learning was supposed to be a
kind of game. It made me groan at the time, but in later years, I always
thought it made perfect sense.

~~~
pjlegato
I'd translate "Ludus Latinus" as something like "Latin Practice," in the same
sense you'd say "soccer practice" or "piano practice" or something like that.

It _is_ a game, in the sense that it's not the real thing, it's practice for
later doing the real thing -- it's a structured, goal-directed game with a
particular practical outcome in mind (building Latin skills), not a "let's go
have fun in the park without any particular motive other than having fun" kind
of a thing.

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tootie
My kids hate it when the schools have unstructured time. They love their free
time, but want to do it at home or with their friends and not with all the
kids they are forced to interact with at school. At school they want kids to
behave predictably. That being said, I'm wondering if they wouldn't benefit
from it because it will force them to deal with social situations they aren't
comfortable with.

~~~
dalke
Is 'unstructured' a euphemism? If the children are expected to 'behave
predictably' and 'forced to interact with other children', doesn't that imply
some structure? (I assume 'predictably' means something more specific than,
say 'not try to set the school on fire.')

This article uses the terms 'spontaneous and free form' and 'guided and
pedagogical'. It doesn't sound like the former requires children to interact
with others, though I can't tell from the article. Certainly the latter isn't
unstructured.

~~~
tootie
They're not forced by the structure, they're forced by the other kids. If she
wants to sit and read and keeps getting hit in the head with paper airplanes,
she gets annoyed. When do they have some of organized chaos, like all the kids
in the playground playing the same game, she's pretty happy with that.

~~~
dalke
Thank you for clearing that up. I totally misunderstood.

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fredrikcarno
Here in Sweden we pay 110 euros total per month for very good daycare with
cocked food (no prefab) for our 3 year old twins. Interesting how it is
elsewhere. Our wages are relativley low and massive amounts of tax of course

~~~
jib
Swedish average wages are close to the top (if not at the top)in EU. The wage
gap is a lot lower than most countries though. Just mentioning since I stated
Swedish wages were low not long ago, but when I looked it up that wasn't the
case overall, it's just that normally high paying jobs pay less there.

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aaron695
The Finish education myth -

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32302374](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32302374)

~~~
nickbauman
That article is misleading. Standardized curriculum was in fact one of the
things people looking at Finland said was part of its success model in 2000.
So this was never a "misconception".

~~~
aaron695
The article isn't perfect but relate it to the current article.

To me the author sounds like they have this exact misconception.

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andyl
Perhaps the lesson of Finland is that mono-culturalism achieves better
educational outcomes than multi-culturalism.

Maybe it is easier if stakeholders have high levels of trust, and similar
performance expectations, work ethic, language skills, etc.

~~~
dalke
Strictly speaking, Finland is not a mono-culture. Finland has people from
Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking cultures.

Your objection has been raised before. As
[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-
sc...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-
successful-49859555/?no-ist=&no-cache=_page%3D2_page%3D5_page%3D2&page=3)
points out:

> Some of the more vocal conservative reformers in America have grown weary of
> the “We-Love-Finland crowd” or so-called Finnish Envy. They argue that the
> United States has little to learn from a country of only 5.4 million
> people—4 percent of them foreign born. Yet the Finns seem to be onto
> something. Neighboring Norway, a country of similar size, embraces education
> policies similar to those in the United States. It employs standardized
> exams and teachers without master’s degrees. And like America, Norway’s PISA
> scores have been stalled in the middle ranges for the better part of a
> decade.

~~~
ptaipale
> Strictly speaking, Finland is not a mono-culture.

No country is an absolute monoculture or absolutely multicultural, but Finland
is a remarkably monocultural country compared to most industrialized nations,
with a strong social cohesion and rather minor ethnic divides. Swedish-
speakers are very similar in culture and values to Finnish-speaking Finns,
they just speak a different language.

Right now there is a huge migration going on - about 50 000 asylum seekers
will come to the country within the year and it looks the pace will just
increase. That means 1% of population, which is a rather significant
demographic change in just one year. It will definitely have an impact.

I do not really believe Norwegian results are that much different. PISA is
just one metric. In the most recent PISA (2012) Finland is #12; in the
previous one it was #6 and the one before that it was #2. Did the quality of
teaching drop that much in just a few years? Hardly.

~~~
dalke
While I agree with you, and with the educational system of Finland, that high
PISA score is irrelevant, to say "PISA is just one metric" seems to ignore the
context that PISA is the basis for nearly all of the international
comparisons, and the follow-on discussions and policy decisions.

That is, andyl said Finland 'achieves better educational outcomes'. This is
(in my experience) based on PISA. Indeed, much of what I've read coming out of
the US is that students must get more 'academic' education, backed by large-
scale testing, in order to compete against the countries with high PISA
scores.

You use the term 'do not really believe Norwegian results are that much
different'. Could you explain the basis for that statement? The thesis is that
a (near) monoculture is a reasonable explanation for high PISA scores. The
example of Norway was to show there isn't a simple, direct correlation.

I don't think you don't believe the scores aren't difference. Instead, your
objection seems instead to be that PISA isn't a stable/useful metric in the
first place, so that comparisons aren't relevant. I think your suggestion is
that there simply isn't data one way or the other on how homogeneity affects
education.

Which means, I think, that you also disagree with andyl's hypothesis, but for
different reasons.

~~~
ptaipale
> Could you explain the basis for that statement?

I merely meant that in my experience, the school education that Norwegians get
is not noticeably worse than the one Finnish kids get. They speak foreign
languages, they can solve an equation, they know where Arkansas is.

Of course this is just my view, nothing you could call a scientific view
substantiated by formal research. I just see that Norwegians are generally
better (knowledge-wise) educated than Americans, on level with Finns, even if
the PISA ratings of Norway and USA are very close to each other and
significantly behind Finland.

I did not quite understand when you say you've read that _students must get
more 'academic' education, backed by large-scale testing, in order to compete
against the countries with high PISA scores_ when the supposed strength of
Finnish education system is _lack_ of large-scale testing. Particularly early
on - pupils generally don't even get any formal scores or ratings until 6th
grade (as 13-year-old).

~~~
dalke
I don't have the experience to judge. While I grew up in the US and live in
Sweden, I've found that my personal experience isn't a good guide. Eg, my
school in the US offered differential equations, Latin, and European history,
which I'm told is uncommon. I also don't have an understanding of the
research, so I think we'll have to leave things where they are.

"I did not quite understand when you say .."

Sorry, I see the confusion. I meant that in the US, in discussion about
changes to the US school system, one of the arguments is how US schools need
more 'rigorous' testing with a more 'academic' goal, in order to improve PISA
scores. Those making this argument often point to a country like South Korea
with a very academic/test-centric education system and high PISA as a model
for what the US should be. Those opposed point to Finland as a counter-
example.

To edit what I wrote slightly, "much of what I've read coming out of the US is
that _US_ students must get [a] more 'academic' education ..."

