I came across an interesting article about Finland’s educational system that I feel compelled to share with you today. Forty years ago Finland was facing a double crisis. It’s economy and educational system were performing poorly and the leadership at the time took a bold series of steps to improve the prospects for the future. They bet on the simple fact that better teachers would create better students which in turn become more productive citizens.
So what happened?
“So what has happened since is that teaching has become the most highly esteemed profession. Not the highest paid, but the most highly esteemed. Only one out of every 10 people who apply to become teachers will ultimately make it to the classroom. The consequence has been that Finland’s performance on international assessments, called PISA, have consistently outranked every other western country, and really there are only a handful of eastern countries that are educating with the same results.”
As Jack Black said in the movie School of Rock when asked a question by fellow teachers at the school in which he was impersonating a substitute teacher, “I believe that teachers are our future. Teach them well…” Whitney couldn’t have said it better, but who’s to judge? Jokes aside, teachers are one of our country’s greatest assets. The profession of teaching ought to be much more highly esteemed, but it won’t happen magically and it won’t happen overnight.
The Finns realized that there had to be collaboration between business leaders, policy makers and educators. I imagine that is easier said than done! Improvement and innovation don’t come from a disjointed approach in any situation, so why would we expect, in our country, to be able to continue in the same direction we’ve marched over the last few decades and somehow arrive at a new and improved destination?
I’ve only just begun to look into this subject and I would love to hear your thoughts whether you’ve had personal experience in the field of teaching or not. More testing is obviously not the answer. More money is clearly not the magic bullet. Neither is guaranteed employment in my estimation. The first step, as with all things, is that we come to an agreement about the importance of teachers in our society.
Everything else can emerge from that fundamental recognition. If we fail to start there, no amount of reform will be sufficient to halt the backward slide our system in the United States has been on for many years now. We cannot “agree to disagree” on this point.
What say you?
Gregory Hake 
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Gregg, I greatly appreciate your continued attention to this fundamental issue. I sense a significant paradigm shift in education is eminent. The real question is as to the direction that change will go.
We are currently working in a system of standardized education in this country. A design that has forgotten the individual as well as the authentic needs of smaller groups of people. Why? Because we don’t trust the individual. We have demoralized education into a list of absolutes, void of the creative process and the natural rhythm of life and community. We no longer offer an education with choices (trade skills, apprenticeships, the arts, as well as intellectual pursuits) This leaves educators functioning as cogs in the factory wheels of our failing education system.
The model in Finland reflects a nation specifically seeing citizens as the primary resource for growth and development to a better future. This essential understanding is something that I question as a primary appreciation in our nation. Our politicians and most citizens in America today would theoretically want to believe the same, that “we the people” are our greatest asset. Yet, the laws and actions of our principal decision makers seem to indicate a belief in something far less noble – money/corporations…
For our nation to insure a secure and prosperous future, we must invest in our children. The tools for developing that investment are the teachers, teachers who are innovating education and in fact meeting the needs of real students in real communities.
In order to uplift the profession of education we first require a fundamental paradigm shift in the value of the individual. That is required for the awakening within our youth of their individual potential. A cultural awakening to our need and interwoven dependence on one another regardless of vocation. Only than can we hope to see a shift in the cultural value of our teachers. We need a serious wakeup call, and with all the calls that are going out today, I just don’t know from where the answer will come from.
For myself, I take it as a personal calling to awaken the spirit of potential and the individual value of my own children – every day!
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It’s funny that the great minds to which we frequently refer were the product of an educational system much more rigid, formalized and less forgiving than our own. While I do not feel that the Classical model in which they were shaped is the be all and end all, it certainly produced minds that were capable of transcending the limitations in consciousness at the time, often at times when the future seemed most bleak.
Civic responsibility is one topic that merits more attention than it is given in schools (public, private and home) today. Those who founded our Republic, for instance, were likely taught the value of subjugating personal wants and desires for the greater good…the Republican ideal. This ideal creates a lot of friction when paired with the economic system – capitalism – we have chosen for ourselves. It seems that over time people have seen capitalism as being synonymous with democracy, but the two really do have an uneasy relationship. Are the products of our schools taking much time to think about such things any more? I don’t see much evidence of it, though I think it would be healthy for everyone were we to encourage it!
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The educational system in the United States today is a mess. It is a soup of special interests, institutional laziness, and bureaucracy in which you will find that the teachers who genuinely want to teach are commonly stifled by those who just want a paycheck. Initially, what has to be overcome is the special interest groups like the teacher’s unions. Until those are nullified in some way, it will be difficult to make any meaningful changes in education. After that, you have to allow the teachers who have some internal drive to begin teaching students in ways that they will actually learn. You have to have high expectations. However, as recent news in Atlanta has shown us, test results do not mean much when they are put on a pedestal. You have to value real learning, and you have to value it enough to do the necessary things to achieve it.
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Given the extent of decay and disarray in our present educational system it is both easy to criticize and difficult to imagine a viable fix for the situation. One thing that is readily apparent is that we cannot reasonably expect such a system to reform itself or to magically begin to provide what is needed for our children. Initiative must come from individuals and small groupings who may initially seek to augment the present structure by recognizing the areas of greatest need and coming up with innovative ways to augment that.
In just an hour spent with a child there are possibly fifty ways to assist with that child’s direction and processes of thought, to encourage artistic development and appreciation, to foster scientific curiosity or a love of language. And of course children are not the only ones in need of education! So perhaps there is a beginning point in the midst of the crumbling state of pubic education. Perhaps we are it!
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Mr. Schneebly (as impersonated by Jack Black’s character in School of Rock) was right in theory (; Thank you for touching on this topic in your blog. Even if we can’t get all factions to agree on the importance of teachers, we can, each teacher, take the responsibility of holding the most highly esteemed job, even if the profession itself doesn’t yet come with the recognition and privilege of Finland’s educators. And as parents and members of society we can take the same attitude and start looking for the inroads for change. Each vote counts! Passion for teaching and making a difference in a child’s life is a great reward, and I hope we reach the point where everyone sees that as our greatest leverage point to create cutting edge character, integrity and brilliance in tomorrow’s leaders!
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I’m not a teacher, but I do believe that teacher’s should not only be purveyors of information, but also be an inspiration to become a master at your favorite subject(s), be it science, art, history, etc. I’ve always been impressed when I’ve read about the master/apprentice relationship, where the apprentice is given the opportunity to learn from an expert in a real life situation. I feel our educational system is one dimensional, which creates graduates who have to find the other dimensions themselves or tow to the standard that was set. Also, it seems in our society that education in the sense of dedicated learning ends as soon as school is over. What about lifelong learning or learning something new at 40, 50, 60, 70?
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I was reading about the cheating scandal in the Atlanta public schools and thought this is a sad commentary for this worthy profession but it’s a relief to finally have it out there. The problem is not this cheating scandal, I see it as a public wake up call. There are myriad symptoms we see; third graders who can’t read or count, gangs being more attractive than teams or personal achievement, violence as a “professional” hazard or just scan a few of the blogs on CNN, the comments are unbelievable. Does just a small ignorant subclass participate or is this the level the public thinks on? The point is it needs more than an overhaul it needs to be looked at as if we just came up with idea to educate all children. The basic questions of any endeavor should be asked. What is the purpose? To what end are we dedicated? Why do we think this is valuable? Our answers would create a new impetus. It is not just another industry, it is the shaping of our most precious resouce for restoring peace and health to our world, our children. Thanks Gregg, we should all care deeply about this subject.
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In my field of work, as a doctor of naturopathy in the strict meaning of the term, doctor comes from the lating “docere” which means to teach. I have taken this title quite seriously and consciously in my attitude towards my patients, always seeking to instruct them in the ways that are consistent with health principles, particularly those that are relative to their particular health needs. By the time we, patient and practitioner, have finished our work together, they should be armed with the knowledge of both how to maintain their improvements as well as how to prevent most further health problems of differing origins.
To me, this is where the solution is – to help reveal to the individual the areas of obscurity which have prevented the proper unfolding of health. This takes time, and it is hard for the modern doctor of today within its institutional framework to have the necessary time to get into all this detail. Those of us in private practice have greater freedoms in this regard and usually obtain far better results. Patients who visit practitioners in private practice tend to be more satisfied with their care. There is a greater cost involved, due to health insurance policy, and so access to ‘out of network’ practitioners is more difficult. Same thing I would say of our current educational system, where teachers are bound to their current institutional frameworks and have to, at all costs, prepare and instruct their students as best possible within these less than optimal conditions.
One thing I would say, just as I give people home-care and self-care programs to enact daily, is more instruction and responsibility has to be distributed to the home. I am not talking about homework as we know it today, but more instruction perhaps from the parents to continue with what was started ‘at school.’ How many parents for instance, are involved in helping their children learn how to read? Education has to be well-rounded, and simply can’t be a thing done here and not over there. That will take much of the overt pressures off the teachers of trying to do it all themselves, meeting all the deadlines and testing milestones required, allowing the teachers to be more free to teach in the spirit of true teaching, for it is a beautiful thing to help instruct others and see them grow and flourish into more capable, magnificent individuals.
And one more thing, it wouldn’t hurt to change the diets in the schools either. I think that’s been well recognized, and institutional policies here simply need to give way towards a more comprehensive understanding of nutrition in the school setting.
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