I find it curious that the US so often compares itself against the Finnish system as the high-water mark of secondary education. What’s surprising isn’t that Finland is seen as the mark, but that US thinks it has a hope of ever reaching that bar based when it’s cultural assumptions and infrastructure is so wildly different from Scandanavia. A case study can be found in a recent article on CNN, highlighting how West Virginia is trying to use Finland as a model for its education system.
Here are assumptions WV has made that will never allow it to fully transition to an education system that works as well as Finland’s.
(1) Assumption #1: education is a cognitive problem
The first and most glaring problem in the way the US conceptualizes education is pointed out with the first three paragraphs. The contrast between the two environments begins here: “…In West Virginia, many children face poverty, illiteracy and broken homes and lack easy access to health care or proper nutrition. [While] Finland has a largely literate and relatively homogeneous population, little immigration and almost no poverty or social problems. They also offer a vast network of social supports including free meals and health care for school children.”
The article then points out that Finland is ‘on top’ of international test rankings (which, as a sidenote, are a sham which I’ve discussed in other blog entries). Superintendent Paine believes the correct way to remedy this is, rather than speak out against the issues of hunger, poverty, oppression bearing down on these kids, he should “…West Virginia should concentrate on developing more rigorous standards, curriculum and perhaps most importantly -- teacher supports.” The fundamental issue is this: we are still locating the problem of “success” in the school, in general, and the student’s mind, in particular. This is based on a deep-rooted neoliberal and American assumption that everyone has an equal chance to succeed. Unfortunately, they don’t. So, Finland provides socialized systems to help those struggling. We are categorically eliminating them.
(2) Assumption #2: learning is the consumption of information which can be assessed through tests
It is a brute fact that “Finland doesn't use standardized tests to assess teachers or schools.” Why is this a brute fact? Because Finland’s education system is based on the experiential educational model set forth by John Dewey and other pragmatic thinkers. For Dewey, thought is the ability to understand the causes and consequence of action in practice. For Developmental Psychology (the ground of the US system), it is the mental retention of facts. Yet, memorization of facts, or non-experiential learning will never, ever get you to either learning or thinking (see my blog entry on Dewey and The Art of Cooking).
The CNN article even points out that “Project-based learning -- an integral part of Finland's education system -- uses one "project" as a starting point for learning about multiple subjects and how they fit together.” Experiential learning its not only integral to Finland’s education system, IT IS THE WHOLE SYSTEM.
The US, on the other hand, bases its education system on deeply flawed models of developmental psychology. West Virginia has, therefore, interpreted Finland’s system, through its developmental lens. In other words, instead of looking at the Deweyian process of education, WV is focus on the product. WV refuses to examine its own assumptions about teaching and learning like a spoiled child: they are ‘modeling’ Finland’s performance by RAISING the difficulty of their own standardized tests. Superintendant Paine will align “…West Virginia's testing with national and international benchmarks.” Where these ‘international’ benchmarks are coming from is anyone’s guess. Certainly not Finland (West Virginia’s model), because Finland thinks they are harmful to student success.
Taking it even further, WV is committing a classic fallacy in educational philosophy by trying to correct a broken educational infrastructure by dressing it up with bells and whistles, which is what the Global21 initiative is in WV. It’s essentially just traditional education coated in shiny, new chrome packaging (which includes healthy doses of the words “21st century” in every sentence).
The problem is that this ‘new’ take on education (like most others in the US) embeds every single one of the problems John Dewey saw in the traditional education system: that it begins with a complete misunderstanding of what it means to learn, that it extracts education from students lives, that it ignores context, that its aimed in the wrong direction… In the end, WV educators completely misunderstood Finland’s system and essentially forced a student-driven, emergent and experiential system into the language of an American assembly line.
(3) Assumption #3: teachers deserve more respect
Actually, I agree with this claim. I only put it in there to prove a point. West Virginia still isn’t respecting its teachers, nor is most of the US. I can give you the historical reason for this: it’s called the feminization of teaching (google it; there’s a lot out there). Here’s the moral of the story: the respect for teaching is correlated with the respect for women in culture. We still marginalize women and, therefore, don’t respect teaching (i.e. every legislator and businessman thinks they know better because silly teachers -mostly women - are apparently too stupid to solve the problems facing their own field).
Don’t get me wrong, it is very noble West Virginia’s goal is to follow Finland in trying to give teachers a social status “a status comparable to what doctors, lawyers and other highly regarded professionals enjoy in the U.S.” Okay, that’s fine, but first you have to get culture (not just WV) to recognize that teaching is a more difficult, demanding, emotionally strenuous, and time-consuming vocation than any other (I say this as the partner of a fourth grade teacher and, trust me, I know).
And this isn’t about brute economics. We could give the Defense budget to Education and the Education budget to Defense; that would be a start. It would not touch the deep oppression and marginalization of teachers in our country.
A true first step would be putting teachers in control of education and kicking out business leaders and politicians. For example, in Finland, “like other professions, teachers gain seniority and tenure primarily on the basis of training and experience, and teacher unions have a strong voice in shaping education policy…” Further, in Finland, “…only about 10% of some 7,000 applicants to primary school programs are accepted annually to Finnish teacher training programs”
In other words, it’s fantastic that WV wants to take on 200+ years of American oppression of women, yet this is not truly what they are interested in. They simply want happy teachers to pump out skilled workers.
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