Finns Finish First

This week, on BBC 4's The Educators, we were treated to an insight into Finland's secondary school education system.

By way of background, the Pisa International League of Education started comparison studies in 2001. The first report placed Finland in the number one spot and they've remained there or thereabouts since then.

The country's success sparked massive global interest and the school system was inundated by visitations from the world's education professionals.

The process began in the 1970s when the Finns introduced a totally inclusive comprehensive system where schools were completely decentralised - no inspections, no testing of students until the age of nineteen.

Plus, and this is the bit that excited me, some 20% of the academic year is given over to 'Phenomenon Based Learning' (PBL). With PBL, students take ownership of learning by proposing the projects they want to study. 

The rôle of the teaching staff is to use their creativity to adapt their subjects to the projects decided by students.

In this context, teachers become coaches, rather than lecturers, a transformation which some found challenging as a loss of control does not come naturally to teachers.

This is exactly what I find when selecting coaches for our 'Magic Programme'; the best qualified candidates often find it impossible to deliver the loose format we devised for the course, as their need for control gets in the way.

As senior educator Dr. Marjo Kyllönen told reporter Sarah Montague in the programme;

'The world has changed and kids are different now. They're bored at school and to them, more interesting things happen outside school.

So we have changed the school to fit the child, not vice versa. Most current schooling is based on an industrial model, relevant to the 19th and early 20th Century but we need to prepare kids for the mid 21st century.' 

In her opinion, the most profound benefit of PBL is the creation of enjoyment in learning as part of the process of preparing for the future.

She believes what is needed are skills in collaborating, social interaction, critical thinking, creativity and innovation. This means encouraging students to '...be brave enough to take risks, fail, learn and succeed'.

These are the central messages in our 'Magic Programme' as expressed in my 'Magic Service' book and this programme helps to explain why our coaching is so successful. So "Finnish" this post with a look at the book...