Finns are Human Too
Sometimes it feels like we will never be able to be perfect, like the Finns. Ah, the Finns! In the U.S., our descriptions of the education system are so euphoric that it can be hard to relate.
But I have to say, I didn’t feel that same level of bliss when I was in Finland. I mean, I felt like it was an inspiring place—a lot more civilized in many ways, a place we can learn from. But in real life, it seemed like it was also a complicated place inhabited by…human beings.
It’s important to keep this in mind, so that we don’t dismiss the Finns as another Nordic fantasy land that has no connection to our lives and schools.
In that spirit, here is a quick reality check from the Finland media…
Some parents in Finland choose not to send their kids to the neighborhood school because of the high level of immigrant students there. Sound familiar?
Helsinki parents at pains to avoid schools with high proportion of immigrants
Pasi and Merja live in a neighbourhood of small houses in Metsälä in the north of Helsinki. More than a dozen children who start school next autumn live in the neighbourhood of about 1,000 residents, and nearly all of them applied for admission to a school outside their neighborhood. Many of the neighbours have pulled similar stunts….Some have even acquired a second home to make sure that their children attend school somewhere other than their nearest one in Maunula.
...An invisible wall exists along the border of Maunula and Metsälä.
The average income of Maunula residents is EUR 22,400 a year, while the Metsälä residents earn EUR 37,000.
Maunula has many low-income pensioners, and half of the homes in the area are built on the partially publicly-funded Arava subsidy scheme, compared with only ten per cent in Metsälä.
And then there is the sensitive issue: about a tenth of the residents in Maunula speak a language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue.
In Metsälä, with its 1,000 residents, just 43 speak a foreign language at home. The entire foreign language-speaking population there could nearly fit in a single city bus.
...“Undoubtedly we all want to live in a multicultural and tolerant atmosphere, but the fact is that if there are many children who do not speak Finnish, the teacher’s time is spent on them”, the mother of two says.
She does not know any children who have actually attended school in Maunula, but she has “heard stories”.—Helsingin Sanomat 2011
Violence and substance abuse affect the lives of Finnish kids, too…
Tens of thousands of children exposed to violence or substance abuse at home
Study shows that thousands of children in need of help remain unnoticedThousands of children living in conditions in which they are exposed to violence and substance abuse fail to get the help that they need, says Dr. Mirjam Kalland, a family research expert at the University of Helsinki.
A substance abuse problem of some kind affects one in six families, while violence afflicts one in five. “For instance, 20 to 30 percent of children in the Helsinki region live in fairly serious risky conditions. Only five to six percent are within the scope of child protection support measures. Quite a few of the children who would need help are never noticed”, Kalland says.—Helsingin Sanomat 2006
And Finnish teachers sometimes complain about Finnish parents…!
Nearly one in five Finnish schoolteachers and one in three principals are targeted with bullying and mental violence by students’ parents. The primary level comprehensive school headmasters, in particular, are harassed.
This was the finding of a survey conducted by the Opettaja (Teacher) magazine.
Teachers interviewed by the trade journal said the bullying manifests itself in various forms varying from the spreading of unfounded rumours to verbal abuse and phone calls that can last for hours.
Bullying parents have threatened they would contact the board of education, the provincial administrative board, or the press.
The root of the problem is often diverging views on education and upbringing.—Helsingin Sanomat 2005
Why do I bring this up? Must I ruin everything? Really? Well, it’s a bit perverse, I guess. But I find it encouraging to remind myself that while the US has its own extremes of dysfunction, we are all human. And excellent education outcomes are possible—-even in imperfect places occupied by humans.
CarolineSF said on December 23, 2011 at 3:34 am
Well, let’s look at how all the admiration of the Finnish school system got started. It was “Waiting for Superman,” the teacher-bashing, sneering-at-poverty-as-an-“excuse,” public-school-hating, charter-puffing, reform-worshiping propaganda piece that got it started. That movie featured Finnish schools as the model that put our supposed embarrassment of a failed system to shame.
In response, those who saw through the lies of “Waiting for Superman” retorted with the points we now hear so often, that the Finnish school system is run in the exact opposite manner of the cold, harsh, segregated “no excuses” vision WFS espoused.
This is a side issue, but just let’s be clear about who launched the view that Finnish schools are a model.
Stuart Buck said on December 26, 2011 at 11:48 am
Caroline, that’s not true. Diane Ravitch was praising Finland before Waiting for Superman came out.
CarolineSF said on December 26, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Would place a bet but I have lent out my copy of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” so I can’t check at this moment. But if she has mentioned Finland in passing, it was WFS that singled out Finland in a high-profile way, with all the mighty and media-bewitching PR firepower of the corporate-education-reform movement behind it.
Stuart Buck said on December 26, 2011 at 4:38 pm
You can search on Amazon. Better yet, you could look at this “Bridging Differences” post from 2008, more than 2 years before Waiting for Superman, wherein Ravitch proclaims, “Finland is the answer.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2008/05/what_finlands_example_proves.html
See also this: http://www.educationgadfly.net/flypaper/2009/05/diane-ravitch-on-the-massachusetts-miracle-and-the-teachers-union/
CarolineSF said on December 26, 2011 at 7:55 pm
Fair enough. Still, my comments about WFS’ being the high-profile source of the Finland crush stand. It’s WFS and its anti-public-education, teaching-bashing message that had the mightily funded PR firepower and fawning press to get it out—a lot higher profile than Bridging Differences and Education Week.
Stuart Buck said on December 26, 2011 at 9:29 pm
But who has a “Finland crush” other than Ravitch and her like-minded followers? And she wasn’t waiting for “Waiting for Superman” to alert her about Finland.
CarolineSF said on December 27, 2011 at 12:12 am
Who else has a Finland crush? Well, obviously the corporate-“reformers” who were behind WFS—though their admiration is basically for anything they can seize upon that will tear down the image and credibility (and morale) of U.S. public schools and teachers.
In any case, there’s nothing wrong with citing, or praising, a nation’s educational system that seems to be working well. However, it’s pretty clear that Ms. Ripley is on something of an anti-Ravitch rampage and intended her “gotcha!” on Finland to be yet another arrow aimed at Dr. Ravitch. If voices from both the anti-public-education, pro-corporate-reform side (Davis Guggenheim) and the pro-public-school side are citing Finland as a success, that changes the tone of the discussion quite a bit.
Stuart Buck said on December 27, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Speaking of Finland, I asked a Finnish person what he thought of Ravitch’s quip: “Last week, I went to a luncheon with Pasi Sahlberg, the Finnish education expert. I asked him the question that every politician asks today: ‘If students don’t take tests, how do you hold teachers and schools accountable?’ He said that there is no word in the Finnish language for ‘accountability.’” I sent that to a Finnish guy, along with 5 words that I got from a google translator.
His response:
“Utter bullshit, of course . . . . Of the five words you listed, “vastuuvelvollisuus” is closest to “accountability” in English, although it also has the meaning “liability”. Not a lawyer, so I won’t comment on the specific legal meanings and distinctions of these words. (“Vastuu” just generally means responsibility, “tilivelvollisuus” is accountability with respect to actual financial accounts, “tilintekovelvollisuus” is the duty to keep books, and “selontekovelvollisuus” means the duty to justify your decisions afterwards.)”
CarolineSF said on December 27, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Oh, your old “gotcha!” fell apart, so you had to scramble to creatively come up with a new “gotcha!”
Stuart Buck said on December 27, 2011 at 9:05 pm
No, Caroline, the old “gotcha” is still there: the only people today lauding Finland are Ravitch and her acolytes, and they certainly weren’t inspired by WFS; they were praising Finland years before WFS came out, as anyone who reads education commentary knows.
CarolineSF said on December 27, 2011 at 9:11 pm
You mean the corporate-reform types aren’t lauding it anymore even though they were in Waiting for Superman? I’m so confused. Or maybe they are. Maybe we should just nuke Finland.
Stuart Buck said on December 27, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Who is this “they” of which you speak? You seem to think that “corporate reformers” refers to a unified group of people who all think the same thing about everything. That’s not true. “Waiting for Superman” was the work of Davis Guggenheim, who has pretty much zero to do with what education reformers think about anything. I know and/or work with lots of education reformers, and I’ve never heard any of them say anything about Finland except in response to Ravitch’s ill-informed screeds.
CarolineSF said on December 27, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Oh, so now you all think Finland AND Davis Guggenheim suck? OK, that is new to me. I thought Guggenheim was your guy.
Well, they may have varying opinions on issues outside education, but yes, I do think corporate reformers are a unified group of people who all think the same thing about everything when it comes to education policy:
—Teachers unions are tools of Satan, second only to Diane Ravitch herself.
—Teachers are what are holding low-income children back.
—Kids do best in huge classes sitting at computers doing virtual lessons, with as little contact with those despicable teachers as possible.
—Experienced veteran teachers are all lazy, burned-out deadwood, and only bright-eyed beginner temps can effectively teach low-income children. (However, the so-called-reformers don’t apply this theory to their own kids’ teachers, of course, let alone surgeons, airline pilots and other professionals.)
—Charter schools should be showered with resources, while failing public schools are cesspools of waste and fraud and should be kept bare-bones.
—Low-income children of color need regimented, no-excuses schools that drill, march and chant. (The corporate-reformers’ kids, on the other hand, need nurturing, creative classrooms that foster their critical thinking, imagination and leadership skills.)
And much, much more. Yes, after following the corporate-reform chatter for years, I’m convinced they’re in lockstep. But I wasn’t aware till now that they had thrown both Davis Guggenheim and Finland under the bus. I thought Ms. Ripley was bashing Finland because she’s very new to education policy and is just beginning to learn about issues that many of us have followed and debated (and, often, lived) for years and years.
To paraphrase Randy Newman:
They outperform us, so let’s surprise ‘em.
Let’s drop the big one and pulverize ‘em.
Stuart Buck said on December 28, 2011 at 12:15 am
1. Name one education reformer, other than Guggenheim, who has ever said anything about Finland except in response to the likes of Ravitch.
2. For your own good, stop admitting that your mind is full of such simplistic stereotypes. (Better yet, start actually thinking with more nuance, reading what people actually say rather than viciously mischaracterizing it, etc.)
CarolineSF said on December 28, 2011 at 1:52 am
Guggenheim was the voice of the corporate education reformers in that movie. The movement unanimously hailed and promoted the film, and of course fed him all the misinformation and distortions the movie portrayed as truth. He didn’t go and research all that stuff on his own.
CarolineSF said on January 01, 2012 at 9:50 pm
What a surprise—the claim that Diane Ravitch was lying was a lie.
Atlantic Monthly by Anu Partenen
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
Quoting Pasi Sahlberg, director of the Finnish Ministry of Education’s Center for International Mobility and author of the new book Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?
As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. “There’s no word for accountability in Finnish,” he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. “Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”
*** So: Pasi Sahlberg, credentials described above, made this statement, quoted in the Atlantic Monthly by Finnish journalist Anu Partenen, speaking at the Teachers College of Columbia University.
That link just landed in my inbox on a busy day. Later I’ll go over the story and Ms. Ripley’s post and see how it jibes with her claims. (It’s tough being a naive beginner just beginning to learn the education beat when the forces of corporate education reform are so very mightily funded, powerful and brazenly dishonest—it’s easy to be very susceptible to their blandishments and falsehoods.)
CarolineSF said on January 01, 2012 at 10:25 pm
On looking at Ms. Ripley’s commentary and the Atlantic article, the content of hers makes comparing them irrelevant. Ms. Ripley’s point is that there are anti-immigrant sentiment, violence, and annoying and pushy parents in Finland, which is of course not a response or rebuttal to any of the information about Finland provided by EITHER Waiting for Superman or Diane Ravitch. It’s just an attempt to “gotcha!” Ravitch with a dose of snark (which doesn’t really work since, apparently unbeknownst to Ms. Ripley, pro-corporate-reform Waiting for Superman is doused with the snark as well).
Stuart Buck said on January 02, 2012 at 9:36 am
Caroline, learn how to read. I never said that Ravitch herself was lying about there being no Finnish word for accountability; as you can see from my original post, she was simply reporting what Sahlberg said (hence, you’re not adding any new information by quoting Sahlberg again).
When I emailed a Finnish acquaintance, I was asking him whether Sahlberg was telling the truth. And you can see my acquaintance’s response.
It should, by the way, strike any educated person as dubious that a modern language completely lacks the ability to describe a concept such as accountability, which is what Sahlberg seems to be trying to imply. Here’s a post where a linguist points out how stupid it is to make the point that “there’s no word for accountability” in various language. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003925.html See also this: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2920
CarolineSF said on January 02, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Thank you for the kind and helpful suggestion, @Stuart—I will do my best to learn how to read.
I’m not arguing about whether there’s a word for accountability in Finnish, since it’s pretty clear that that’s a complicated concept. I’m just saying it doesn’t work as a weapon with which to “gotcha!” Dr. Ravitch; nor does Ms. Ripley’s attempt at “gotcha!-ing” her by snarking that Finland isn’t perfect.
By the way, here’s an interesting view of how mainstream press voices like Ms. Ripley appear to see education reform, from Prof. Jay Rosen of NYU.
Corporate ed reform is viewed as being within the “sphere of consensus”:
“The sphere of consensus is the “motherhood and apple pie” of politics, the things on which everyone is thought to agree. Propositions that are seen as uncontroversial to the point of boring, true to the point of self-evident, or so widely held that they’re almost universal lie within this sphere. Here ... “journalists do not feel compelled either to present opposing views or to remain disinterested observers.” (Which means that anyone whose basic views lie outside the sphere of consensus will experience the press not just as biased but savagely so.)”
And we critics of corporate ed reform are in the “sphere of deviance”:
“In the sphere of deviance we find “political actors and views which journalists and the political mainstream of society reject as unworthy of being heard.” As in the sphere of consensus, neutrality isn’t the watchword here; journalists maintain order by either keeping the deviant out of the news entirely or identifying it within the news frame as unacceptable, radical, or just plain impossible. The press “plays the role of exposing, condemning, or excluding from the public agenda” the deviant view.”
So that may explain Ms. Ripley’s determined efforts to “gotcha!” Diane Ravitch, who represents the unacceptable deviance of criticizing what Ms. Ripley and a large number of her mainstream colleagues believe is the only correct way to view corporate education reform.
http://archive.pressthink.org/2009/01/12/atomization.html
Beth said on January 28, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Thank you for this reality check. I was absolutely buying the myth of Finland as a mono-lingual country with little of the social stresses we have in the US. Thank you. Knowledge is empowerment! Thank you to my friend, Jen, at Experiential Tools for sharing this with me.
buchete said on February 25, 2012 at 12:25 pm
She wasn’t waiting for “Waiting for Superman” to alert her about Finland.
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Moli Anderson said on September 03, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Maybe Finns are human though I can’t agree more. I read the story about this from my college essay papers (http://best-termpaper.com/ ). I think over confidence always very harm for us. So, we need to take a decision before care them. Thanks!
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Käännöstoimisto said on October 16, 2012 at 3:47 am
I think that the Finnish education system can serve as a model for many countries. However, I don’t think that any school system should be elevated to a “uber”-status. In Finland we have the same problems as in the rest of the world. The difference is that the school system used to be equal, but now the differences between living areas and their schools have started to become more marked at least in the capital, Helsinki, where I own a translation agency. However, here most people still think that we should not have elite schools for the rich but believe that a good public school system that is free for everyone quarantees a level of civilization.
steel wall frames perth said on November 09, 2012 at 11:50 am
This is what I was looking for! It’s really a very interesting heads-up as always though I appreciate finns are human though. Keep up the good point!!
المؤشر said on November 20, 2012 at 4:15 pm
Maybe we should just nuke Finland.
Thank you
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