Finnish education

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Fortunately.

How many here speak & write fluent Finnish ?

Or any other language ?

:face:
 
RonA3597":wjilh06t said:
My irony apparently wasn't clanky enough. :evil:
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'Twas just bein' dorky. I got it :twisted: "Fraid their system wouldn't work over here though. We'd have to make real social and economic changes here for it to work and THAT ain't gonna happen :twisted:
 
monbla256":rncqmewh said:
'Twas just bein' dorky.
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We're used to it. :mrgreen:

But, one country will never be another, nor should they be. Ideas and cues are one thing, but instant templates of reformation just isn't in the cards. We gotta figure out our own speed on our own. It's just a people thing. Change is inevitable, and will always trounce someone's expectations. C'est la vie.

It's those that can adapt and not give in to the things they don't like that seem to abate the stress levels a bit better.
 
Monbla, I was being dorky as well - I guess it must be going around. Kinda like the flu except it's been a lifetime with me. :affraid:
 
Actually that's quite a good article! Sorry didn't notice this topic before. :)

There's a part I would like to highlight:

And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable. In his book Sahlberg quotes a line from Finnish writer named Samuli Paronen: "Real winners do not compete." It's hard to think of a more un-American idea, but when it comes to education, Finland's success shows that the Finnish attitude might have merits. There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.
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I find this rather interesting, yet it sounds truthful enough. What I have understood about schools in US is that there's a lot more competition. I guess the system here is built on the sort of trust that kids will, with time when given some, follow the talents they have and good scores and constant monitoring don't a motivation make.

They're working really hard though to fuck it up on the university level here though. I think it's a couple of years now into the new system that makes universities dependent on private money, and frankly it looks to me that in this business private money is stupid money, easily attracted by empty, hyperbolic consult rhetorics and hopelessly short-sighted daydreams. :evil:

But yes I think it does make sense, overall. This isn't a very competetive culture. And I am very thankful of the way I learned to know kids from many different backgrounds at school - when parents can't decide what school their kids go but it's just the nearest one, and communities are planned to have a variety of housing that attracts people from different places in the society, there's less of a risk to be surrounded only by kids that come from your own socioeconomic group. I have always felt it made me a little bit less naive I could be, and a little bet better prepared for life, and a whole deal less frightened of people who seem different from me.

 
Well, the competition is part of the larger picture. Here, after grade school, it preps you for middle school. Middle school preps you for high school. High school preps you for college. College is the goal, not for you, but for the people who want the loans, scholarships, parents' funds, etc. What happens to everyone afterward is a toss-up...having academia clamoring for campus jobs means the colleges have an endless workforce they got paid to create, with the public school system's help.

It's a factory for money, so of course there's little carrots on stick competitions. Just like there's "who can get the most customer service compliments" at a dead-end corporate grocery store job.

Education is rarely for real learning, preparation or even high-level vocations anymore. It's a packaged product, which is why it's pretty easy to get a bullsh*t degree in something non-technical, pseudo-scientific and even art. It's an expensive, 4-year, live-in after high-school care program to free up parents' time. Corporatists like it that way...so do governments.
 
Kyle Weiss":nkh12l0x said:
Well, the competition is part of the larger picture. Here, after grade school, it preps you for middle school. Middle school preps you for high school. High school preps you for college. College is the goal, not for you, but for the people who want the loans, scholarships, parents' funds, etc. What happens to everyone afterward is a toss-up...having academia clamoring for campus jobs means the colleges have an endless workforce they got paid to create, with the public school system's help.

It's a factory for money, so of course there's little carrots on stick competitions. Just like there's "who can get the most customer service compliments" at a dead-end corporate grocery store job.

Education is rarely for real learning, preparation or even high-level vocations anymore. It's a packaged product, which is why it's pretty easy to get a bullsh*t degree in something non-technical, pseudo-scientific and even art. It's an expensive, 4-year, live-in after high-school care program to free up parents' time. Corporatists like it that way...so do governments.
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Did we have a lousy college experience ? :twisted:
 
Nope, I never went.

If you must know, I've been a poor student all my life. Incidentally, I have never had a problem furthering my education. As I watched my peers dwindle in confidence, financially, and emotionally as they adhered to this unidirectional scholastic path, it became an important lesson for me: don't walk down that dark alley, you'll get mugged. How do I know? I've watched it happen. I didn't need first-hand experience to teach me that.

Though being exiled and circumstantially removing myself from the education system (about mid-way through high-school) will never win me any points with those who endured, I'm full-sails ahead in this crazy world. Seems to work okay; what choice do I have, after all?

I call it "The University of Planet Earth." The post-graduate programs don't really end, the preparation given to me has been invaluable, the tuition is cheap and easy to combine with jobs, and the scheduling is pretty nice. That's kind of comforting, given the alternative.
 
Everyone has their OPINIONS but that doesn't make 'em FACTS, just OPINIONS ! And most of us work out the explanations for their lives to justify them. We ALL do it, that's just the way we roll as they say. :twisted: No big deal, just is :twisted:
 
Ever notice how the two people here with the most pungent common sense are you and PeeB ?

I have.

:face:
 
:roll: Funny, Mon, how I had to help you with that concept regarding pipe advice when you first joined. Old dogs, new tricks, etc? ;) Please, keep stating the obvious. It's why we love you. :heart:
 
Yak":mgjcw9hk said:
Ever notice how the two people here with the most pungent common sense are you and PeeB ?

I have.

:face:
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Thanks, Yak. I have a long way to go, need to whittle away some rough spots, but hey, ain't that life? I (hopefully) have a few years to keep going.
 
Kyle Weiss":beg7cpha said:
:roll: Funny, Mon, how I had to help you with that concept regarding pipe advice when you first joined. Old dogs, new tricks, etc? ;) Please, keep stating the obvious. It's why we love you. :heart:
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I am indeted to you for your wisdom beyond your years ( you'd think you'd been doing this for over 40 years :twisted: ) :twisted: :twisted:
 
I don't think that learning from life experience and studying for a degree in an university/college/whatever are mutually exclusive. But I've gotten a lot of the "Oh you haven't learned about LIFE as you're in your academic cocoon" or, say, when I was regularly working on the cemetary: "You academic types just don't know how to do the practical/hands on stuff" -shit. It's just as a unfounded stereotype as anything else.

I think studying in Finland and the degrees themselves are pretty different from what happens in US colleges. The big competition is at the entrance exams (I wasn't very good at school either and my marticulation exam results were pretty much as good as toilet paper for me) as there's no significant financial risk or restraints for studying so getting in is the big divider. The degrees are way less "colorful" than what I've heard people can do in US - you have to know your major clearly when you apply and there's limits to how far from it you venture. There's no art lessons in the university, you need to get into an art or design school for that (I think it's about 2% who get in). It's slow, people don't live in campuses, it takes easily 7-8 years to get your masters (bachelors is worth nothing here, once you're in you go for masters). Me? I had my personal breakdown around the time I should have been finishing my thesis, and it's taken me a few years to get back on track. Luckily the system is pretty forgiving. And I find it actually rather fair - I cost next to nothing to the university, I'm working on my thesis independently and will need very little help to finish this thing when the time is right. I'm just a name in their list of students for them.

The real shitty stuff starts after graduation. I find it ridiculous that the Finnish leaders love to toot the "education" and "research" horns while money is stripped constantly from all academic activity that doesn't sound like it's going to lead to the next big e-gadget.

I've said it before but personally I find it very important that there are institutions of learning and research. It's not only for producing information, but for maintaining information. Knowledge that's in books no-one is reading is just as disconnected from the society than a memory stick is disconnected from a computer when it's been pulled out.
 
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