Finlands School System

Many people know that the U.S. does not rank very high in education. You hear about how they are always trying to improve education, but they still fall short of where they strive to be. In Anu Partanen’s “Finland’s School Success, What Americans Keep Ignoring” she addresses this issue. She points out what Americans are doing wrong, what Finland is doing right, and how the U.S. can improve the education system in many ways.

In “The Most Stressed Out Generation? Young Adults”, Alexandra Sifferlin’s tone in her article is informative. It is well thought out and has a concrete structure that is easy to grasp information from. She ties in the research and evidence to back up her point. Reading each paragraph lets the reader find out something new about how American’s rate and handle their stress. As one person you know your own stress levels, but what about your peer group as a whole? One learns that they are possibly not the only one who feels that they progressing through a strainful period of their live. In a nutshell, the reader gains a new perspective on stress. Usually it is something that is swept under the rug and chalked up to be the signs of adulthood. It

In the world, countries are competing to have the best education system. Some countries such as America spend thousands of dollars per student during the school year yet have average test score. America should focus in a different system to help students raise their test scores and education. America should look at Finland education system. Finland grants equality education to all, have a better education structure system, and Finland comes to the top in test scores. While some people might say Finland does not have a large population, which helps the country with less education cost.

93% of high schoolers and graduate, whereas it's only 75.5% in the United States. This shows how there are more graduates in Finland than in the United States. Many have been saying that, as for education, “United States stands at the top,” which is not not true due to the fact that Finland has a better curriculum. The United States curriculum is not nearly as good as Finland’s because Finland has a Multidisciplinary curriculum, there are shorter days in Finland, and their school structure is improved.

In Anu Partanen’s article “Finland’s school success, what Americans keep ignoring,” she talks about how Finland transformed its education system to one of the top education systems in the world. First Finland’s success comes from engaging student’s creative imaginations, and demanding less in homework. In addition since the 1970’s, the education policy in Finland is that no child would be left behind. Regardless of background, every child will have the same opportunity to obtain an education.

America’s test scores are barely average compared to other countries. 470,000 15-year-old students took the OECD test in math, science, and language arts. The test was scored on a 1,000 point scale. The U.S average score in math was 487 meaning that 24 out of the 34 countries ranked higher. This includes Finland who scored a 541. In science, America scored an average of 502 which placed them at 17th. Once again Finland was a leader on the scoreboard. Finally, in language arts the U.S scored a 500 putting them in 14th place. Finland still ranked higher; they were in the ranks with places like Shanghai. “The brutal fact here is there are many countries that are far ahead of us… this should be a massive wake up call”, says U.S Education Secretary Arnie Duncan (Hechinger). So why is education so important?

In America the Bush-era law requires that students in third through eighth grades take tests on their reading and math skills, then re-test again in high school. Determining the number average of tests that an American student takes is difficult because many states and districts require their

As stated in the Atlantis, one of America’s leading political magazines, “Finland 's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play”(Partanen). So how is Finland consistently turning in some of the highest test results? Could the United State’s k-12 education ever adapt to reform its system to reflect Finland 's suggests? To improve the United States current education, schools need to find an alternative to standardized tests and make classrooms more interactive. The curriculum needs to be focused on students’ futures to prepare them for the 21st century, not the past.

In Denmark, education is also free, and to top that, students over 18 who do not live with their parents get paid to go to school. This is something that many North Americans would love to have implemented but know it will probably never happen here. In Finland, School does not begin for students until they hit the age of 7 years old. Also, there is no homework to worry about. Finnish students in elementary school average 75 minutes of recess per day.

My day just started and I’m already beyond stressed; I had to wake up, fix my hair, put on makeup, find my suit, and then bring myself here, ugh. As a high school student, I go through a good bit of stress trying to juggle advanced placement classes, clubs, a social life, a job, and writing this oratory; it seems like I never get a break. According to the American Psychological Association, high school students score a 5.8 on a ten point scale of stress during the school year, whereas adults score a 5.1. To put those scores in context, the APA suggests that the healthy level for a high school student is a score of 3.9. Clearly, teens are inundated with high levels of stress, and to make matters worse, the adults around them often refuse

Most American high school student spent their time playing sports or other miscellaneous activities instead of studying unlike other countries, whose students spent over 90% of their time studying compared to American students. Countries like China and Finland have the best scores than most other nations and when looking at how their students spend the time they get it is obvious that America is falling short but doesn't realize it yet. Not only is it the student who doesn't study in America, but also most teachers don’t even specialize in the topic they teach in most generic high schools. When you compare the teachers in America and the teachers in Finland you can see a vastly different way of teaching, in Finland the teachers can make

In the 1970’s Finland was not at the top of the education chain, in fact their education system was doing poorly (NEA). Finland has been changing their education system over the past 35 years to make their education system better. They have changed their education system to become very successful. When looking at the differences between the United States education system and Finland education system has obvious differences between the testing, the paths for the students to take, time management during school hours, and the environment of the classroom.

The Finnish Model will work well in reforming the U. S. because it provides equal education and opportunity to everybody. In the country of Finland, “there were no high-tech, interactive white boards in her [Kim’s] classroom…no police officer in the hallway” (p. 83). This suggests that these students do not need fancy equipment or armed protection to be the smartest kids in the world. In addition, the Finnish yearn for everyone to be successful despite their circumstances at home, and one way they do so is implementing academic and vocational schooling. This gives students a choice between two equitable options of learning instead of forcing them down a one-way path to graduation. The U.S., in my opinion, would greatly benefit from allowing this option in their schooling system because it give students freedom over their future.

Many people in high school, mostly teens, experience dozens of pressure in their life. To be specific, Schoolwork. Most teens want to excel in school, but want to have a social life or play some kind of sport. One thing that teens don’t understand is that once you’re out of high school, you have college, and then maybe graduate school. Our education will not be over just in High School. You have to work hard and these four years of your life, will impact everything that you do. If you mess up even once, it may ruin everything. This article is named, “Teens Biggest Stress? School.” It has been featured on MSNBC.com. It is written by, “The Associated Press”. It explains how 13-17 years old have the most stress in their high school life.

The best choice of entry for Finnish Schools International is to seek a local investor in every country it seeks to expand to while using licensing as the market entry mode, which will be critical in matters involving the procurement of local licenses in the country/countries it chooses to operate in, such as from the Ministry of Education of the country. Seeking a local investor is very important because every country has different rules, laws, and ethnic beliefs to abide to, so there is nothing better than to partner up with a local investor that knows the in’s and out’s of the country that is being looked at.