8 ms·

When Finnish Teachers Work in America's Public Schools

104 points by aarohmankad 10y ago

mpweiher 10y ago
Land of the free...or as we quip in German "Land der begrenzten Unmöglichkeiten" ("Land of limited impossibilities", obtained by just moving the "un" a little from the original "Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten", "Land of unlimited possibilities"). The thing is, individual freedom means putting limits on the freedom of those in power, be they the state or corporations. In the US, you have prosecutorial discretion, employment at will, etc.
- arcbyte 10y ago
  I do enjoy your quip, but I can't interpret your second paragraph as anything but nonsense ramblings. The first sentence is held very dearly in American political thought, but that is unrelated to the second sentence second. I mean I think I can guess what you might be getting at but you're assigning blame to the wrong things. Both of your examples are GREAT things that are not really examples of "power" in that they are not unilateral.
- flubert 10y ago
  Can you give us an insider perspective on the illegality of homeschooling in Germany?
- rojoblancoazul 10y ago
  Unsolicited, probably unwanted critique: Assuming you want to affect a change in perspective among US citizens who don't already agree with your comment (which I really hope you do, needed now more than ever etc) maybe leave out the trite, cheeky "land of the free is actually X" slight in the first paragraph (however grating it is ) and consider changing the tone in the second ("the thing is..." never leads to someone changing their mind). It encompasses the archetypal Western European opinion on American "X" to the T, and is more easily dismissed as Internet comments often are. Reminiscent of Americans commenting on German matters in a stereotypical way, it sometimes just goes straight into the mind trash. Very unsolicited I'm sorry, but since there are loads of American techies here and Germany has a good image among them, your perspective can have more power than you think and it really is needed these days.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    Someone got their feelings hurt. Nothing the gp said was incorrect. Land of the Free is a joke because Americans made it a joke.
    - rojoblancoazul 10y ago
      Oops, I probably came off the wrong way, sorry. My comment was meant to help Western European perspectives (and more specifically, HN comments) pass the mental filter Americans are prone to using on them, in the hopes they go beyond their usual audience. Lots of "valuable" citizens here with regard to network effects, always worth a shot to help others express themselves better!
    - mistermann 10y ago
      Or maybe you're both right.
- grogenaut 10y ago
  I'm not sure your joke translates well or I'm just not getting it. I skipped your second sentence which was more interesting until I read the reply. The reply saying your tone is off is correct imho.
noobermin 10y ago
adjusts his seat in his armchair Yes, my uninformed opinion, but reading the article, I think the quote from Marc Tucker towards the end is right: >And the countries that give [teachers] more autonomy successfully are countries that have made an enormous investment in changing the pool from which they are selecting their teachers, then they make a much bigger investment than we do in the education of their future teachers, then they make a much bigger investment in the support of those teachers once they become teachers. Teachers in these institutions are given a level of respect we offer scientists, lawyers, other professionals, so of course they are trusted to be given autonomy. Imagine the same level of scrutiny given to such professionals, if say we mandate every minute in a doctor's meeting from a city authority, would they stand for it? When we talk about education, people often highlight the fact we spend a lot of money per student compared to other countries. This fact fits in with this hypothesis. Once an institution gains that respect, the rest can follow. No, it may not be causal (teachers being respected leads to higher pay, better quality teachers, etc) but they are certainly correlated.
- mathattack 10y ago
  This is very true. The limit of learning in a classroom is the ability of the teacher. The limit of learning in a school is the leadership of the principal. Caliber and esteem of teachers is the one commonality across all high performing systems. Programs like Teach For America help, but they are tiny compared to the overall size of teachers, and many leave frustrated after a few years. This situation isn't that different from developing software. If you have great programmers, you can cut them loose with less supervision. If you toss a lot of untrained mediocre bodies at problems, you need to invest a lot more in micromanagement to make sure nothing goes wrong.
- Haven_Monahan 10y ago
  Pretty Much Exactly That. Of course, you might want to go further, and ask why this hasn't happened. Why wouldn't some state or locality in the US demand that its teacher-training candidates have a BS in, say, nursing (for primary schoolteachers) or engineering (for highschool math and science) plus an appropriate score on an IQ test like the wonderlic (serving as a sanity check on the required credentials)? They would need these before being hired, even if they had a degree in education. Then, those teachers could demand higher autonomy (and better wages), and school boards would be inclined to go along. Why aren't parents and the school boards they elect willing or able to do this? One issue is of course that schools of education in the US are not getting the top cohort of high school graduating classes, and they work with what they get. The young woman (and it is almost all young women) gets a degree, a certificate, and gets to be in charge of your kids for six hours a day, even though when she was in your English class in HS she would copy her answers off of the test of your permanently-stoned buddies. Who wouldn't want watch her like a hawk? Next...the union. Some teachers can't teach, but they can for damn sure vote, and pay their union dues to the NEA. The NEA isn't actually opposed to education, but anything that diminishes the political clout of its lobby (no matter how justifiable to parents, students, or even its individual members) will be opposed w/ much firmness. Finally, there are...legal obstacles. Less said about them, the better...but they do exist.
thinkloop 10y ago
Like everything there is a trade-off with autonomy. On the one hand, not having it is dehumanizing and demotivating causing top performers to work sub-optimally. On the other hand it reduces volatility and variation ensuring the worst performers aren't as bad. The smaller the organization the easier it is to give autonomy because the natural feedback loop is tighter. In massive organizations (like the education system) there are a lot of cracks to fall through. Personally I can't work without extreme autonomy - luckily I'm a web engineer where this is basically standard. I'm not sure what the right mix is for all businesses, organizations, cultures, countries, etc.
- eikenberry 10y ago
  > Personally I can't work without extreme autonomy - luckily I'm a web engineer where this is basically standard. Do you work at startups? I moved from being a back-end web engineer towards operations and systems programming to regain my autonomy as at mid sized and larger companies (who pay better than startups) the developers were all micro managed.
  - thinkloop 10y ago
    Good point, I do only work at startups, that's probably where the autonomy comes from, rather than the web engineering.
deathEternal 10y ago
Looking back on my school career, from elementary through high school, the thing I hated most about school was all the fucking assholes I was force to call classmates. Then, looking back at all the shitty retail jobs I held, the thing I hated most about work was all the fucking asshole customers. Then, looking back at all the shitty office jobs I held, the thing I hated most were my co-workers, above me, below me, and across from me. But really, the thing that I've hated all along, is being forced to do anything without first building the understanding behind why bothering at all. Why am I going to school? Fuck you, I'm a kid. Why am I working this shit job? Fuck you, for robbing me of my youth. Why do I work at all? Fuck you, can I have what's left of my life back please? And then I fucking died.
- nugator 10y ago
  Ok... so who's writing this?
- teach 10y ago
  "If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day... maybe you're the asshole."
criddell 10y ago
Sounds like Chartouni is a great teacher. A lot of the things she is complaining about (like rubrics) weren't put in place for teachers like her. They are there for the 50% of the teachers that are worse than average.
jimhefferon 10y ago
This quote “I feel rushed, nothing gets done properly; there is very little joy, and no time for reflection or creative thinking (in order to create meaningful activities for students).” seems to me to express both the current trend, and why citizens should care. If highly educated and capable people feel that way, you can expect them to migrate away.
jimmyswimmy 10y ago
I found the perspective of the Finnish teachers quite useful and interesting. I've been in electrical engineering for awhile and have been contemplating teaching as a second career, as I know many engineers do. But so used to real autonomy in my day to day or even week to week activities, I can't imagine going from this life to that. Reading about NCLBA and common core and the like never seemed burdensome but perhaps I was wrong. In any event, I don't foresee teaching in my future anymore. Too bad. Perhaps in another country.
- specialist 10y ago
  Anecdotally, as a second careerist, you'll be permitted more autonomy. Because you can walk at anytime, the admins will have less leverage over you.
fallingfrog 10y ago
I can tell you right now why they do things this way: it reduces the bargaining power of the teacher to demand a higher salary. If you want to negotiate a salary with someone, the last thing you want is for them to be able to claim to be unique- if their lesson plan is prescribed, the test are prescribed, etc, then all you really need is to hire someone who can follow instructions, and if that person doesn't follow their instructions they can be easily replaced, on the cheap. Turning people into machines is what we Americans do best.

104 points by aarohmankad 10y ago

Land of the free...or as we quip in German "Land der begrenzten Unmöglichkeiten" ("Land of limited impossibilities", obtained by just moving the "un" a little from the original "Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten", "Land of unlimited possibilities"). The thing is, individual freedom means putting limits on the freedom of those in power, be they the state or corporations. In the US, you have prosecutorial discretion, employment at will, etc.

arcbyte 10y ago
I do enjoy your quip, but I can't interpret your second paragraph as anything but nonsense ramblings. The first sentence is held very dearly in American political thought, but that is unrelated to the second sentence second. I mean I think I can guess what you might be getting at but you're assigning blame to the wrong things. Both of your examples are GREAT things that are not really examples of "power" in that they are not unilateral.
flubert 10y ago
Can you give us an insider perspective on the illegality of homeschooling in Germany?
rojoblancoazul 10y ago
Unsolicited, probably unwanted critique: Assuming you want to affect a change in perspective among US citizens who don't already agree with your comment (which I really hope you do, needed now more than ever etc) maybe leave out the trite, cheeky "land of the free is actually X" slight in the first paragraph (however grating it is ) and consider changing the tone in the second ("the thing is..." never leads to someone changing their mind). It encompasses the archetypal Western European opinion on American "X" to the T, and is more easily dismissed as Internet comments often are. Reminiscent of Americans commenting on German matters in a stereotypical way, it sometimes just goes straight into the mind trash. Very unsolicited I'm sorry, but since there are loads of American techies here and Germany has a good image among them, your perspective can have more power than you think and it really is needed these days.
- mhurron 10y ago
  Someone got their feelings hurt. Nothing the gp said was incorrect. Land of the Free is a joke because Americans made it a joke.
  - rojoblancoazul 10y ago
    Oops, I probably came off the wrong way, sorry. My comment was meant to help Western European perspectives (and more specifically, HN comments) pass the mental filter Americans are prone to using on them, in the hopes they go beyond their usual audience. Lots of "valuable" citizens here with regard to network effects, always worth a shot to help others express themselves better!
  - mistermann 10y ago
    Or maybe you're both right.
grogenaut 10y ago
I'm not sure your joke translates well or I'm just not getting it. I skipped your second sentence which was more interesting until I read the reply. The reply saying your tone is off is correct imho.

noobermin 10y ago

adjusts his seat in his armchair Yes, my uninformed opinion, but reading the article, I think the quote from Marc Tucker towards the end is right: >And the countries that give [teachers] more autonomy successfully are countries that have made an enormous investment in changing the pool from which they are selecting their teachers, then they make a much bigger investment than we do in the education of their future teachers, then they make a much bigger investment in the support of those teachers once they become teachers. Teachers in these institutions are given a level of respect we offer scientists, lawyers, other professionals, so of course they are trusted to be given autonomy. Imagine the same level of scrutiny given to such professionals, if say we mandate every minute in a doctor's meeting from a city authority, would they stand for it? When we talk about education, people often highlight the fact we spend a lot of money per student compared to other countries. This fact fits in with this hypothesis. Once an institution gains that respect, the rest can follow. No, it may not be causal (teachers being respected leads to higher pay, better quality teachers, etc) but they are certainly correlated.

mathattack 10y ago
This is very true. The limit of learning in a classroom is the ability of the teacher. The limit of learning in a school is the leadership of the principal. Caliber and esteem of teachers is the one commonality across all high performing systems. Programs like Teach For America help, but they are tiny compared to the overall size of teachers, and many leave frustrated after a few years. This situation isn't that different from developing software. If you have great programmers, you can cut them loose with less supervision. If you toss a lot of untrained mediocre bodies at problems, you need to invest a lot more in micromanagement to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Haven_Monahan 10y ago
Pretty Much Exactly That. Of course, you might want to go further, and ask why this hasn't happened. Why wouldn't some state or locality in the US demand that its teacher-training candidates have a BS in, say, nursing (for primary schoolteachers) or engineering (for highschool math and science) plus an appropriate score on an IQ test like the wonderlic (serving as a sanity check on the required credentials)? They would need these before being hired, even if they had a degree in education. Then, those teachers could demand higher autonomy (and better wages), and school boards would be inclined to go along. Why aren't parents and the school boards they elect willing or able to do this? One issue is of course that schools of education in the US are not getting the top cohort of high school graduating classes, and they work with what they get. The young woman (and it is almost all young women) gets a degree, a certificate, and gets to be in charge of your kids for six hours a day, even though when she was in your English class in HS she would copy her answers off of the test of your permanently-stoned buddies. Who wouldn't want watch her like a hawk? Next...the union. Some teachers can't teach, but they can for damn sure vote, and pay their union dues to the NEA. The NEA isn't actually opposed to education, but anything that diminishes the political clout of its lobby (no matter how justifiable to parents, students, or even its individual members) will be opposed w/ much firmness. Finally, there are...legal obstacles. Less said about them, the better...but they do exist.

thinkloop 10y ago

Like everything there is a trade-off with autonomy. On the one hand, not having it is dehumanizing and demotivating causing top performers to work sub-optimally. On the other hand it reduces volatility and variation ensuring the worst performers aren't as bad. The smaller the organization the easier it is to give autonomy because the natural feedback loop is tighter. In massive organizations (like the education system) there are a lot of cracks to fall through. Personally I can't work without extreme autonomy - luckily I'm a web engineer where this is basically standard. I'm not sure what the right mix is for all businesses, organizations, cultures, countries, etc.

eikenberry 10y ago
> Personally I can't work without extreme autonomy - luckily I'm a web engineer where this is basically standard. Do you work at startups? I moved from being a back-end web engineer towards operations and systems programming to regain my autonomy as at mid sized and larger companies (who pay better than startups) the developers were all micro managed.
- thinkloop 10y ago
  Good point, I do only work at startups, that's probably where the autonomy comes from, rather than the web engineering.

deathEternal 10y ago

Looking back on my school career, from elementary through high school, the thing I hated most about school was all the fucking assholes I was force to call classmates. Then, looking back at all the shitty retail jobs I held, the thing I hated most about work was all the fucking asshole customers. Then, looking back at all the shitty office jobs I held, the thing I hated most were my co-workers, above me, below me, and across from me. But really, the thing that I've hated all along, is being forced to do anything without first building the understanding behind why bothering at all. Why am I going to school? Fuck you, I'm a kid. Why am I working this shit job? Fuck you, for robbing me of my youth. Why do I work at all? Fuck you, can I have what's left of my life back please? And then I fucking died.

nugator 10y ago
Ok... so who's writing this?
teach 10y ago
"If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day... maybe you're the asshole."

criddell 10y ago

Sounds like Chartouni is a great teacher. A lot of the things she is complaining about (like rubrics) weren't put in place for teachers like her. They are there for the 50% of the teachers that are worse than average.

jimhefferon 10y ago

This quote “I feel rushed, nothing gets done properly; there is very little joy, and no time for reflection or creative thinking (in order to create meaningful activities for students).” seems to me to express both the current trend, and why citizens should care. If highly educated and capable people feel that way, you can expect them to migrate away.

jimmyswimmy 10y ago

I found the perspective of the Finnish teachers quite useful and interesting. I've been in electrical engineering for awhile and have been contemplating teaching as a second career, as I know many engineers do. But so used to real autonomy in my day to day or even week to week activities, I can't imagine going from this life to that. Reading about NCLBA and common core and the like never seemed burdensome but perhaps I was wrong. In any event, I don't foresee teaching in my future anymore. Too bad. Perhaps in another country.

specialist 10y ago
Anecdotally, as a second careerist, you'll be permitted more autonomy. Because you can walk at anytime, the admins will have less leverage over you.

fallingfrog 10y ago

I can tell you right now why they do things this way: it reduces the bargaining power of the teacher to demand a higher salary. If you want to negotiate a salary with someone, the last thing you want is for them to be able to claim to be unique- if their lesson plan is prescribed, the test are prescribed, etc, then all you really need is to hire someone who can follow instructions, and if that person doesn't follow their instructions they can be easily replaced, on the cheap. Turning people into machines is what we Americans do best.