5 ms·

Finland’s new plan to change school means an end to subjects

16 points by ghosh 12y ago

socalnate1 12y ago
"...instead of teaching geography and foreign language classes separately, teachers will ask kids to name countries on a map in a foreign language. Instead of separate lessons on history and economics, they'll talk about the European Union." It's depressing that this is considered "radical."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- cheatsheet 12y ago
  I think consciously maintaining a collective categorization of entities, or independently maintaining a collective categorization of entities is radical. More people might discover abstract math on their own, simply because it hasn't been purified down to it's symbolic form. The relationships naturally arise out of our own decisions and plans in how we mentally construct relationships between entity forms, and notice the differences and variations between person to person. I think tradition is important, but so is learning how to think totally differently in a fundamental way - and I think that's what these educators see in this specific case as radical. They see it as a creating a foundation of how to think first, then it is followed by lesson plans. It may affect the way people learn to organize and think about information, or it may not. Maybe people in the future will refine information down to essential subject form, because the chaos in connectivity between information forms has become too complex to reason about, and consequently becomes too complex to do anything with (aside from think). These things happen already. The difference is a magnitude of scale. Will an entire generation be raised with these characteristics?
tuukkah 12y ago
Talk about bad reporting: what the new national curriculum says is not radical, it's not a plan, and it doesn't end subjects. It just suggests as one method of teaching to consider themes that cross the traditional academic divisions. And this it has done already in previous versions, just with different words. In the end, it's still up to each teacher whether they want to break the traditions, learn new methods and materials, create new lesson plans. On their own time.
- jmilloy 12y ago
  Is there a better source (in English) for the real information?
  - tuukkah 12y ago
    Your best bet may be to follow Pasi Sahlberg who's an international expert in these matters and from Finland: https://twitter.com/pasi_sahlberg/status/580376929351516160 https://twitter.com/pasi_sahlberg/status/580376929351516160 Here's one presentation from the government, where they use the term "broad-based competence": http://www.oph.fi/download/151294_ops2016_curriculum_reform_in_finland.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/151294_ops2016_curriculum_reform_... A shorter one with video and the term "transversal competences": https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=KY_LZJkEo28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=KY_LZJkEo28 Slides: http://www.oph.fi/download/158389_general_aspects_of_basic_education_curriculum_reform.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/158389_general_aspects_of_basic_e... EDIT: These should be contrasted with the old curriculum which talks of "integration and cross-curricular themes", "examining phenomena from the perspectives of different fields": http://www.oph.fi/download/47675_POPS_net_new_2.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/47675_POPS_net_new_2.pdf EDIT2: Finnish schools are obliged to introduce a period of “phenomenon-based teaching” at least once a year. These projects can last several weeks -- by 2020. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schoo...
- DavidAdams 12y ago
  I agree. What Finland is doing is a good idea, but it's not particularly radical or unique. My kids are doing a scaled down version of this right now, in that their history and English class is combined, so they read and write about things on a particular historical subject, instead of random stuff.
feider 12y ago
One thing that almost never get mentioned is role of pre-school education and how it is drastically different in Finland. Becoming preschool teacher in Finland requires a bachelor degree in "varhaiskasvatus" (that roughly translates to early parenting, which is an academic subject). I don't know what qualifications are required in US, but in many other European countries the bar of becoming preschool teacher is much lower.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
Strange how the metrics used to measure performance still break down by subject. Maybe we can break down into more interesting subjects or core areas like analytic skills, deep thinking, execution, people enabler, etc.

16 points by ghosh 12y ago

"...instead of teaching geography and foreign language classes separately, teachers will ask kids to name countries on a map in a foreign language. Instead of separate lessons on history and economics, they'll talk about the European Union." It's depressing that this is considered "radical."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
cheatsheet 12y ago
I think consciously maintaining a collective categorization of entities, or independently maintaining a collective categorization of entities is radical. More people might discover abstract math on their own, simply because it hasn't been purified down to it's symbolic form. The relationships naturally arise out of our own decisions and plans in how we mentally construct relationships between entity forms, and notice the differences and variations between person to person. I think tradition is important, but so is learning how to think totally differently in a fundamental way - and I think that's what these educators see in this specific case as radical. They see it as a creating a foundation of how to think first, then it is followed by lesson plans. It may affect the way people learn to organize and think about information, or it may not. Maybe people in the future will refine information down to essential subject form, because the chaos in connectivity between information forms has become too complex to reason about, and consequently becomes too complex to do anything with (aside from think). These things happen already. The difference is a magnitude of scale. Will an entire generation be raised with these characteristics?

tuukkah 12y ago

Talk about bad reporting: what the new national curriculum says is not radical, it's not a plan, and it doesn't end subjects. It just suggests as one method of teaching to consider themes that cross the traditional academic divisions. And this it has done already in previous versions, just with different words. In the end, it's still up to each teacher whether they want to break the traditions, learn new methods and materials, create new lesson plans. On their own time.

jmilloy 12y ago
Is there a better source (in English) for the real information?
- tuukkah 12y ago
  Your best bet may be to follow Pasi Sahlberg who's an international expert in these matters and from Finland: https://twitter.com/pasi_sahlberg/status/580376929351516160 https://twitter.com/pasi_sahlberg/status/580376929351516160 Here's one presentation from the government, where they use the term "broad-based competence": http://www.oph.fi/download/151294_ops2016_curriculum_reform_in_finland.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/151294_ops2016_curriculum_reform_... A shorter one with video and the term "transversal competences": https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=KY_LZJkEo28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=70&v=KY_LZJkEo28 Slides: http://www.oph.fi/download/158389_general_aspects_of_basic_education_curriculum_reform.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/158389_general_aspects_of_basic_e... EDIT: These should be contrasted with the old curriculum which talks of "integration and cross-curricular themes", "examining phenomena from the perspectives of different fields": http://www.oph.fi/download/47675_POPS_net_new_2.pdf http://www.oph.fi/download/47675_POPS_net_new_2.pdf EDIT2: Finnish schools are obliged to introduce a period of “phenomenon-based teaching” at least once a year. These projects can last several weeks -- by 2020. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools-subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education-system-10123911.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schoo...
DavidAdams 12y ago
I agree. What Finland is doing is a good idea, but it's not particularly radical or unique. My kids are doing a scaled down version of this right now, in that their history and English class is combined, so they read and write about things on a particular historical subject, instead of random stuff.

feider 12y ago

One thing that almost never get mentioned is role of pre-school education and how it is drastically different in Finland. Becoming preschool teacher in Finland requires a bachelor degree in "varhaiskasvatus" (that roughly translates to early parenting, which is an academic subject). I don't know what qualifications are required in US, but in many other European countries the bar of becoming preschool teacher is much lower.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

Strange how the metrics used to measure performance still break down by subject. Maybe we can break down into more interesting subjects or core areas like analytic skills, deep thinking, execution, people enabler, etc.