Sent from my Finnish colleague:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120425355065601997.html
It's a telling comparison between two cultures with different parenting/teaching philosophies. Maybe Americans are "watering down" school with distractions like organized sports, clubs, dances, etc., when really the students should just be focusing on learning, and then they can go home unfettered for leisure and family time. I find it amazing that Finns have less than 1 h of homework per night, versus 4-5 h for some Asians and Americans (I'll abbreviate as AA for now, no pun intended). I cannot believe that some of my young cousins say they do HW until 1 AM most nights, when we probably went to bed at 10 in our day. Maybe they also lose a lot of time with test prep, piano lessons, volunteering (worthwhile if they do it for love and not just resume building), part-time job (I doubt many Euro teens work), dance practice, sports practice, whatever practice. Does all that crap make well-rounded kids or overwhelmed, spread-too-thin kids? Not to mention all the other distractions like the Internet, video games, chat, cellular, TV, movies, shopping, gossiping, loitering, etc. I am sure Finns do some of that too, but AFTER they've finished their studies and chores.
And it's not like the Finns are total study-holic geeks without personality; maybe they're more socially adjusted than the average materialistic and electronics-addicted US teen! Yet our kids are not learning as much as Finns on average, so what is all the extra time and stress for? We're not getting bang for our buck. Asians study like hell too, but at least they actually learn the material and score well vs. other nations. Is school just a surrogate babysitter in America to keep the kids "occupied" why parents work and shop? But then the highly ambitious or parent/culture-pressured AA's get burnt out and sometimes suicidal when they don't get a good grade on a critical placement exam or don't get accepted at Harvard (this has been reported much too often from India to Korea to the Ivy League).
Which brings me to my next point, the "ambition gap". Since college is mostly free to Finns and other non-Americans, and the discrepancies between the colleges are smaller, they have less pressure on them to get into the "right" school and take the "right" courses. They can actually enjoy college life and learn on their terms (my friend says it's not uncommon for Finns to take 7 years to graduate, but then their degree is more like a MS). Finns and other Europeans seem to let their kids be kids, and let them learn self-reliance. Of course this doesn't apply for all cases. On the other hand, Americans have to ace standardized tests, do all the extra-curricular crap to distinguish themselves, take out massive student loans, pick a "marketable" major, and hurry to graduate ASAP to join the workforce (to start paying off those loans!) or maybe professional school. And then more rounds of costly test prep, apps, and loans. It's a crazy process that makes "adulthood" start at about 15 for some Americans. So overzealous parents, self-conscious and competitive with neighboring families, pull strings to get their kids into the best HS, stressfully shuttle them from activity to activity, and pay for more gadgets and more classes. They fuss over and micromanage their kids so much, by college they don't even know how to run a laundry, and expect Daddy to bail them out every time there's trouble. They think it's love - sacrificing to give their kids the best chance at the best life. Maybe it is, but it comes at a cost. Then for the "blue collar" types who don't have the resources and opportunities to do all that stuff, it's "Would you like fries with that?" until they die. Sorry for the melodrama.
It's shocking to me that America's HS drop out rate is 25%; I had no idea it was so high. At least after 1 year of HS in Finland, kids can decide (or be forced) into vocational or college-bound programs. So they can still excel in areas that they are most interested in. Well, also in Finland there is less salary gap between a miner and physician. Maybe that's too socialistic for us? Yet here we divide up students as well: the "gifted" who take Advanced Placement courses, and the "clods" who take Home Ec and Auto Shop. The income gap is the big problem - weathy areas have well-funded schools, and their students can afford many advantages (laptop, test prep, tutoring, internships with Daddy's company, etc.). Whereas poor students in poor areas don't have any of that, plus their bellies may be hungry (studies have show that makes learning near-impossible), crime may be around them, and their households may lack stability and good role models. It's an old story that we know from Kozol and others. Hopefully the Obama admin. can do something about it beyond "No Child Left Behind".
Well, as the article said, Finland, like the high-performing Asian nations, enjoys smaller population, more homogeneous student bodies, and less language challenges. They spend about the same on each student and pay teachers similarly, but what about the bloated school bureaucracy waste in the US? So maybe less money actually reaches American students to make a difference. It seems that Finnish teachers are better trained and supported at least. I am sure that every school in Finland teaches 95% the same curriculum, while in America each school district has the right to modify whatever they please under the Constitution. It's confusing and wasteful for our kids.
I guess all this may also mirror the workplace? Europeans have the 35-40 h work week and get basically the same amount done as Americans/Asians working 50-60 h. So we're just not using our time/resources efficiently? Like for example, me emailing this instead of working on my lab projects!
Would love to hear your thoughts.
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I have to say that it is hard to rule out the size of the country and the diversity of the population. For instance…many restaurants are able to create delicious meals thousands of times every year. But those same restaurants may be ill equipped to feed thousands of people in one sitting. And if those thousands all eat chicken, life is easy. If there are vegetarians, kosher eaters, peanut allergies, etc, the job is just that much more difficult. I wonder if a worthwhile comparison can even be made under those circumstances. Is there another nation with the cultural diversity and size of America with the same problems? Is there another nation that ranks higher in the happiness index or on the education rankings of similar description?
And the other objection I want to make is that I don’t believe that Europeans “get the same amount done” in their 35-40 hours vs 50-60 hours for asian/American workers. And I also don’t believe that all or even most workers at American corporations work those hours. There are always some, and I’m sure that goes for Euro nations as well, but at least in America I find it hard to call that the norm for most businesses.
All that being said, clearly America has a ways to go in the area of education and resource allocation and a large list of other things. And changing the institutions may not be enough to change the culture. If you suddenly mixed Harvard professors and UC riverside professors in some homogeneous mixture, would parents be less incentivized to send their kids to Harvard? Would the name Harvard immediately disappear into obscurity? Lots of “prestigious” colleges are terrible places to send an undergraduate student and yet the prestige of the name carries weight in and of itself. There is the alumni factor as well. And the culture of America is to be bigger, better, and badder than your competition. And the education game is a competition for your dollars. Equality in the rankings of schools would, under our current socio-cultural pressures, lead to just another differentiator.
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I think Mark touches on an important problem in comparing these measurements cross-country. One is that in Asian countries typically school tests are only administered at 'good' schools, while thanks to American fetishes for tests we give them at every school. I'm not sure how it works for Europe, but it may be the same.
The other is, of course, that America has deep pockets of endemic poverty (the ghettos, but also some rural areas). Typically these areas do way worse than average on tests and have a large number of special-needs children. So saying that it's the educational system's fault that kids in these areas aren't as smart as the Finns is looking at the wrong culprit.
I think the bigger problem in the US isn't so much the educational system, but rather that the US has allowed pockets of endemic poverty to exist and managed to not find a way to deal with them. It's certainly a big problem for the US and I think requires even more radical action than modifying the school systems...
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