Finland exports hidden potential
How do they make "every" kid perform beyond expectations?
I finished reading the book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant. What makes the book memorable are the stories that Adam uses to share lessons that we all can use for personal growth. One of the stories I loved was on Finland's education system. I Googled to see whether India also has the Finnish education system. To my surprise it does.
So what is so special about the Finnish education system that we don't have in the CBSE, A Levels, IB, KED and so many others? As Pasi Sahlberg, the world’s foremost authority on Finland’s education system, put it: “A high-performing school in Finland is one where all students perform beyond expectations.” It brings out the best in a child irrespective of his or her ability.
The reason the Finnish system has attracted global attention is because of an international competition called PISA in which every three years teenagers from all over the world compete in a standardized test of maths, reading and science. It started in 2000 and revealed which nation had the most knowledgable young minds and thus the best schools. Finlands students won in 2000, then again in 2003 and again in 2006. They have always remained in the top ten. In 2018, China won. But Finland still ranked 1st of all 77 countries on performance per hour studying, which was 2.9 hours of homework per week, less than what a typical Chinese teen does in a single day! The Fins have maintained their reign on the ultimate metric for growth: learning efficiency.
In 2012, when the OECD gave a dozen aptitude test to over 165,000 adults across dozens of countries, Finland finished first among teens and twentysomethings in both math and reading. They are doing something better than anyone else which we all should learn from.
In Finland, Kindergartners only sit at their desks for spelling, writing and math one day a week. Each lesson is a maximum of 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of recess. They spend most of their time in play. Monday might be dedicated to games and field trips; Friday may be for songs and activity stations. Kids are given ample time to explore their individual interests. Finnish educators assume the most important lesson to teach children is that learning is fun. In fact research in the United Kingdom reveals that students who enjoy school at age six go on to earn higher standardized test scores at sixteen, even after controlling for their intelligence and socioeconomic status. A refrain among Finnish teachers captures it nicely: “The work of a child is to play.”
In addition to the above structure in kindergarten, teachers stay with children across multiple years. They get to know them, their strengths and their weaknesses better than anyone else. They become their mentors and coaches. That insight goes a long way in guiding them through life.
One of the key ingredients for intrinsic motivation that Adam highlights is - reading. “Reading is the basic skill for all subjects. If you don’t have the motivation to read, you can’t study any other subject.” Cultivating the desire to read nourishes individual interests. A love of reading often begins at home. Although filling our homes with books might be a start, psychologists find that it’s not enough. If we want our kids to enjoy reading, we need to make books part of their lives. That involves talking about books during meals and car rides, visiting libraries or bookstores, giving books as gifts, and letting them see us read. Children pay attention to our attention: where we focus tells them what we prize. Reading is a gateway to opportunity: it opens the door for children to keep learning. But books face increasingly stiff competition from TV, video games, and social media.
How can we get our kids to become interested in reading? Interest in reading is amplified when we have the opportunity to choose what we learn and share it with others. So what one should do is get children to choose the topic they want to read and then share what they learn. Intrinsic motivation is contagious. When students talk about the books that light up their imaginations, it crystallizes why they love them—and gives others the chance to catch that enthusiasm.
I don't think it is just kids who need to get back to reading. Everyone is staring at their phones all the time. This is fracturing our attention instead of focusing it on what really matters - deep conversations and deep thought. I have realized that in order to read more, I need to carry my kindle (a separate device not the app) with my phone. When I do that, I tend to read more instead of checking WhatsApp, email or browsing news. You have to set up your environment based on the behavior you want, for your kids and for yourself.
*These stories and ideas are from the book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things by Adam Grant.
Harsh Batra
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I build businesses (EthosData, Happy Ratio), evangelize equity investments that 10x your savings (Marcellus), and write about money and personal growth (subscribe and grow with me).