2017-05-31 Education in Finland — Best Practices

Categories News


I went to a conference this morning on the Soweto Campus of UJ (The University of Johannesburg).

The program had several leading educationalists from Finland sharing how their educational system works, and how South Africa is collaborating with them to improve our teaching.

I was in the third row, only because the first two rows were reserved. Otherwise I’d have been in pole position as usual.

Key takeouts from the sessions:

1. "We don’t trust steering, we trust learning."

2. Teachers in FInland are massively qualified professionals. They are treated as professionals. They are paid as professionals.

3. Finnish teachers are lifelong learners.

4. Finland experiments with educational techniques. They test everything.

5. Teaching has to target what happens AFTER a person leaves school. School is a tiny portion of a person’s life. School is supposed to equip that person to deal with the world.

6. Teachers need to upskill. Continuously.

7. Teachers are the foundation of a sound pedagogy.

8. Inquiry-based learning is everything. Teach what people are interested in. Make things interesting. Make teaching "real world".

This picture is my visual snapshot of the info that I found interesting during the morning.

———

If you would like to bring your conference material to life, you might want to consider bringing me into your room. To book me, please Whatsapp me on +27741046386, or email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com. Be sure to ask about my pricing experiment to encourage people to make use of visual thinking on Thursdays. I’ve called it "Roy’s Thursday Deal Day". You get me from mid-morning till the end of the day for just R2500. (My daily rate on other days is R22000.) The only catch is that this deal ends at the end of this year. And you have to book and pay upfront in order for the booking to be confirmed.

So… Interested in having rich sketchnotes at your next meeting, discussion, conference? Contact me.

Share