In the next few months I plan to write more about education and as I am here on a grant to study education, I guess it is time to introduce the Finnish education system. In order to understand what I am seeing, doing, learning, hearing and feeling while I am in Jyvaskyla, it is important to understand some basics about the Finnish education system. Below is a diagram from the Finnish National Board of Education that is often used to explain Finnish education.
Over and over I keep hearing from principals, teachers and other adults that "there are no dead ends in the Finnish education system." Most children start school at age six for kindergarten (pre-primary education). This year of school is not held at elementary schools; it is usually connected to the early childhood education centers and day cares but it is free. Tea is in this class at her school and it is at the same school as Talia's pre-school class. Both girls only go to school from 9:00-1:00. Tea occassionally brings home homework in a workbook, but it is never more than one page and takes her about 2 minutes to do. School is focused almost entirely on playing at this age. Once a week Tea arrives at school at 8:30 because her class has ice skating lessons. Next Monday she has to bring her sled to school for a class trip to go to "the sledding hill." Once a month the kindergartners go to a nearby elementary school to enjoy an afternoon of swimming. They usually walk to the city library once a week (as does Talia's class). They also both have traditional dance lessons once a week, and throughout the week they have gym class, music class, and other fun activities. Playing with others, playing outside, and learning through play are emphasized in kindergarten in Finland.
Students start compulsory education in the fall of the calendar year they turn seven. Next year's first graders will all be born in 2009. Students attend compulsory school from grades 1 through 9. Most schools in Jyvaskyla seem to be broken into 1st-6th grade elementary schools and 7-9th grade middle schools. At the end of 9th grade students have a choice to make. They can either go to an upper secondary school that will lead to a diploma or a vocational school that will lead to a certificate in a particular field. The beauty of this system is that students from either track can then go on to further education at either a university or a polytechnic university. The students are split pretty evenly between the two tracks, with about 50% going to high school and 50% going to vocational school.
Students in the upper secondary school (sometimes called a "college" or a "lukio") have three years of school and then take the matriculation exam. At this level students have a lot of choice of what they study in high school. The school year is broken into six terms of six weeks in Jyvaskyla. Students take different courses (usually between three and six) each term. When the term ends there is a six day exam period where students take final exams or present a final project. At the end of the three years of high school the students then take the matriculation exam. The matriculation exam has a long history in Finland and in order to get a high school diploma students must pass the exam in at least four subjects. This website has a lot of information on the history of the exam and more details than I need to put in my blog. Students must take the exam in their mother tongue (Finnish, Swedish or Sami) but the rest of the subjects they study are up to them. The subjects range from health to history, other foreign languages to maths, sciences to religion. Students often take the exams in five or more subjects even though only four are required. High school seniors (3rd year high school students) end school sometime late-January to mid-February and are then given several weeks off to study for the matriculation exam. They then have a stressful waiting period until they find out the results of these exams in May. There are seven possible grades on for the exam and the grades follow a bell curve so the points needed for each grade vary slightly each year. Graduation is celebrated at the end of May or beginning of June.
Students that chose to go to vocational school are able to choose which type of vocational career they wish to study. There are twenty-two different vocational areas listed on Jyvaskyla's Vocational College's website. The fields vary widely and include tourism, beauty care and hairdressing, food production, horticulture and environment, crafts and design, textiles and clothing, publishing and printing, business and commerce, information and communication technology, electrical engineering and automation, vehicle technology and logistics, civil engineering, forestry, construction and building maintenance, technology, metalwork and machinery, plastics and rubber technology, and more. Students apply to their desired program, and as long as they are accepted they begin a personalized program that combines compulsory academic subjects with hands on learning of the skill. Students are assessed based on skills for the workplace and can move quicker through the program if they already have certain skills. After completion of the program students are granted their certificates for their fields.
From either secondary school track students have choices for tertiary, or higher, education. A student from either track can take an entrance exam to go to a university. The same is true of polytechnic universities. Students can earn bachelor's or master's degrees from universities or polytechnics and then can go on to earn doctorates from the university. Polytechnics do not grant doctoral degrees. Did I mention that all this schooling is free for Finns? High school, vocational education, university...it's all without charge! In fact, I believe that full time students are actually given a stipend from the government to use for living expenses while they are in college. Imagine the reaction I get from my Finnish colleagues and friends who hear that I teach at a private, boarding school with a tuition well over $50,000 a year!
Students can also choose to go into the work force after high school. This is, of course, more common for vocational students since they have a certificate in a specific field, but not impossible for a student that has taken the matriculation exam.
What does this all mean and can it happen in the United States? How and where do students with special education needs fit into this type of system? Do all these options confuse students? These are some of the questions I am pondering while I am in Finland. Here are some initial thoughts as an outsider looking in.
First, the vocational system is amazing, but there are a few societal structures in place that allow this system to work in this country. All workers in Finland are paid a real living wage. The person working in the grocery store stocking shelves, the waiter at a restaurant, the housekeeper in a hotel, the person cleaning the halls in the hospital, the hairdresser, and the auto mechanic are all paid enough to live comfortably enough and can take care of their families. Of course, in Finland people pay very high taxes, but they are also very well supported by their government. As long as they are contributing meaningfully to the society by working, they do not pay for medical care or worry about how they will live in retirement. Education is extremely important to Finns so to get any job you need either a vocational qualification or high school diploma, so the dropout rate overall is very low. As long as a person goes through the system and completes secondary education he or she is rewarded with a living wage and government support for life. As long as Americans consider certain jobs "unskilled labor" and allows business owners to pay a minimum wage that is not a living wage, vocational education will not be embraced. If America does not value education and hires people without qualifications to do the same job as someone that has studied and earned a certificate, there will be no reason to complete education. It also means that employers need to resign themselves to training new employees frequently because people are not going to stay in a minimum wage job if they can find something better, nor are the employees going to have the skills coming into the job if they don't need any sort of qualification to do the job. I'm not advocating for one system or another; I am pointing out the difference between the two countries and why the system in Finland is particular to their situation and works for them.
Students with special needs are spread throughout the education system and can be found at all grade levels and in all the different paths through the education maze of Finland. Finland places a lot of emphasis on early intervention and student remediation is started as soon as a problem is noted. Kids are kids throughout the world and there are students with ADHD, learning disabilities, Asperger's and other disabilities in Jyvaskyla and Finland, just like in Kent and the United States. Special education teachers are in compulsory schools as well as in lukios and colleges and students can receive accommodations when necessary. However, students also have a lot of choice when deciding what to do for high school. Teachers have all agreed that it really is a choice the students make and in most cases parents are not pressuring their students to go to one track over another. Students that really struggle to read or have ADHD may choose the vocational track because they will get to work with their hands more and learn skills, but vocational work does not mean they will not have to do any reading or writing or math. They may not have to read Hamlet, but they will have to learn to read a recipe, directions, or a user's manual. They may not have to do calculus, but they do have to learn how to convert measurements, calculate profits and losses or figure out medication doses. This makes so much sense!! As I watch some of my own students struggle through trigonometry, Equus, or chemistry I find myself finding it absurd that the student is required to pass the class in order to get a high school diploma. Students know themselves fairly well by the time they are fifteen and in Finland they are expected to make the choice that fits them best. And if they make the wrong choice? That's ok! They can change! They can move from one track to the other! They can choose a different vocation! And students that really aren't sure at the end of compulsory school can take an additional year to figure out what they want to do.
All these choices seem like they might confuse students. However, the choices don't confuse students and instead motivate them. Students are much more invested in their education in Finland for several reasons, but choice at the secondary level is a key factor. At the traditional high school level they are given so many choices of classes and they can study what they like and can avoid what they find less interesting. There are, of course, some minimum requirements, but they are much more flexible than United States high school requirements. The college application and acceptance process is also very different so parents aren't trying to steer their children towards certain subjects to make a transcript look desirable. Teachers and counselors don't find themselves spending hours on the phone with parents to design a schedule that is going to look "desirable" for a college. Parents trust their children and the schools to do their jobs: to learn and to teach.
I do want to clarify that this system is not perfect and it's not as easy as just deciding to go to one place or another and doing whatever you want. In small towns there is often only one upper secondary school and one vocational school and it may not offer every field for study. If that is the case, a student can go to a vocational school in a different city. In large cities, such as Jyvaskyla, students decide on their high school through an application process that is largely based on their compulsory school grades. I have visited a few upper secondary schools that are actually quite competitive to attend. Students need to complete an application in the winter and then must wait to hear if they are accepted and then have to choose their high school based on their acceptances. Some schools also have a specific focus such as sports or music and the student then may need references from coaches or auditions. However, if a student wants to go to an academic track high school he will have a place and get to go; it just might not be his top choice of school. For vocational studies students also need to apply to their specific track and again they are selected based on their grades from compulsory education if the track is one that is very competitive or has more interest than spaces available. Sometimes students do not get to study the field they want and then they have to resign themselves to a different field. Finns are proud of their system and that there is a lot of equality in the system and teachers state that there is no tracking in schools. However, the reality isn't exactly as clear. Students are ultimately tracked into certain high schools in large cities based on their grades and certain tracks at vocational school are more full of high achieving or low achieving students than others. Regardless, the system is working in Finland as the drop out rate overall is very low and the people all seem proud of their education system. I am excited to keep digging and learning more about students with special needs in the upper secondary school tracks. Stay tuned! There's more coming about my specific school visits soon!