What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Finland's teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.

By ELLEN GAMERMAN
February 29, 2008; Page W1

Helsinki, Finland

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers.

Finland's students are the brightest in the world, according to an international test. Teachers say extra playtime is one reason for the students' success. WSJ's Ellen Gamerman reports.

The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. In the most recent test, which focused on science, Finland's students placed first in science and near the top in math and reading, according to results released late last year. An unofficial tally of Finland's combined scores puts it in first place overall, says Andreas Schleicher, who directs the OECD's test, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The U.S. placed in the middle of the pack in math and science; its reading scores were tossed because of a glitch. About 400,000 students around the world answered multiple-choice questions and essays on the test that measured critical thinking and the application of knowledge. A typical subject: Discuss the artistic value of graffiti.

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it's done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus, has no sports teams, marching bands or prom.

Fanny Salo in class

Trailing 15-year-old Fanny Salo at Norssi gives a glimpse of the no-frills curriculum. Fanny is a bubbly ninth-grader who loves "Gossip Girl" books, the TV show "Desperate Housewives" and digging through the clothing racks at H&M stores with her friends.

Fanny earns straight A's, and with no gifted classes she sometimes doodles in her journal while waiting for others to catch up. She often helps lagging classmates. "It's fun to have time to relax a little in the middle of class," Fanny says. Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker students rather than by pushing gifted students ahead of everyone else. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress.

At lunch, Fanny and her friends leave campus to buy salmiakki, a salty licorice. They return for physics, where class starts when everyone quiets down. Teachers and students address each other by first names. About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats.

TESTING AROUND THE GLOBE

Every three years, 15-year-olds in 57 countries around the world take a test called the Pisa exam, which measures proficiency in math, science and reading.

• The test: Two sections from the Pisa science test

• Chart: Recent scores for participating countries

DISCUSS

Do you think any of these Finnish methods would work in U.S. schools? What would you change -- if anything -- about the U.S. school system, and the responsibilities that teachers, parents and students are given? Share your thoughts.

Fanny's more rebellious classmates dye their blond hair black or sport pink dreadlocks. Others wear tank tops and stilettos to look tough in the chilly climate. Tanning lotions are popular in one clique. Teens sift by style, including "fruittari," or preppies; "hoppari," or hip-hop, or the confounding "fruittari-hoppari," which fuses both. Ask an obvious question and you may hear "KVG," short for "Check it on Google, you idiot." Heavy-metal fans listen to Nightwish, a Finnish band, and teens socialize online at irc-galleria.net.

The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines. Teachers must hold master's degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom.

Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. "In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs," says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.

One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.

Ymmersta school principal Hannele Frantsi

Finland shares its language with no other country, and even the most popular English-language books are translated here long after they are first published. Many children struggled to read the last Harry Potter book in English because they feared they would hear about the ending before it arrived in Finnish. Movies and TV shows have Finnish subtitles instead of dubbing. One college student says she became a fast reader as a child because she was hooked on the 1990s show "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In November, a U.S. delegation visited, hoping to learn how Scandinavian educators used technology. Officials from the Education Department, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians saw Finnish teachers with chalkboards instead of whiteboards, and lessons shown on overhead projectors instead of PowerPoint. Keith Krueger was less impressed by the technology than by the good teaching he saw. "You kind of wonder how could our country get to that?" says Mr. Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, an association of school technology officers that organized the trip.

Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon, Mich., where strict rules didn't translate into tougher lessons or dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether they did their homework. They would reply: " 'Nah. So what'd you do last night?'" she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice. The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which to write. In-class projects were largely "glue this to the poster for an hour," she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.

At the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, school principal Helena Muilu

Lloyd Kirby, superintendent of Colon Community Schools in southern Michigan, says foreign students are told to ask for extra work if they find classes too easy. He says he is trying to make his schools more rigorous by asking parents to demand more from their children.

Despite the apparent simplicity of Finnish education, it would be tough to replicate in the U.S. With a largely homogeneous population, teachers have few students who don't speak Finnish. In the U.S., about 8% of students are learning English, according to the Education Department. There are fewer disparities in education and income levels among Finns. Finland separates students for the last three years of high school based on grades; 53% go to high school and the rest enter vocational school. (All 15-year-old students took the PISA test.) Finland has a high-school dropout rate of about 4% -- or 10% at vocational schools -- compared with roughly 25% in the U.S., according to their respective education departments.

Another difference is financial. Each school year, the U.S. spends an average of $8,700 per student, while the Finns spend $7,500. Finland's high-tax government provides roughly equal per-pupil funding, unlike the disparities between Beverly Hills public schools, for example, and schools in poorer districts. The gap between Finland's best- and worst-performing schools was the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The U.S. ranks about average.

Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance. But even the best universities don't have the elite status of a Harvard.

Students at the Ymmersta School near Helsinki

Taking away the competition of getting into the "right schools" allows Finnish children to enjoy a less-pressured childhood. While many U.S. parents worry about enrolling their toddlers in academically oriented preschools, the Finns don't begin school until age 7, a year later than most U.S. first-graders.

Once school starts, the Finns are more self-reliant. While some U.S. parents fuss over accompanying their children to and from school, and arrange every play date and outing, young Finns do much more on their own. At the Ymmersta School in a nearby Helsinki suburb, some first-grade students trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness. At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up their own skates or put on their own skis.

The Finns enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, but they, too, worry about falling behind in the shifting global economy. They rely on electronics and telecommunications companies, such as Finnish cellphone giant Nokia, along with forest-products and mining industries for jobs. Some educators say Finland needs to fast-track its brightest students the way the U.S. does, with gifted programs aimed at producing more go-getters. Parents also are getting pushier about special attention for their children, says Tapio Erma, principal of the suburban Olari School. "We are more and more aware of American-style parents," he says.

Mr. Erma's school is a showcase campus. Last summer, at a conference in Peru, he spoke about adopting Finnish teaching methods. During a recent afternoon in one of his school's advanced math courses, a high-school boy fell asleep at his desk. The teacher didn't disturb him, instead calling on others. While napping in class isn't condoned, Mr. Erma says, "We just have to accept the fact that they're kids and they're learning how to live."

Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com

孟丽秋专访：“计划外经历”决定人生

社会 | 2008.02.27

孟丽秋专访：“计划外经历”决定人生

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 后现代风格的慕尼黑工大：滑梯取代电梯

2月21日，慕尼黑工大在官方网站上发布消息称：该校航空摄影测量和地图研究所所长孟丽秋教授将从4月1日起成为慕尼黑工大的副校长，孟丽秋教授也因此成 为了首位跻身德国高校管理层的华人。德国之声中文网对孟丽秋教授进行了专访，孟教授也敞开心扉畅谈了自己目前面临的压力和挑战。

压力来自完全陌生的领域

孟教授是学地图学出身，从上大学到现在已经将近30年了，她从未离开过自己的本行，孟教授认为自己在这方面很幸运。在成为慕尼黑工大副校长之前，孟教授一直担任慕尼黑工大航空摄影测量和地图研究所所长，她的研究方向覆盖了地图学的所有方面，包括基础研究和应用研究。

在接受德国之声中文网采访时孟教授坦言，自己要 面对的压力主要来自马上要进入陌生的管理领域：“我目前在学术方面刚刚渐入佳境就马上要淡出，因为毕竟副校长是一个行政工作比较重的职位。我必须将研究所 的人士和科研工作重新调整，才有心思在新的平台上做事。这个新的平台对我来说非常的陌生，可以说之前我很少关心学校建设，国际关系等行政工作。离开自己所 熟悉的东西，去做陌生的工作，对我的压力也是很大的。”

之前合作过的同事，为孟教授突然淡出学术领域感 到若有所失，孟教授本人更是如此：“我唯一的希望就是将来有一天会回到自己的本专业，安安静静的做我的研究工作。为了能实现这样的目标，所以我现在正在重 新安排，希望能有人能暂时代替我管理研究所，这样研究所的工作才不会陷入瘫痪。”

“计划外经历”决定人生

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: 孟丽秋近影孟丽秋教授是拿了国家教委的奖学金在汉诺威完成博士学位的，原本她是想直接回中国的。而就在这个时候，她的导师表示希望孟丽秋能协助他申请一个自然科学基金的项目。项目顺利的批下来之后，孟教授也面临着新的抉择：是接着留在汉诺威再做7年的研究工作还是到第三国工作。

孟丽秋选择了后者，她去了瑞典。先是在瑞典皇家 理工学院任教，后来又进入了企业。虽然都是在欧洲工作，不过瑞典人和德国人的思维方式是截然不同的，这使得原本“一心只读圣贤书”的孟丽秋做出了很大转 变，这成为了其人生经历中宝贵的一部分，也为她今后在慕尼黑的成功埋下了伏笔。

正如“计划外”去瑞典工作一样，之所以能重返德 国并成为慕尼黑工大的副校长，同样是在计划之外的。在德国，想成为C4级教授（德国最高级别教授）是非常苛刻的，必须满足一些硬性条件：除了读过博士学 位，读过教授资格，有工业界工作过的经验外，理想条件下最好还有第三国工作的经验。孟教授说：“我恰好满足了这些条件，再加上我是一名女性，可能是我多了 一些积分。本来我没有这些想法的，但是我的导师亲自到瑞典鼓励我回德国来参加竞争。在这种情况下，我才回到了慕尼黑，如果不是我的导师去找我的话，也许我 就留在瑞典了，所以说我的很多经历都是计划之外的。”

我的面孔代表中国

在科研领域，出色的女科学家比较少，更少有女性 得到教授头衔。对此，孟丽秋教授表示：“我用平常的心态去看待这个问题。在我的日常工作中，我接触到了很多非常出色的女性，从学术质量上来说，她们做教授 是绰绰有余的，只不过每个人都有自己的价值观。有些女性之所以不愿意做教授，她可能把家庭放在了更主要的位置上，这些女性我非常尊重她们。如果她们要去竞 争教授位置的话，她们也有很多的优势。在这个意义上，我从来不觉得自己多么厉害，我只是平平常常一步步走到了这个位置上。对于我而言，家庭和学术生活可以 同步进行。”

如何掌握这种平衡是一种艺术，孟教授自己很好的找到了这个平衡点：“正因为有这个平衡点，所以不管我去做学术研究，还是协调大型的科研项目，那些苦都不算什么了，因为我觉得自己生活得比较平衡。”

作为一名华人科学家，“中国”两个字在孟丽秋教 授心目中有着特殊的意义：“那是无法通过语言来表达的。她是在我的血液中，或者已经硬件化到脑子中。不管是手持什么样护照，对我而言都是次要的，我的面孔 就代表着中国。因为我的所在国是德国，所以我义不容辞的责任就是为中国和德国同时做一些有意义的事情。就是在互惠互利的条件下，我肯定会尽我所能为两国的 友好往来，尤其是科研方面做一些微薄的贡献。这对我而言也是寻找平衡点的过程，我相信我能找到这样的平衡点。”

子江