Finland’s education system is consistently ranked among the world’s best.
One of the ways they’ve maintained this excellence is by exploring dynamic, sometimes unconventional teaching methods. Starting school at seven years old, addressing teachers by first name, short school days, and 15-minutes breaks every 45 minutes are just a few of these approaches.
The country’s latest adjustment: doing away with subjects altogether to pursue a method called ‘teaching by phenomenon’, which encourages students to use a variety of skills to learn a broad topic.
Rather than taking English Literature, for example, students would tackle a topic like the European Union by applying knowledge of geology, geography, and languages.
“There are schools that are teaching in the old-fashioned way which was of benefit in the beginnings of the 1900s — but the needs are not the same and we need something fit for the 21st century,” says Helsinki’s education manager Marjo Kyllonen.
We certainly agree.
Seriously, how many times do you stop and realize you’ve never applied 75% of what you learned in school?
Now, let’s never see calculus on our agenda again…
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