First Grade in Finland: Every Day is a Half Day

When I was teaching first grade in the Greater Boston area, my Finnish wife, Johanna, loved to tell me about schools in Finland. Most of what she told me sounded mythical.

According to Johanna, Finnish children started first grade at age seven. Their school days were often just four hours long. Her close Finnish friend, a first grade teacher in Helsinki, worked about 30 hours each week, including prep time.

For years, I refused to believe my wife. My reality as an American first grade teacher was just too different from the one she described.

Many of my first grade students were a full year or two younger than their Finnish peers. Our school days lasted seven hours. Unlike Johanna’s friend, I was pulling in 50-hour weeks of teaching and planning. I just didn’t believe that another way was possible until I started teaching in Finland.

***

In the hallways of my Finnish school, I often observe first graders packing up their backpacks to go home at 12:00. Even though the school year began in August, this is still a strange sight for me. This would have been the sign of a half-day at my previous school. In Finland, this is normal for first graders.

As a first grade teacher in the States, I found that the afternoon was the toughest part of the school day. When my students returned from lunch and recess around 1:00 PM, I noticed a sharp drop in their energy levels. And they weren’t the only ones who were tired. I was exhausted, too.

During the afternoon, I often felt the urge to give my young students time for unstructured play. Sometimes I’d hear them wistfully recall how there used to be free play in kindergarten. On the rare half-day, my students were always brimming over with excitement.

Even though my American first graders craved unstructured time, I would feel guilty about providing it in the classroom. In my mind, free play was babyish. It was non-academic. Although my students and I found ways of coping with the afternoon blues, I always wondered about the Finnish model that my wife would rave about. Was there a way for first graders to have enough time for both work and play in a school setting?

***

Although I’m a fifth grade classroom teacher in Finland, I’ve been able to spend several hours observing and co-teaching first grade classes at my school. I’ve found that first grade in Finland is actually quite academic. I’ve yet to see first grade teachers who use class time for unstructured play.

What I have seen, however, is a school structure that provides children with more opportunities to play. Each lesson is one hour long, but according to Finnish law*, teachers are allowed to incorporate a 15-minute break. On almost every occasion, younger students spend these breaks outside with their friends.In Child and Adolescent Development for Educators, published in 2008, professors Judith Meece and Denise Daniels praise the wisdom of structuring regular breaks for social interactions and physical exercises throughout the school day. Research has shown that these breaks can boost concentration in the classroom.

Although first graders in Finland usually spend just four hours at school, these break times obviously reduce the total number of hours that they log in the classroom. All told, they only spend about three hours in class each day. Even on a half-day at my previous school, my American first graders would still put in more classroom hours than their Finnish peers on a full-day schedule.

Heading home at 12:00 or 1:00 PM gives these young Finnish students more opportunities to engage in deep play. This is the type of play that helps children to develop creativity and analytical thinking.

According to Myae Han, assistant professor of human development and family studies at the University of Delaware, children need about 30 minutes to reach a deeper level of play. Researchers have found that children prevent themselves from achieving this improved quality of play if they sense impending interruption. So, in this regard, providing children with ample time for free play is an important step.

Of course, this is a difficult task to accomplish in most elementary schools, even in Finland. This is why shortening the number of school hours for young children is sensible. It provides them with more time to access this deeper level of play afterschool.

***

There is mounting pressure to increase the amount of time that American students spend in school.

In his recent State of the State speech, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said, “It’s time to lengthen both the school day and the school year in New Jersey. This is a key step to improve students outcomes and boost our competitiveness.” According to Governor Christie, the current school calendar is “antiquated.” He seems to believe that increasing the quantity of school hours will improve the quality of a student’s education.

Governor Christie is misguided. It’s not the length of the school year that is antiquated, but the length of the typical school day for America’s youngest students. Why do most American first graders put in the same number of hours as upper-elementary students? In Finland, students in the younger grades have less hours of school than the older ones. Ironically, my fifth graders in Helsinki have less class time each day than the first graders I used to teach in the Greater Boston area.

Every day I see first graders who thrive with shorter school days in Finland. They can (and often do) spend hours engaged in deep play long after the school day has ended, developing their creativity and analytical thinking skills.

***

Timothy D. Walker is an American teacher living in Finland and the author of the new book Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms. He is a contributing writer on education issues for The Atlantic.

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This post was originally published during the 2013-2014 school year. Thanks for reading and sharing! (Photo credit: Mathieudu68)

*Originally I wrote erroneously that, according to Finnish law, students are promised a 15-minute break for every classroom hour. I regret the error.

7 Comments

I am a home school mom in Texas and find the articles on Finland schools fascinating! I have one question after reading several articles. If these children are going to school half a day and coming home to an empty house where they have deeper more meaningful play, why is that? In America most children go home and watch TV, play video games or play on the computer or iPhone. How is Finland different with screen time?

Great question, Wendy! Screen time is a issue in Finland, too. But what I noticed at my Helsinki school — where 70% of first and second graders attend the subsidized “afternoon club” — is that most children are spending several hours of each weekday engaged in deep play. Some of these young children have their own cell phones, but many of them choose not to play games on them, so that they can play with their friends. This practice of “afternoon club” — where first and second graders spend their afterschool hours playing freely — is common throughout Finland (and often happening at the location of the school). In other words, some young Finnish children spend time alone at their homes (on their devices, perhaps), but many of them are playing with their friends through these clubs. FYI, I will be republishing a blog post soon where I’ll share what I learned when I spent an afternoon with first and second graders at my Helsinki school. But in the meantime you’d probably be interested in this recent article, “After the school day in Finland, play and more play”: http://youthtoday.org/2015/10/after-the-school-day-in-finland-play-and-more-play/. Thanks again for the question, and I’m glad to hear that you find these articles interesting!

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I guess I just wanted to share my experiences even though this is probably a long and mostly useless comment.

As someone who has gone trough most of the Finnish system (I’m an uni student at the moment) I can tell that the 30% not going to the afternoon clubs don’t necessarily spend their afternoons home. When I was seven years old I was already practicing figure skating at least five times a week. So after school I got my travel card and hopped in the bus to get to the ice rink for practice. Usually between ice time and practice on dry land (where the break was sometimes two hours!) we engaged in free play outside, unsupervised. Then again it was the 90’s and Finnish economy wasn’t doing too good. jumping rope and local sports field were the only things we could play with. I had a phone but it had no games and it was only for calling my parents if I needed something. Very good thing to have even though it was never a problem when we had only the landline. I know many of my peers had some after school hobby where someone was looking after them until their parents got home.

To be honest I commuted to practice on my own before I was even forced to pay for the bus there (which happens at the age of 7). I read the post where you talked about how independent Finnish children are. Meanwhile I was shocked to hear that in other countries children weren’t free to do as they wanted. I would have felt like a prisoner if I was forced to live like kids in the US do. Sure taking the bus on my own during the dark and cold winter months wasn’t always fun but I’d still rather take that than give up my freedom and let parents or school bus or whatever take me everywhere with no me-time whatsoever. I like walking home on my own (even when it’s dark out there and my nose freezes). It’s kinda hard to explain but somehow those moments keep me sane. I guess it’s the famous connection between us Finns and nature.

What is a typical day in third grade?
Example
8-8:45 independent read
9-9:45 math
10-10:45 physical education

I would like to know this as well. How much of the education they receive is hands on learning? My daughter’s kindergarten class has such low hands on activities for learning (mostly worksheets), that’s what I’d like to know! Does Finnish education rely on worksheets as much as American teachers do??

I attended an “English speaking” school in Helsinki from 1956 to 1959 (grades 3-5) because my father had a diplomatic assignment there. In those days Finland was struggling to recover from the costs of WWII, and there was also a strong effort for universal literacy, so school was a bit different .The Finnish government invited a group of American nuns to establish an English Language school to help promote multilingual skills for Finnish students, at least I think that’s why they were there. The school day and calendar conformed to the Finnish calendar at the time. We were in school Mon through Sat, from 8:30 AM to 4 PM. However, we had 2 hours of non-academic activities every afternoon, and many breaks for outside play throughout the day. The American nuns were strict and some could be very cruel, so the days were not always happy ones for the kids. However, my experience of the rest of Finnish culture with respect to children was very much as you are describing. I could go anywhere in the greater Helsinki area alone on the bus or trams, and was always aware that the adults around me were looking out for me, and also ready to step in if I misbehaved (so I didn’t!) The Finnish people clearly valued children and showed much kindness, including providing free activities at community centers such as gymnastics and skiing. We children had our duties, principally to show respect to adults, but the rewards were great. When I returned to the United States I felt very mistrusted by most adults, whose behavior toward even their own children seemed distant. I was sad to have left such a nurturing community. I was also stranded in a boring suburb with no access to public transportation. TV became a much bigger part of my life.

Love this…. I loved outside of Lahti (Vierumaki) for a year.. and I’m now teaching K-1… It is a struggle every day for me to not feel these things you wrote about in this piece.

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