{"id":82,"date":"2015-07-17T20:07:43","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T20:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/taughtbyfinland.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2022-05-16T18:58:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T18:58:23","slug":"american-high-school-students-inspired-by-less-stressed-finnish-teens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taughtbyfinland.com\/american-high-school-students-inspired-by-less-stressed-finnish-teens\/","title":{"rendered":"American high school students inspired by less stressed Finnish teens"},"content":{"rendered":"
“The concept of childhood, so vital to the traditional American way of life, is threatened with extinction in the society we have created. Today’s child has become the unwilling, unintended victim of overwhelming stress — the stress borne of rapid, bewildering social change and constantly rising expectations.” – Professor David Elkind in The Hurried Child<\/span> (2001)<\/em><\/p>\n Stressful. That\u2019s how the majority of these American students would describe their overall experience at high school. And as I listen to their stories, it\u2019s easy to see why.<\/p>\n It\u2019s late June and I am sitting in a hotel meeting room in downtown Helsinki with American and Finnish high school students. The group of 30 or so American teens comes from California and Georgia, and they\u2019re visiting Finland on a school trip.<\/p>\n Along with a Finnish teacher, I\u2019m facilitating a \u2018student-exchange\u2019 session where pupils from two different countries get to learn about each other\u2019s experiences with schooling. The dialogue between the Finnish and American students fascinates me.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds like your whole life is planned out for you already,\u201d says a blond Finnish girl, addressing her American peers. She smiles and then confesses, \u201cI\u2019m not even thinking about college yet. I\u2019m like, \u2018College? Wait, what is college?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The Finnish students appear to identify that many of their American peers are walking in lockstep formation through a series of pre-determined life stages:<\/p>\n Perform well in high school, \u201cYeah, from the moment we enter high school we\u2019re told everything matters for college\u201d, one American teen says.<\/p>\n In an effort to get into their preferred colleges, several of these American students admit that they\u2019ve loaded up on AP (advanced placement) courses. The idea is that these classes will make their transcripts much more attractive to prospective colleges. Also, if they score well on the final AP exams, they may qualify for college credits later on, which would potentially save them a lot of tuition dollars. (The Finns in the room are scratching their heads because nothing like AP courses exist in the Finnish system and tuition for college is paid by the government.)<\/p>\n According to these American students, not only is the workload of these AP classes very demanding for them, but there\u2019s tremendous pressure to perform better than their classmates.<\/p>\n At their high school in California, students who take AP classes are given an individual ranking for each AP course, which is based on how well they perform on the course\u2019s assessments. Although these rankings are not publicized, kids talk and news gets around about who\u2019s at the top and who\u2019s at the bottom. So, if you find yourself at the bottom and all of your classmates know about it, let\u2019s just say that high school is not the happiest of places.<\/p>\n But the stress for many of these American high school students comes from several different sources, not just AP courses. To make themselves even more attractive to colleges, they\u2019re advised to participate in extracurricular activities (like sports, the arts, etc.). Maintain a very high GPA. Do community service. Score well on the SATs. Max yourself out (okay, no one would advise you to do that, but this seems like the underlying message for many American high school students).<\/p>\n As these Californians teens describe the realities at their school, my Finnish colleague turns to me and whispers, \u201cIt\u2019s a different world.\u201d<\/p>\n The Americans in the room are amazed to hear that there\u2019s just one series of standardized tests for Finnish high school students. This 163-year-old matriculation examination<\/a> come at the end of high school. Students are required to take the exam in their native language, but can choose other subjects to be assessed in (like math, Swedish, geography, history, chemistry, etc.) They must take at least four exams, but can take more if they so choose.<\/p>\n These tests are very different from the standardized tests that American students are used to.<\/p>\n For one, students will find plenty of essay questions where students are asked to justify their answers. Americans would be surprised by the lack of multiple-choice questions.<\/p>\n These essay-heavy tests are not cheap to grade like the SATs and other American standardized tests (because, you know, computers can\u2019t be hired to grade writing), but they do a much better job of measuring the understanding of students. Here are several writing prompts from the 2014 spring examination<\/a>, provided by the Finnish scholar Dr. Pasi Sahlberg:<\/p>\n \u201cSome politicians, athletes and other celebrities have publicly regretted and apologized for what they have said or done. Discuss the meaning of the apology and accepting it as a social and personal act.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHas your body become your hobby?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMedia is competing for audiences \u2013 what are the consequences?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cChoose three world religions and compare the role and use of a holy image within them.\u201d<\/p>\n During the three-week examination period, students in Finland would have plenty of time to complete each individual test. In her book The Smartest Kids in the World<\/a><\/em>, journalist Amanda Ripley writes that the Finnish language section of the examination stretches over the course of two days. On day one, students have six hours to analyze a few texts and write short essays about them. On day two, they would choose one topic out of fourteen possibilities and have another six hours to write one long essay.<\/p>\n Of course, Finnish students feel pressure to perform well on the matriculation examination (they have to pass at least four of the tests to graduate from high school) but there\u2019s plenty of time to prepare for them. My wife had more than a month without classes just to study on her own.<\/p>\n After graduating from high school, it\u2019s common for Finnish young people to take a gap-year before pursuing a degree in higher education whereas it\u2019s somewhat rare to find Americans who decide not to go straight from high school to college. (Many Finns travel abroad during their gap-years, exploring the world on a budget or working a job in another country.)<\/p>\n And when Finnish young people do start their college degrees, they don\u2019t seem particularly eager to finish right away. On my first day as a teacher in Finland, I met two Finnish colleagues who took about ten years to complete their bachelor and master\u2019s degrees in teaching. When I share this anecdote with the American high school students in the room, their eyes bulge.<\/p>\n Yes, my American friends, it truly is a different world here in Finland.<\/p>\n ***<\/i><\/p>\n Tim Walker is an American teacher and writer based in Finland. He writes regularly about education and culture at Taught by Finland<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nso you can get into your college of choice,
\nso you can get a good job (to pay off all of your student debt and buy a house),
\nso you can raise a family and live a happy life.
\n(Notice that the happy life part of this progression is supposed to come when you are a grownup.)<\/p>\n