Teach Like Finland - Vignesh Prasad

## Highlights the way in which they seem to value happiness more than achievement. They make small, simple decisions to promote joyful teaching and learning, and in the end, as numerous PISA tests have shown, their students do well anyway. — location: 259 ^ref-40145 --- “Tim, you’re not a human doing,” a mentor teacher in Boston used to remind me. “You’re a human being.” — location: 296 ^ref-60482 --- “Decades of research have shown that happiness is not the outcome of success but rather its precursor,” — location: 352 ^ref-43466 --- One researcher, Amanda Moreno, has noted the value of something called a “calm spot.” Teachers have told Moreno that, thanks to calm spots, some of their students who once had several tantrums per day now have zero (Deruy, 2016). — location: 441 ^ref-47994 --- But I soon detected another obvious problem: my students were sitting down nearly 100 percent of every class. Intuitively I knew this was problematic, and later I would find out why. — location: 453 ^ref-47867 --- allowing kids to complete work while standing, and replacing conventional chairs with exercise balls so that students can bounce and learn simultaneously. — location: 528 ^ref-52302 --- Students fasten their presentations to the walls of the classroom or hallway as if they were exhibiting their work in an art gallery. Each display is numbered, and the children rotate from exhibit to exhibit systematically, spending a minute or two carefully studying each one. — location: 537 ^ref-13884 --- children “were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed” (Fisher, Godwin, & Seltman, 2014, p. 1362). As teachers, reducing the external stimuli in our classrooms is especially important for young students, because the ability to focus is something that develops as children age. — location: 677 ^ref-38001 --- If I’m exhibiting a lack of discernment about what gets displayed, throwing (almost) everything on the walls, such as hastily completed homework assignments, the students get the opposite message. In my experience, they care less about what gets shown. — location: 718 ^ref-19213 --- At Kalevala Comprehensive School, where Minna works, teachers and students partly condition the air the “natural” way by opening classroom windows. “In Finland, there are very clear regulations about how many pupils you can take in a certain space,” Minna told me. “It’s been calculated by the officials that if you have so and so many square meters and so much height in the classroom, then you can only take so and so many pupils.” — location: 747 ^ref-8083 --- classroom objects showing educational accomplishments of traditionally disadvantaged groups (such as posters that depict female scientists) can bolster the performance of such groups. — location: 776 ^ref-25587 --- “The research strongly suggests that time in nature can help many children learn to build confidence in themselves; reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, calm children, and help them focus,” Louv said in an email. “There are some indications that natural play spaces can reduce bullying. It can also be a buffer to child obesity and overweight, and offers other psychological and physical health benefits — location: 807 ^ref-55734 --- “Learning is supported by a peaceful and friendly working atmosphere,” — location: 858 ^ref-15042 --- I think there’s wisdom in the approach of many Finnish classrooms I’ve observed, where children can have long stretches of time—while completing independent work—to work quietly. — location: 867 ^ref-31647 --- typically during that first or second week of school, I solicit their ideas for shared classroom expectations and then guide them to whittle down a (usually) long list of rules to just a few overarching precepts. Typically, our rules boil down to three things: respect yourself, respect others, and respect the environment. — location: 887 ^ref-48374 --- One idea is that the class could have its own student-made “noise meter” prominently displayed at the front of the classroom, which teachers and students could regularly use to indicate the noise level of the classroom. — location: 904 ^ref-13471 --- “We’re going to do a listening activity that will help our minds relax and become more focused. First, let’s all sit up nice and tall in our seats with our hands folded in our laps (or on the desk). In a few minutes, I’m going to ring this chime, and we’re going to listen to the sound until it disappears. I find that I can focus my attention on my hearing best when I close my eyes. You can try that, but if you aren’t comfortable closing your eyes, you can lower your gaze to your hands.” — location: 934 ^ref-15588 --- My principal was asking me to share the responsibility of caring for my class, so that the needs of my students would be better addressed. By the end of the meeting, we agreed upon several clear action items. I left the meeting feeling the way that my colleague predicted I would: less alone as a teacher. — location: 987 ^ref-53936 --- found that, with another year with my class, my knowledge of them as unique individuals brought joy to our classroom and greatly benefited my teaching and their learning. — location: 1014 ^ref-61738 --- Although I’m a strong proponent of morning circle, which is something I’ve used in my teaching since I started my career, I think we need to focus, too, on cultivating personal connections, on a daily basis, with each of our students. Morning circle, I’ve found, is especially effective at promoting a sense of joyful community in the classroom, rather than strengthening the individual relationships between teachers and students. — location: 1027 ^ref-48737 --- as teachers, it’s important to model focused intensity during lessons, so that our students know it’s time to focus intently on the learning, but I’ve seen that those occasions of just slowing down with students—at lunch, for example—are essential, too. — location: 1040 ^ref-16555 --- One of the greatest benefits of the home visit is the way it signals to students and their guardians that we care about getting to know each child. I think home visits are especially useful for teachers who have only a year with a particular group of children, because those educators—unlike many Finnish teachers—lack the possibility of getting to know students and their parents over the course of several years. — location: 1061 ^ref-45306 --- the teacher and the students pursued a challenging goal together, and then they celebrated their finished work together. — location: 1154 ^ref-57549 --- I think it’s important to keep this point in mind: a powerful group experience like Camp School is meaningful only to those who participate. Students who sit out won’t achieve the same sense of belonging as the other children. So it’s wise, in my opinion, to cast a vision with your students that promotes the involvement of everyone. — location: 1267 ^ref-64672 --- There are preventive components of KiVa’s strategy: students receive instruction about bullying (with the help of computer software, for example), and they role-play in the classroom (Ring, 2016). — location: 1300 ^ref-60804 --- “In KiVa, you don’t need to say sorry unless you want to,” said Paula Havu. “Because, usually, when you are told to say sorry you don’t necessarily mean it. . . . In KiVa, you try to focus on where the problem is and how you behaved and how you could have behaved differently.” Usually, a follow-up meeting is scheduled with these two parties, two weeks into the future, when the conflict is revisited. — location: 1314 ^ref-38163 --- the second element they suggested—after good teacher–student relationships (a sense of belonging)—was opportunities for children to impact the classroom. — location: 1395 ^ref-9260 --- I began to wonder if the philosophy of gradually releasing responsibility could be more effective if it was flipped around: what if, instead of starting with significant restriction in my classroom, I started with significant freedom? — location: 1407 ^ref-23939 --- At the beginning of this week, we provided our students with a list of tasks to complete in nearly every academic subject. And we told them that we wouldn’t have regular lessons for the next few days. Instead, they would have open blocks where they could finish these tasks at their own pace. We trusted them to reach out to us when they needed help. — location: 1417 ^ref-19821 --- I found myself agreeing with their critique. By assigning everyone the same boatload of tasks, Independent Learning Week had failed to account for their individual learning strengths and interests. For that reason, my students weren’t offered good choices. They were simply following my orders, aligned with the curriculum. — location: 1546 ^ref-26203 --- Too often in my teaching, I think I’ve neglected to identify the interests of all of my students—and that’s the first step. — location: 1565 ^ref-30748 --- I showed the students a You-Tube clip of the Sudbury Valley School, where students are given almost complete freedom in their learning. This model has been widely hailed as the — location: 1597 ^ref-63746 --- my students seemed to want a combination of teacher leadership and student leadership. — location: 1611 ^ref-12895 --- Wielding the strategy make it real doesn’t need to look as ambitious as Me & MyCity, or even as significant as setting up an ice cream station in your classroom—it can look as tiny as the decision to use real needles. The goal of make it real is to promote a sense of purpose in the classroom, which will ultimately bring joy to learners. — location: 1753 ^ref-38967 --- the problem in America’s school system, in this regard, is that there’s too much emphasis on “accountability,” which is fear based, and too little emphasis on “responsibility,” which is trust based. — location: 1769 ^ref-49594 --- After that first year ended, I threw away all of those cardboard magazine holders (most of them were in pretty bad shape already), and I decided that I’d try something different the following year. I’d do what I saw many of my Helsinki colleagues doing with their students: provide my students with only notebooks. The children would take responsibility for keeping track of their things. — location: 1827 ^ref-2323 --- This notion that Finland’s teachers keep their classroom instruction fairly rigid may seem paradoxical, given the reputation that they have for having so much freedom in their work. But I think it’s this characteristic that gives them stability in their day-to-day efforts, allowing them and their students to master content areas. — location: 1932 ^ref-33262 --- My Helsinki colleagues signaled that they viewed the use of these materials as valuable in their classrooms, not as a joy-diminishing obligation. According to teachers I spoke with, the curricula helped them teach well; specifically, the resources helped them to stay focused on essential content, keep pace, and lighten the planning load, so they wouldn’t have to prepare units and lessons from scratch. — location: 1957 ^ref-2051 --- In Helsinki, I found that it was easier to put learning first in the classroom setting when my access (and my students’ access) to technology was limited. I didn’t have the same pressure—internal or external—to integrate technology, which meant that I was more likely to use tech when it enhanced the teaching. — location: 2012 ^ref-40108 --- Anne-Marie Oreskovich, a musician, a math scholar, and the founder of Math Musical Minds, believes that integrating music into math lessons can improve academic learning. For younger children, she suggests the simple exercise of playing enjoyable music with a discernible rhythm: the kids keep the beat (while counting, forward and backward) with simple objects, such as spoons. — location: 2084 ^ref-13874 --- There are two predominant types of worldviews that people bring to life, according to happiness researcher Raj Raghunathan. “One extreme is a kind of scarcity-minded approach, that my win is going to come at somebody else’s loss, which makes you engage in social comparisons,” he said in a 2016 interview with The Atlantic’s Joe Pinsker. “And the other view is what I would call a more abundance-oriented approach, that there’s room for everybody to grow.” — location: 2335 ^ref-24633 --- Researchers have found that higher-status individuals experience higher self-esteem and a greater sense of autonomy in their lives, indicating that being “superior” can actually increase happiness levels. But this finding doesn’t mean that it’s worthwhile to seek superiority—that’s because the pursuit of superiority will probably decrease your level of joy, according to Raghunathan. It would be wiser to seek something called “flow” — location: 2373 ^ref-61670 --- I sensed that the “difficult” parents intimidated them. (Historically, I’ve felt this way, too.) Two of the most popular methods for pacifying these parents seemed to be either flat-out accommodation or running and hiding. — location: 2412 ^ref-42689 ---