"Maybe this is one of the reasons the Finnish education system works so well"
No it's not. In fact it's pretty much the opposite.
http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/international-compar...
No it's not. In fact it's pretty much the opposite.
http://www.greatschools.org/improvement/international-compar...
(A finnish father here - my son started first grade).
I really need to stress one thing finnish system does differently when compared to UK or france for instance (based on a low anecdotal sample size from families moved from there to here):
The kids do considerably less work and the formal stuff kicks in far more later. The learning is structured so most kids enjoy it.
A quote from the article:
"We believe it is important that learning should be enjoyable. And all kids should be happy to go to school."
This!
For us valuing education does not mean watching over homework, pushing long hours or anything like that.
We expect homework gets done and trust teacher administers enough of them.
Valuing education means we value the work the school does and take all school-home interactions seriously but we do not push kids beyond what they can naturally absorb.