http://warrick.edublogs.org/2008/11/10/finland-rules/ reflecting on teaching, learning and technology in k-12 education Sun, 08 Mar 2009 10:08:49 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 hourly 1 http://warrick.edublogs.org/2008/11/10/finland-rules/comment-page-1/#comment-588 Graham Wegner Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:10:25 +0000 http://warrick.edublogs.org/?p=365#comment-588 I remember seeing a presentation from Terry Woolley, a former principal and curriculum director here in South Australia where he was analysing these often cited international testing results. He pointed out that he thought that considering our restraints, Australia does extremely well against the countries mentioned ahead of us, including Finland. He talked about several factors that give Finland the edge over us including a very phonetic home language, a monocultural society (nothing like Australia's refugee intake which has significant impact on our data), almost double the average funding compared to GDP and a comparatively small population. But this certainly isn't <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/03/1064988396000.html" rel="nofollow">new</a> to any of us who are wondering if our nation is willing to adopt any of the Finnish strategies or structures. I remember seeing a presentation from Terry Woolley, a former principal and curriculum director here in South Australia where he was analysing these often cited international testing results. He pointed out that he thought that considering our restraints, Australia does extremely well against the countries mentioned ahead of us, including Finland. He talked about several factors that give Finland the edge over us including a very phonetic home language, a monocultural society (nothing like Australia’s refugee intake which has significant impact on our data), almost double the average funding compared to GDP and a comparatively small population. But this certainly isn’t new to any of us who are wondering if our nation is willing to adopt any of the Finnish strategies or structures.

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