Finland will eliminate school subjects

The Scandinavian countries stand out for being among the richest in Europe and, furthermore, for offering a good educational model. However, along with them, Finland shows a curious trend: despite not enjoying the economic level of its western neighbours, for years it has been above them in the results of the PISA report, which assesses the educational level of 15-year-old adolescents.

In fact, the first time these measurements were carried out, this country surprised by leading the educational ranking with a great advantage over the rest.

Since then, Finland has become a benchmark in education. But it seems that he is not content with a school model that others try to imitate. Now, the country is in the process of changing from top to bottom the way of teaching classes: the subjects disappear and the “projects” appear, in which several skills are worked on at the same time.

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The characteristics of education in Finland

The current Finnish educational model is characterized by a liberalization of education, which moves away from the models based on very rigid master classes in which students copy and memorize what is given to them says. This means that we try to promote the autonomy of the students by making them actively participate in the classes, that cooperate with each other to develop projects and, in general, have a greater degree of freedom when deciding how learn.

On the other hand, it seems that Finnish education achieves more with less. Its annual teaching hours, for example, are less than those of Spain: 608 and 875, respectively. The amount of homework to do at home is also less, and this fits very well with a way of to think that it places parents in a very relevant place with regard to the education of their children. It is understood that education is something that occurs throughout the day, and not just within the walls of the school.

Besides, teacher training is very demanding both for primary and secondary, and it is considered a university and post-university trajectory to which it is difficult to access, as well as very centralized: the ways of training teachers are very similar in all universities from the country. It is for all this, among other things, that in Finland teachers are highly valued and admired.

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What does the disappearance of the subjects consist of?

Finland's new educational paradigm, which is being tested in schools in Helsinki and will be fully implemented by 2020, will be It is based on a premise: to go from educating about content to educating about skills similar to those that will be required in life. adult.

This implies stopping treating topics as if each one of them were a watertight compartment, and making students learn and train in one hour very diverse competencies, in the same way that on a day-to-day basis the challenges do not appear sequentially, but integrated one into the other. others.

Thus, the subjects give way to "projects", in which the subjects that previously belonged to different subjects appear integrated into complex challenges with several layers of competencies. For example, one of the exercises to be carried out may consist of explaining in English the different characteristic ecosystems of various countries. previously studied Europeans, or explain whether a text on economics offers correct data and expresses it in grammatical ways correct.

In this way, the brain of the students will always be working simultaneously on several types of mental processes oriented towards solving a complex problem, which is sometimes known as multiple intelligences.

These projects will be led by groups of various teachers who will combine their skills to offer an environment in which so that students can work in groups and ask questions about different topics without being slowed down by the pace of the class.

Training future workers

The idea of ​​educating in a less rigid way is very seductive, among other things, because it seems to be based on the ideals of romanticism. A class in which activities develop more naturally should be exposed to the risks of that the impositions of "civilization" put limits on the creativity and spontaneous curiosity of the most youths.

However, there is an alternative way of looking at this change in the educational model. For example, interpreting it as a way of subordinate education to the interests of the labor market. It is one thing to work on several types of skills at the same time, and another is to choose the type of projects in which they will be exercised according to what the country's productive machinery needs.

With the disappearance of the subjects and the appearance of a more pragmatic approach, the risk that theoretical-practical projects that produce value added to further eclipse those whose existence does not have to depend on the market but does depend on critical thinking and a global vision of the world, such as the philosophy. Time will tell.