From the book Teach Like Finland by Timothy D. Walker
Couple of compelling points from this book, which relate to my real life, are going to be delivered right below.
- Mindset of American vs Finnish teachers
Back when Timothy was teaching an elementary school in Arlington, the US, he felt that teaching was an exhausting job. He almost had no (positive) energy left when he got home. He brought the works to home, shorten his sleep duration, and planned for next day teaching activity. His Finnish wife suggested him taking a leave for a while to refresh mentally and physically.
Then, they decided moving to Finland for good and Timothy got a teaching job as well in Helsinki. He immediately noticed that he was the only teacher who stayed until 4 pm, when his colleagues already left at 3 pm, just a moment after their duties has been finished. Frequently, the headmaster whispered him that the working time had been over that day. Even, the other teachers don’t bring their works home. What a surprising fact for Timothy, someone whose the American teacher’s culture was still stuck on him. As a matter of fact, Finnish teacher are generally happier and enjoys the teaching duties. While the American see that the success is the end product of hardworking (rather said as overworking), the Finnish see the happiness is the root of success.
Timothy profoundly learned that teachers emotion/energy would influence students mood and subsequently their learning outcomes. Positive mood by teacher leads to students pleasure studying in the class. Happiness is the key and it starts from the teacher, down to the student. The difference of mindset between those two countries becomes obvious here, either: success determines happiness or happinnes should be in process of achieving success, in terms of learning outcomes.
- How break between the classes change the game of education
Related to the previous point, the break between classes is one derivative implementation of happiness factor in academic. Rather than having a 15-minute break after the whole 3 hours of continuous class, the idea of short break (5-15 minutes) after only 45 minutes of an intensive class is proposed in this book. Some studies support this learning structure in order to get a highly effective learning process.
Giving students and teachers time to refresh and reflect what they have just learned is proven to bring more enjoyable learning and teaching activities. More breaks doesn’t make the study materials (from the planned curriculum) won’t be completely delivered, instead this leads to better understanding of the student. I experienced this myself during my master-degree study in France. Every 1-hour of lecture or tutorial were followed by 15-minute break where students can have chit-chats and sipping a cup of coffee. This reveals the fact that even though the students were sufficiently mature for long period of study, they still need breaks for the brain.
Both points suggests that education is indeed a marathon, rather than a sprint, which everyone should enjoy the run.
MW
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