Growing up Finnish

Last year I was able to take a visit with one of my classes to a Finnish kindergarten. Stepping into the brightly lit main room, we were first greeted by a child being gently prompted to put on his shoes to go outside. He stared as twenty or so of us multicultural university students filed in. We were lead to a large room lined with benches along one wall. In the corner, were hobby horses hanging from the wall. In another corner there were puppets, and in another, guitars hanging in a line.

Finnish kindergartens are a different world from kindergartens in the US. The children in Finnish kindergartens are anywhere from 1-5 years old. They spend their time playing with peers and exploring the world (much of it outside) while in the US, kindergarten is for five year olds who are preparing for first grade. If children in Finnish kindergartens don’t want to learn to read, they don’t have to. Tuition for kindergarten depends on the parents’ income level to make it affordable for everyone (mandatory preschool and basic education, and University education are all free though).

But more than all of these glossy exteriors of Finnish kindergartens, what I have begun to realize is the very heart of kindergarten is different. And by this, I mean the definition of childhood.

This realization hit me when the teachers at the kindergarten described a project on families that they had done the semester before. The idea had come from a group of children who wanted to put cloth over some tables to create houses for their “family.” Soon the entire class was involved, breaking off into smaller family units. Some families had two parents and children, others were single parent households (the teacher did not mention if there were any same sex families). In one group, the children talked amongst themselves about how there was no father and where the father may have been.

Eventually, what had started off as a simple idea grew into an elaborate dramatic play about an entire human life span. The "parents" assigned themselves jobs. The kids who were the children in their “families” eventually wanted to grow up and have jobs as well. A market was set up complete with prices and fake money for children to purchase goods for their family.  One day the kindergarten had a “wedding” for two kids who wanted to get married (the wedding was complete with a veil and bow tie for the “couple”).

The teachers telling us about this unit emphasized that all of this had come from the children, with some prompting from the teachers who gently guided them into thinking more deeply about what they were doing and why.

It is this trust in children even when they are young that makes childhood in Finland so different. They are encouraged to be whoever they choose to be and are accepted for their choices. And they are allowed to develop at their own pace and in their own way.

This contrasts with the culture of individual achievement that the US puts on both children and adults. There is a pressure that even children as young as 3 need to be able to do certain tasks in order to not fall behind. Those kids who are able to meet these requirements are rewarded with more attention and affection. In my teaching courses, we were often warned about the temptation to focus on the children who can already do the tasks that we want them to do and to give less attention to the ones who are struggling. There is a sense of urgency because if young children do not achieve, they will fall behind and their future prospects may be diminished. This is not a fault of the teachers, it is necessity in a society where there are few alternatives for people who do not go on to college.

Here, more attention is given to the struggling students (to a fault, the gifted students are often left unchallenged and used as peer mentors for the struggling students). If a student finishes basic education and does not want to go to University, they can go to vocational school without feeling inadequate or lesser than their scholarly peers. And if they change their mind, they can always change tracks. Best of all, there is no judgement associated with going to vocational school or the less academically driven Universities of Applied Sciences.

This is not to say that Finland understands children perfectly. I’ve had two non-Finnish parents complain about how their children are far advanced compared to their peers but have been recruited as tutors instead of being given work at their own level. And PISA scores have shown how immigrant students are not doing as well as their Finnish peers.

But the culture of acceptance instead of individual competitiveness is something I have started to greatly appreciate. A friend of mine who is from the US said that here she does not feel stressed wondering if she is not doing enough for her professional career. I understand what she means. Because in Finland, it’s not only the people at the top who are considered successful. You get to decide what your success is.