thisisFINLAND Foreign Correspondents' Programme
Experiencing Finland through the young journalist's eyes
Platitudes about education are not hard to find. Education is “the key to success in life”. It is lauded as “our greatest natural resource” and proclaimed to be “the single most important job of the human race”.
But all this implies that education is a uniform, unchanging force for good. Far from it: education is shape-shifting and can serve myriad purposes, whether indoctrination or ...
Ever since the quiet and soft-spoken nation of Finland was placed in the spotlight because of its educational system thanks to its PISA results, the whole world has been wondering what makes Finland so good in education.
I got my first answer without even asking. “We are very good at reading! People here learn to read even before they go to school,” a young Finn told me. To me, it seems like ...
“When you are really happy, in Finland we say smile like a Hanko biscuit.”
This was what Leena, our tour guide in Hanko said before she got off the bus. On the way to our accommodation I kept thinking about the ‘Hanko biscuit smile’. Actually that was the exact expression we all had on our faces all day long today.
On our fourth day we had a bus tour to Hanko and during the trip Professor ...
The second day of our programme was partly dedicated to Finnish culture and Finnish national character.
It’s really easy for me to work with the Finns but considering my experience of communicating with Finnish people I can say that they’re a little bit strange even for Russians.
In my opinion the main difference between the Finns and Russians is in their punctuality and compliance with the laws. ...