Any thoughts on how this might compare to your own system that you grew up in?

That is the system I grew up in, and now I'm a teacher working in that system.

The issue here is go a google search and you will find 10 different lists and rankings that are so all over the place that you'd think the top 10 or so countries in the world would be all about the same. They all would have different education systems. It would also depend on whether a country is community focused or individualistic focused. Some countries teach children to work together to solve problems some teach them to do it themselves and not work in groups. I lived in both systems growing up.

I honestly think it comes down to an individual and how they prefer to learn. Forcing certain kids to form into a certain routine will not work for them and they just give up as the pace may be too quick for them. Me personally i liked to get shit over and done with that way I have more free time. So for example a school project that was meant to take months to do i would work hard for two weeks (5-7 hours a night after school) to get it done. Then i would kick back and enjoy my time off lol.

My only flaw that i still hate to this day is that at a younger age school for me was too easy, it actual made me disinterested in learning later on in higher education and i was going through the motions of study and over study without absorbing anything. Took me a while to get out of that routine.

Generally speaking when i got older i go stuck into the trap of i must study a lot to get good grades to get into uni. The issue there was i started over thinking it during tests and would question if i did something right or wrong and would fail as I over studied but in practice I wasn't absorbing information when I studied. When i took the relaxed approach I went with my gut intuition of what i knew and stuck with it. Uni for me was similar, when i studied longer i then started to second guess myself (ie. in Maths when the answer was 0, i wondered did i do it right, did i have the calculator on degree or should it be on radians).

My routine switched to a more relaxed, rock up to class and not take notes. Just sit there and listen and absorb the information. Then at the end of the month i would borrow someones notes and copy them. What i found was when i put 100% effort into concentrating and not dividing my attention in listening and writing I retained information easier and when i wrote it out later i still remembered like it was a fresh lecture in my head.

Now on the flip side I know people that cannot be that relaxed and need to write out a maths problem 10 times before they understand it.

So concluding. It is hard to judge from that video as it is very short. I think a balance between structure and freedom needs to exist, otherwise some kids will just go completely offtrack. 3 to 4 hours a day at school seems a little short, however the life experiences these kids learnt i learn after school because i've always had insomnia and was always keen to learn things late at night, so i can't judge for everyone. If you can give a child confidence in people skills, logical problem solving, and not giving up and be determined to get there, they will be able to handle most adult jobs later on. I also think kids with greater intelligence need to be guided more to ensure they do not become disinterested, make them challenge the way they think and solve problems.

- Finland sucked at education

- changed system and world ranking skyrocketed

- secret sauce no homework

- 3-4 a day at school only (20 hours a week)

- no standardised testing, no multiple choice answers

- encourage you to aim for what you want

- all schools equal standard (as mostly free education and public) so rich kids and poor kids mix and become friends. meaning later in live rich kids will think twice before they screw their mates over

Not at all a realistic model to strive for because a major factor to Finland's success in their educational system are their demographics. It's rather just an anomaly I'd say ...

According to the latest PISA rankings, we're doing slightly better than Finland but even we don't have such amenities like no homework, very short school hours or a lack of standardized testing ...

For most nations out there, they should not model their educational system after Finland but ideally something like Singapore or Hong Kong because most of the best post-secondary schools absolutely have compulsory standardized testing for post-secondary school program qualifications. Weak students do NOT have a place in higher educational institutions and should not deserve a seat either in that case. Scholars should be encouraged to be hardcore test takers since that is what matters most in universities ...

First of all: 'Where to invade next' from Michael Moore is a great movie with an excellent idea. Still Moore focuses on some stuff, while others would focus on different things. That said some things of this are great. I am personally doubtful about no homeworks for instance, but getting rid of standardized tests is a big win in my book. Also focusing on personality of the students instead on their viability for later labor is also good.

I was schooled in the former German Democratic Republic (east germany). Finlands schoolsystem is sometimes compared to that that we had, but I already can easily see changes. No surprise though, as I was in school in the late 80s, 30 years ago. I think as finland tried to make their school system better, they shopped around for good ideas and looked for themselfes what worked. This is in my opinion the winner here. We can barely argue the results, Finland is constantly at the top of comparisons, so what they do works.

Inhowfar is Finlands demography special? Looks pretty standard to me:

Which country are you from?

As for Singapore: they do pretty well in recent years and with quite a different schooling system. I am against standardized tests though, this does not help students to think but instead to follow rules and predetermined routine. Makes for good workers, but bad innovators.

As I said, I was from GDR, which had a school system which generally was seen as doing pretty well and  which also had no standardized tests. As far as I know germany as a whole has no standardized testing routine in school to this day and does overall not too bad (better as the US in any case).

Smaller classes, smaller schools, more teachers, is the secret. Merging schools, turning them into learning factories is not the right path.

In the first 10 school years I was about 5 - 8 hours a day at school. With 5 school days a week that makes about 30 hours per week. My daily homework was about 15 - 60 minutes. I lived in Germany. I was not very happy with the school system when I was young (although I had good school grades) and nowadays I almost completely disagree what is going to be teached at german schools. But that video has made me happy. Congrats Finland!

Well for one thing Finland seems to have an abnormally low student to teacher ratio so comparisons can be distorted with other countries and they have a very strong teacher's union. No other nations or administrations with just as successful and competitive educational systems can replicate Finland's model such as Canada, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea so Finland should be rightly treated as an anomaly to be ignored because there's nearly nothing of value to learn from the case ... 

I'll let entertain which country I'm from as the one's I've listed from the above aside from Finland is the other oddball out among them ... (even I think our system might be distorted as well because of a high amount of rich immigrant expats) 

As for Singapore, yes they do very well and are nearly diametric opposites to Finland's model. As for standardized testing, there is one very big advantage that it does grant which is a competitive environment against other students because without a benchmark to provide some sort of measure of ability among students there is no realistic way for them to self motivate themselves to improve. I can possibly understand why you might object to standardized testing but when it comes post-secondary school admission then the only truly fair and just way to benchmark students with varying secondary education quality on equal grounds is with exams. I can get why you oppose standardized testing so much but when prestigious schools have limited seats and students with very different previous educational backgrounds then it must become a necessity to settle it with a standardized test especially with very big countries like the US or China ... 

There's more to an educational system than just purely increasing the quality like we see with Finland but a lacking component keeping it from creating the truly best students like we see with either Singapore or Hong Kong is facing the competition. While Finland can pride itself as having the most arguably pleasant educational experience with great results, they cannot pride themselves as either having the best students or being a role model for other countries ...