Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms pdfdrive com

Plan with your students
During my last month of teaching in Helsinki, I involved my students in
planning more than I had ever done before, and in this area I chart my progress
all the way back to my first week of teaching in Finland. If you recall from
previous chapters, there was this one fifth grader, with angry red dots on his
forehead, who nudged me to implement Finnish-style breaks, and then there was
the feedback from my students about how they usually move around in the
hallways, which saved me from the embarrassment of practicing with them how
to walk in a straight line. From the beginning I had witnessed the power of
involving my students in the planning process. My students had a lot of wisdom
to offer, as long as I was willing to give them a voice in the classroom.
Before that first week of school in Finland, I had largely believed that
planning was the sole responsibility of the teacher, and for years I missed out on
a joyful practice, which effectively develops the agency of children. Since that
first week of school, I have had several key experiences that reinforced the

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importance of planning with students. One of them occurred during an ethics
unit, in which my small group of ten students and I studied the concept of
democracy (then a central part of the fifth and sixth grade curriculum).
In a cluster of desks in the middle of our classroom, we discussed democracy
at the macrolevel and identified its key ingredients. We also investigated the
Finnish system of government, with the help of a Helsinki candidate running for
a parliamentary position. However, the biggest highlight—from my perspective,
at least—was a discussion about what democracy would look like in school.
To kick-start our lesson, I showed the students a You-Tube clip of the
Sudbury Valley School, where students are given almost complete freedom in
their learning. This model has been widely hailed as the embodiment of a truly
democratic education, so I was curious to hear my sixth graders’ reactions. I
suspected that my students would fall in love with this unique approach, where
so much freedom is granted to children.
At Sudbury Valley, students decide their own curriculum and structure their
own days. Rules exist at the school, but they are enforced not by grownups but
by a student-run disciplinary committee. A few adults are on standby throughout
the school day, offering assistance when requested by the students. In this