Last hour reflections in Tallin: Finland isn't quite far

They have been very intense days and I learned a lot about the Finnish and Estonian educational systems. I had the opportunity to observe some meaningful insights and this is my conclusion: Finland isn’t quite far. In Spain and particularly in JABY school we have all the elements of the Finnish and Estonian success. 

So, where’s the difference? Like in chemistry, everything is not about the elements, but about the balance between them. In the case of Finland they were tuning their educational system since 50’s of the past century with the same law, but “purified” in the last forty years. They have a formula that really works in their society, but not necessarily in others. 

Estonians understood this quite well and learned from Finnish, although catching the elements that could be useful for them. They had three different educational laws since the foundation of the country almost twenty years ago and they don’t have any problem about it (as a very remarkable different with Spanish teachers, who are always blaming about this topic in our country as a simplistic explanation of our educational problems). It’s almost unbelievable to see how this country found its own balance so quickly and how nowadays they are trying to turn in to the first country to implant a 1:1 system. 

For me, that only means one thing: we must leave behind our complexes, talk more with our European colleagues to see what works or not, and reflect serious, honest and deeply about how to balance all that elements in order to achieve a system coherent and consistent with our society and our way of living. There’s no other choice if we really want to push our educational system to its best. 

Let’s start today. 

Helsinki panoramic view from Suomenlinna