Rather than teach individual and isolated subjects like math, language, science, and history, Finnish schools focus on real-world issues – like climate change – and then dissect it from academic perspectives.  Sure, we’ve had our share of theme-based classrooms with holistic approaches to education in the past.  But the difference here is that the Finnish schools also teach the core foundation classes like mathematics, science, and language in regular class settings and the topic-based courses to stimulate group problem-solving discussions.  Their primary school system was ranked #1 in the world in 2016; we were ranked #39.  Hmm.

Read this article “Finland’s new, weird school ‘courses’ say a lot about how we teach our kids” by James Gaines.  What are your thoughts?