Finland, Finland, Finland – the Country Where We’d Quite Like to Be
/You may have heard that Bloom has been chosen as part of this year’s HundreED Global Collection. As our collaborators at All Children Reading posted recently on their website, “The HundrED Global Collection recognizes innovations that have had the largest impact on global K-12 education, with an emphasis on students in low resource contexts. The theme for 2023 was ‘teachers for transformation,’ highlighting the important role of teachers in education innovation.”
ACR went on to say that
“Bloom was selected from more than 3,000 innovations for inclusion in HundrED’s sixth Global Collection. The HundrED Academy of academics, educators, innovators, funders and leaders from 113 countries reviewed the shortlist of innovations. They recognized the most impactful and scalable global innovations that are available to anyone for free.”
Finland is a world leader in education. Where exactly the country “ranks” varies year-to-year, but there’s no mistaking that their approach has helped them become world leaders in everything from education to automated hot-pizza vending machines, as Bloom Program Director Dr. Paul Frank learned when he attended the HundrED Global Summit in Finland with other honorees late last month.
In case you have a hard time believing that latter bit of information (we did), here’s photographic evidence…
It’s almost enough to make you want to start singing the Monty Python Finland Song, but of course that would be silly and off topic, so instead here’s a picture of some of Paul’s fellow honorees heading down to the ocean for the optional last-day-of-the-summit frigid plunge.
Paul was not among them, because that would’ve been silly and off-topic and very, very cold. But on that same day, he did attend a talk about Learning Through Play, which was a lot of fun and showed that, as we suspected all along, silliness can sometimes be very ON-topic.
But what exactly was the summit?
Unlike many events Paul has attended on our behalf, it wasn’t specifically geared toward honoring the honorees, or even toward educating them, with a schedule jam-packed with academic presentations. Nor was it as Ed-tech focused as many previous events. Rather, it was designed as an invitation to the honorees to join a global community of like-minded innovators.
The summit began on Wednesday, October 26th, with a ceremony recognizing the top 100 honorees. As an invitation-only event, it was a relatively intimate gathering. Meals were eaten together, and Paul had many opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas with his fellow innovators.
On Thursday, attendees met at the Helsinki city hall for panels, discussions, and to hear a number of speakers and presenters. Some were local, including the Helsinki deputy major and, at one point, a musical group from an award-winning local school.
But part of the benefit of the summit was the fact that attendees had come from all over. A journalist from the United States spoke about post-traumatic growth, and the ability to learn from difficult experiences.
Another standout moment was when, in response to a discussion about some of the more philosophical benefits of education, a woman from Botswana interjected that the purpose of education was “to get jobs.” It was a welcome alternate perspective from a summit filled with similar bits of wisdom.
And since you and I were unable to attend the summit ourselves, Paul was kind enough to gather up a few quotes— a little peek behind the veil:
After a discussion about covid-driven uncertainty, Janhvi Kanoria from Education for All pointed out that “For marginalized communities, the future has always been uncertain.” She added that education is about enabling children to thrive where they are, and pointed out that it seems like we’re always trying to pack more and more into education, but we never take anything out!
“Education is not enough. There have to be jobs for the children once they are educated.” (Kunal Sen, Director, UNU-WIDER)
“We need to tell children, ‘It’s OK to fail. What matters is to rise again.’ ” (Varsha Pillai, Associate Director, Dream a Dream)
“Children do not thrive alone,” but in a mix of thriving adults. (Anya Kamenetz, journalist and author)
After Friday’s learning-through-play and jumping-in-the-ocean silliness (among other things), Paul had the opportunity on Saturday to travel around the area with some friends, where he caught a glimpse of not only that glorious pizza vending machine, but also some of the architectural and natural beauty of Finland’s capital city.
This gave Paul a chance to both enjoy a beautiful place he’d never previously visited, and to reflect on the summit.
It had been an opportunity to bring additional visibility to Bloom. Language wasn’t really on the agenda at the summit, so Paul had opportunities to share the importance of what we do and to make some interesting connections, opening doors for possible future collaborations.
While it was different from the sort of events that we and Paul are usually invited to attend, we’re grateful for the opportunity and hope it helps to create more visibility for Bloom in the years to come.
Now… group trip to Finland, anyone?