When it comes to education, why is the US being beat by countries that ask so much less of their students? Countries like Finland where the students sit in a classroom for an average of three hours and forty-five minutes a day have a better education system than the US. The US should learn the methods countries like Finland use, and try to use those methods in American schools in order to improve the quality of the American education system.

The only time a Finnish student will ever take a standardized test is at age sixteen while American students take standardized tests throughout their schooling, according to Business Insider.By time the Finnish students are sixteen they have learned enough to outperform American students who have been taking standardized tests since young ages.

While American students are taking these standardized tests, Finnish students are spending the time in class learning instead of testing. The Finnish method is working better as shown in the worldwide testing. In order to help students in America become more successful, the US should learn from Finland and minimize the amount of tests American students take. They should spend the extra time giving the students quality instruction, because in the end it’s more important for students to have more knowledge than to have taken more tests.

Another reason Finland could be doing much better in education than the United States is that Finland prioritizes having the students learn through experience, rather than learning from another source such as a textbook or video. As reported by Business Insider, the highest amount of students you will find in a Finnish science classroom would be sixteen, and the reason for this is so the students can perform more experiments and get real life experience with what they are learning so they are more likely to remember the information in the future. American classes also perform science experiments but not nearly as much as the Finnish students.

Less testing, more experiments, and real life experience are not the only things that contribute to the success of the Finnish education system. The students in Finland get longer recesses, spend less time than American students in the classroom weekly, educators get more planning time than American educators, and all Finnish teachers are required to have a masters degree. If the US wants to raise their place in the world rankings as far as education it would be a good idea to try and make the education system more like the system of the countries above them instead of putting more pressure, higher amounts or work, and harder testing on the students.