The more you learn about the “team inquiry model” in schools, the more it grows on you.

When first introduced, people groaned about the thought of students being dismissed early because teachers want to collaborate. Concerns about dwindling instructional time and after-school care immediately surfaced, and for good reason.

But when you look at Finland’s education system – the best in the world – you start to wonder if inquiry time is indeed a step in the right direction.

Finland’s students start school at a later age (7). They spend less time in class than our kids do, they rarely have homework, and are rarely tested. Despite all this, and the fact they get three months off in the summer, Finland’s students are at the top of the class internationally. How is that possible? We’re still trying to figure that out.

Before you can teach in Finland, you must have five years of education – including two years of Masters study. But that won’t guarantee you a job since only 10 per cent of all applications are accepted.

Finnish teachers quickly receive tenure, are rarely evaluated, and develop their own lessons.

One key component is they work collaboratively with each other – basically the same principle as the team inquiry model introduced here.

In Finland, school is relaxed and casual, and students address their teachers by their first name. Primary pupils often stay with the same teacher for several years, making learning patterns easier to understand.

By Grade 2, students are learning about different sources of energy. By Grade 8, they are discovering the Pythagorean Theorem.

Students do all of the problems on the board, not the teacher. This is the educator’s way to test their thinking as opposed to collecting homework and grading it.

In Finland, it’s basically up to the students to learn; it’s their choice.

Many upper secondary students in that country will tell you that it’s more important to love what you do than make tons of money.

One student who was interviewed by a television documentary crew said “less is sometimes more.”

That’s what School District 53 is trying to achieve – quality over quantity. By imbedding collaboration time into the school day, teachers can develop new strategies to improve learning outcomes, especially for students who are struggling to “get it.”

We may never become a phenomenon like Finland, but we can definitely learn from their system.