Before moving to Finland, I used to grind my teeth at night. I\u2019d visit American dentists and they\u2019d always point out my nocturnal habit. I felt embarrassed, but what could I do beyond buying expensive night guards? I was stressed out and, subconsciously, I reacted to the overload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe I just needed a change of pace?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When my wife and I lived in the Boston area, I stayed busy. Our first child arrived in 2012, but our newborn didn\u2019t slow me down. In fact, I felt a renewed sense of urgency about working around the clock. Especially when we switched to a new health insurance plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our family health insurance amounted to approximately $10,000 per year, the equivalent of one-third of my teaching income. Ouch. That really hurt, but what choice did we have? Massachusetts required health insurance and, unbelievably, this plan was the cheapest available to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I kept grinding my teeth at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To make ends meet, I juggled several part-time jobs, including private tutoring, snow shoveling, and childcare while teaching first-graders full-time. Life was overwhelming. In hindsight, too overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On top of everything, I decided to pursue a master\u2019s degree in elementary education. I saw it as my investment in our future, but it also felt foolish. With full-time teaching, side hustles, and evening classes, I experienced days where I wouldn\u2019t spend a single waking moment with our newborn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would leave for school before breakfast and I\u2019d return from grad school long after his bedtime. On those days, I ate dinner alone in our basement apartment, sometime after 9 pm. I hated this arrangement, but I didn\u2019t know how to escape it. My wife Johanna saw the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Off to Nordic Paradise<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Johanna recommended that we move to Finland for a season of our lives. She highlighted paid parental leaves<\/a>, affordable daycare, and universal health care as reasons. In 2010, Newsweek ranked<\/a> Finland as the best country to live in. More recently, Finland\u2019s been recognized<\/a> as the world\u2019s happiest country four years in a row (2018-2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Initially, I dreaded the idea of moving to Finland. I wanted to remain in the Boston area, despite the challenges. I loved my teaching job, and I hoped that Johanna\u2019s suggestion would simply disappear over time. It didn\u2019t, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, I caved in. We started job searching, emailing several schools in Helsinki (Finland\u2019s capital) about teaching opportunities. For months, we heard nothing from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hungry for better work-life balance, we purchased one-way tickets to Helsinki, Finland\u2019s capital before <\/em>I had a new teaching job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, just one month before moving in July, I finally received an email from a Helsinki principal at a bilingual school. She mentioned an opening in the English stream, a 5th grade classroom teacher\u2019s position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The principal and I chatted over the phone and, at the end of the call, she offered me the job! I couldn\u2019t believe it, and I gladly accepted the offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But within a few days, my initial excitement morphed into a lingering sense of dread: Could I actually survive as a teacher in Finland?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I felt competent as an educator in the Boston area, but would that even matter in Helsinki? Finland held a towering reputation in the world of education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2000, Finnish teenagers aced<\/a> an international standardized exam called the PISA. The set of tests measure critical-thinking skills in reading, math, and science. Experts have suggested that PISA scores point to the countries that excel at preparing young people for 21st century working life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finland\u2019s high scores on the PISA impressed me, but what inspired me the most was the country\u2019s child-centered approach to education, featuring:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Seasons Change<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In July 2013, I started the Taught by Finland<\/a> blog to document my takeaways as a foreign teacher inside the Finnish school system. I never dreamed that eventually those insights would lead to my book Teach Like Finland<\/a>, which was translated into 16 languages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many of you have followed this blog since the beginning, and I\u2019m very grateful for you. You\u2019ve waited for new posts to arrive, and I\u2019ve kept you waiting. I am truly sorry about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have three children (a 4-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl, and a 9-year-old boy) and, over the last few years, I\u2019ve needed the extra time to invest in family. Trust me, I\u2019ve wanted to blog, but I\u2019ve felt that I couldn\u2019t afford it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Finland, we call the season of parenting young children ruuhkavuodet<\/em>. Ruuhkavuodet <\/em>literally means \u201cthe traffic years.\u201d In practice, it means less sleep, less free time, less money, and less space\u2014all while trying to build your career. The underlying idea of ruuhkavuodet is <\/em>that you are called to slow down. Life becomes a traffic jam, and you cannot fly over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully, seasons do change. Kids grow up, and life becomes a lot less hectic. We\u2019re beginning to see signs that the traffic\u2019s lifting. Gradually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The season of grinding my teeth has passed too. According to Johanna, my habit ceased immediately when I moved to Finland. Life in the \u201chappiest country\u201d has been calmer and slower than our lives in the Boston area. We\u2019re very grateful for the years we\u2019ve spent here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m stepping into a new season now. For years, I stopped blogging, but I\u2019m happy to tell you that I\u2019m back. My new blog is Teachlands<\/a>, the evolution of Taught by Finland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why Teachlands?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Teachlands is now my online home for sharing insights about Finnish education and other child-centered pedagogies around the world, including Reggio Emilia and Montessori. I\u2019m passionate about helping other educators and parents learn inspiring practices to use in the classroom and at home. [You can sign up for the blog here<\/a>!]<\/p>\n\n\n\n Later this month, we\u2019re moving to Reggio-Emilia, Italy. In the next post<\/a> on Teachlands, I\u2019ll tell you about our big move and our decision to homeschool our children throughout the 2021-2022 school year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tim Walker is an American teacher, writer, and speaker living in Connecticut. He is the author of Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms and he created two online courses: The Finnish Education Insider<\/a> and The Joyful Reader<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Su<\/em><\/a>bscribe<\/a> to the Teachlands blog and follow Teachlands on Instagram<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. And register for Tim’s free webinar about Finnish education here<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before moving to Finland, I used to grind my teeth at night. I\u2019d visit American dentists and they\u2019d always point out my nocturnal habit. I felt embarrassed, but what could I do beyond buying expensive night guards? I was stressed out and, subconsciously, I reacted to the overload. Maybe I just needed a change of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,10],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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