Finland’s education system built a higher platform—a better starting point—for its students by requiring all teachers to have master’s degrees and deep expertise in teaching how to learn. That was half of Wagner’s explanation for Finland’s rapid ascent to educational greatness. The second half had to do with what the Finns didn’t do. Over the decades, Finnish education, in fact, had gotten simpler. Instead of teaching kids a little about a lot of things—like most schools do—the Finns started teaching deeply in fewer subjects. Rather than emphasizing general knowledge students would promptly
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