Education without Barriers

Has a three or four year-old ever proudly and happily showed you their childish drawings and scribbles? Have you noticed that they never feel shy about showing everyone their masterpiece and talking about it and its details?

Specialists and educators noticed that children who feel safe or learn in a safe environment are more likely to feel free to play and express themselves. Children who struggle to read feel limitations on their self-expression and freedom, because they feel embarrassed to read out loud in front of others and afraid of being judged by their peers or teachers. This leads them to feeling tense, anxious, and withdrawn while playing or during the lessons. Accordingly, their acquisition of reading skills is delayed, and they have difficulty communicating with others at a young age. The problem may extend into larger problems that cause restriction of thinking and limited creativity in work and production. This is why we have to address this matter and provide suitable solutions.

In this article, we will present you a unique experience from Finland to help children stumbling in reading and writing skills, and then we will show you how this experience is linked to the philosophy and core of Accelerated Learning, and how these principles help learners in the classroom open up to the learning and teaching processes.

Reading dogs from Finland:

In the far north of Europe, specifically in Finland, Maarit Haapasaari, founder of Reading Dog, came up with an amazing and extraordinary idea to help children struggling with reading.

Haapasaari trains dogs (particularly the Bernese Mountain Dogs) to listen to children reading, for intervals starting from 5 to 15 minutes for children who are more able to read.

“Dogs listen carefully to children, and they don’t care if the child is misreading or reading slowly,” Haapasaari says of the experience. “The objective of (Reading Dogs) is to encourage children, especially those with reading difficulties to read aloud in an atmosphere characterized by privacy and intimacy, where only the dog and the therapist are with them in the educational environment, which helps the child relax, and get rid of stress and anxiety – the main enemy of learning – which ultimately increases their ability to focus.

Children who join this program express a sense of accomplishment that enhances their self-esteem and encourages them to choose and read books in the future.

In another town, Heidi Puputti (a teacher for people with special needs) applied this experience to his students in a Finnish school. “Some children are hyperactive in the classroom, but they calm down when they read to a dog. They understand that they are the ones in control of the situation, and that they must consider the needs of the listener. They learn to be empathetic and interactive, and they begin to read calmly and carefully, and you find that they can actually read quite well after all.”

Reading and children:

Dealing with animals has many benefits on the personality of the children, in addition to developing their intelligence. However, there is an important point that must be addressed. The child may feel afraid of dealing with dogs, and the therapist must be aware of this matter, giving the child complete freedom to determine the distance between themselves and the dog, which makes them feel relaxed, and helps them overcome their fear of dogs at the same time.

Haapasaari, in collaboration with creative writing specialist Veera Vähämaa, has developed this idea further, coming up with the concept of “writing stories to dogs and reading them”, where children write their own stories, then read them out loud to the dogs.

The success of these experiments and initiatives that do not belong to the official Finnish curricula encouraged many northern European countries and American states to implement this idea and to train dogs to listen to children who read aloud to them. 

The Accelerated Learning spirit:

We can now say that this method of education would be a viable solution to many educational problems and difficulties, and that the observer of this experience can see that Haapasaari cured a number of diseases related to education in these children, including:

• Fear and stress and the way the brain works, which depends primarily on relaxation, which is the state where the brain is most effective and creative, opposite to what happens in case of anxiety and stress.
• Removing prejudices in children and feelings of insecurity when reading, which prevents them from mingling with their peers in fear of their comments or judgments.
• Getting rid of stereotypes in dealing with reading struggles that do not suit all children, nor all needs. The child is the center of this experience, and they control all of its tools. They are the ones who choose what to read, the amount of time they spend reading, the distance between themselves and the dog, and the story they want to write and share with the listener.
• The static indoctrination, as children are the ones who choose the story and the place, and they are the ones in control of the situation during reading, away from the classrooms with limited space and horizon. This experience also helps children control their emotions, which contributes to meeting the needs of the listener.
• Removing negative feelings towards learning, as this idea encourages children to practice reading, and helps them open up to writing stories. All of this increases their happiness with their achievement, and raises their self-esteem by breaking the frames of thinking and allowing creative ideas to flow from their minds.

It is worth noting that Finland ranked first in reading skills, science, and mathematics, in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) tests from 2000 to 2005, and up till now, it still ranks among the top five countries in the world in these skills.

You may be wondering about the secret behind the outstanding results that Finnish students have achieved. There are many reasons, but the most important is that the educational philosophy in this country states that the school is the most appropriate place for children to learn in an environment full of fun, enjoyment, passion, and curiosity.

How does that help us?

It is nice to learn about the experiences of others in the field of education and to search for innovative solutions to the challenges that teachers face in the classroom. It’s even better to try to come up with ways and methods that fit the needs of children who struggle in learning basic skills, like writing, reading, math, and science. The success of any country is linked to its success in education.

The reader may assume this particular method is not available in the Arab world, but this service is actually available in some Arab countries. The success of this experiment in Finland – which is the top country in the field of education – and in many European countries indicates that this method and other methods may succeed, if applied with full faith in the children’s ability to succeed in overcoming the challenges they face. The same applies to the philosophy of Accelerated Learning, which faced in its early days fears that it would not be successful or appropriate for all the subjects in schools.

The teachers and specialists in children education in Finland have a sincere belief in the unlimited potential of children, and they believe in their ability to gain knowledge faster, which will be more effective if the topics are presented to them in a fun form. This is what helped in the success of the Finnish experiment in applying this learning philosophy in its schools, thus becoming a role model in all countries of the world in the field of education.

You may need to spend some time researching and reading about the Finnish experience in education and its own philosophy before accepting or rejecting what is stated in this article. What is once considered impossible sometimes turns out to be just unfamiliar as experience showed, and becomes acceptable and popular. We certainly need a deep understanding of the philosophy of Accelerated Learning in order to realize that it is in harmony with the learning instinct of all human beings.