[jibiki]

> I assume that the Finnish method isn't magically successful, and it looks good on paper at the expense of not enabling the best and brightest to reach their full potential.

Here's some supporting evidence. Let's compare it to a country of similar size, Singapore:

http://www.imo-official.org/country_individual_r.aspx?code=F...

http://www.imo-official.org/country_individual_r.aspx?code=S...

We can see that Singapore does much better.

Of course, IMO scores are not exactly the most important measure ever, but I suspect, nonetheless, that smart Finnish students spend more time playing computer games than their counterparts in Singapore.