(not)Always the last to know
4 03 2008Yes, that would be ME.
There’s been a carnival floating around - it’s on the 10th edition, so it can’t be THAT long…
“Learning in the Great Outdoors, the Carnival of Environmental Education”
Wow. All the pertinent info on how to participate, and archives, are on the post.
HT to the Free Range Kids - tried to comment but blogger is doing one of those “things” again.
(Wordpress never does those “things”)
And about those Finns ? How do they produce smart kids? By having the expectation that every kid will be successful, instead of teaching to the lowest common denominator. By having (well trained) teachers who aren’t harnessed to a ridiculous program of testing - they’re able to tailor curricula to students instead of relying on a failing “one size fits all” standard. There are components that aren’t mentioned - Finland is not a socio-economic diverse country. You don’t have schools overburdened with ESL (or FSL?) classes, drug affected children, mass poverty, Hispanic, Asian, and Russian gangs, or a whole lot of religious conflict. College is free, lunch is free - to all. Nobody stands out because they’re in a reduced price program. I doubt much about Finland’s school system can be reproduced in the USA.
HT to COD
A state that wanted to mimic Finland could start by having lunch and college be free to all, putting the same type of hourly limits on educational activities that we put on work for pay in the first quarter of the last century, removing all of the crazy testing and standards requirements, and creating fully bilingual Spanish-English schools. We wouldn’t shoot to the top by doing so, but kids would begin to understand more.
I’m with Rose. some things could be done even if it wouldn’t be the same. Teaching kids not curriculum would be a good start. Free lunch (especially for poor kids) would be another good one.
So ya think it’s because they have a strong identity of what it means to be Finnish; whereas we as Americans do not?
I have big issue with terms like African American and Russian American or even Native American (I heard an indigenous woman point out that this term means anyone born here, not the First Peoples) - Can’t we all just be American? Without skin color, heritage, or religious qualifiers?
Stop laughing, this American Girl can dream
well maybe if -as a country- we stopped sending so many people to prison, we could afford to give children some lunch.