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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (253398)	6/19/2014 9:47:28 PM
From: Katelew	Respond to of 541465

<<School becomes ever more about getting ready for tests, taking them, and then getting ready for the next round. And the fun and joy of learning as something of value in and of itself just keeps leaking out the door>> Yes, I'm sure seeing some of that with my own grandchildren, all of whom are bright and were well-prepared to enter school. They're sent home with so much more homework than I or my kids were. Even in first and second grade---a constant stream of worksheets. Math worksheets that attack simple addition and subtraction from more angles than I knew were possible. So much repetition drains them and cuts into the after school time for casual sports, hobbies and idle reading. I don't like it at all.

To: JohnM who wrote (253398)	6/19/2014 11:29:35 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541465

Here is the Finnish article came across a few months back. May have been posted already. <<Finnish education often seems paradoxical to outside observers because it appears to break a lot of the rules we take for granted. Finnish children don’t begin school until age 7. They have more recess, shorter school hours than many U.S. children do ( nearly 300 fewer hours per year in elementary school), and the lightest homework load of any industrialized nation. There are no gifted programs, almost no private schools, and no high-stakes national standardized tests. Yet over the past decade Finland has consistently performed among the top nations on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year olds in 65 nations and territories around the world. Finland’s school children didn’t always excel. Finland built its excellent, efficient, and equitable educational system in a few decades from scratch, and the concept guiding almost every educational reform has been equity. The Finnish paradox is that by focusing on the bigger picture for all, Finland has succeeded at fostering the individual potential of most every child.>> theatlantic.com