BETTER SCHOOLS IN FINLAND

Today I heard Madeleine Brand on NPR's Pasadena, CA, station, KPCC-FM, talking about how much better Finnish schools are than those in the USA.

In Finnish schools, kids start later, at age 7, spend less time in school and do less homework. They do more creative play. Yet they do better.

Why is that? See this article in the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

I have been a teacher off and on for 40 years, mostly part-time and mostly at junior colleges, universities, extension schools, and one adult school, since I got my master's degree in 1972, so I know a little about teaching. I hold a lifetime junior-college CA teaching credential and renewable adult-school credential.

There is so much baloney in the U.S. about education. Most of the reform ideas are ridiculous. In my opinion, good teaching requires four things:

1. Teachers who care about the students and want them to succeed. (Many don't.)
2. Teachers who are passionate about their subject matter and know it well. (Ditto.)
3. Teachers who constantly engage students, so the students are awake and alive and involved while they learn. No passive learning. Learning should be fun.
4. Students who are well fed, rested, prepared by previous experience and able to learn.

Most of the rest is hokum.

Why is the good old USA plagued with such silly ideas in so many areas--foreign policy, health care, drug policy, education, politics, visual art? I don't know. Good question.

We seem incapable of using common sense and basing our policies on logic and facts.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle