More Ravitch in Education and Finland

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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/mar/22/how-and-how-not-improve-schools/

 

How, and How Not, to Improve the Schools

MARCH 22, 2012

Diane Ravitch

 

Which is a follow up to this thread

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348100

On her previous article on Finland

 

And is a review of

Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?

by Pasi Sahlberg

Teachers College Press, 167 pp.

 

A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All

by Wendy Kopp with Steven Farr

PublicAffairs, 229 pp.

[Julie Smith]

Post responded to.

:)

 

Perhaps when it isn't an hour past my bed time I'll focus on it some more. Right now I just noticed it had lots of big words. To big for my night time brain.

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And is a review of

Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?

by Pasi Sahlberg

Teachers College Press, 167 pp.

 

A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All

by Wendy Kopp with Steven Farr

PublicAffairs, 229 pp.

Thank you for this.

Every time I see these, I wish that we had lived in Finland from day one. :tongue_smilie: Could do without the weather, however. I'm a cold-weather wimp. One of our friends is a teacher in Finland and she's an absolute angel. Sweetest lady ever. :)

I'm thinking of ordering Finnish Lessons and possibly the other one.

I'm sure I asked you this before - have you read them? Would they be of any benefit to those of us who homeschool and have children the same ages as mine, that is, it's not as if we're newbies to homeschooling. It's not as if we're just starting out. I have to be so picky about books, since I have to buy them all - no library here.

Thank you and thanks for this great article. I've bookmarked it to read when I'm slightly more alert. :D

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Have you managed to watch The Finland Phenomenon?

 

I'm having my kids learn a bit about Sweden, which I expanded to other Scandinavian countries, and we watched this documentary called Families of Sweden (part of a series about families around the world, we've seen others) and they showed a daycare. It is in a home, with a small number of children, and so forth, very home like, lots of playing outside and helping with food prep, little games. You can see a 2 min clip on their YouTube site.

There is another clip of an older boy here. Anyway I also saw a video online about Swedish early education. I found because it had the Hungarian math video cited by MEP, anyway it has a lot of videos about schools around the world; the series is called "How Do they do it in....?" http://www.schoolsworld.tv/node/1316?terms=673 <-- early ed in Sweden, almost half an hour show

 

I haven't read Finnish Lessons -- I will try to get a copy from ILL.

 

BTW in Ravitch's latest article, she gives Arne Duncan an F.

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Have you managed to watch The Finland Phenomenon?

I'd like to, but haven't been able to yet. Hard to get a hold of here, as with many movies. Thanks for the reminder.

On the one hand, I love great documentaries and obviously this one interests me greatly.

On the other hand, I think I'll get rather depressed at how little I can do and how I'm not that great at teaching :(.

Thank you for the other links. Will look into those. :)

If Ravitch saw the educational system in this part of the world, she'd give an F also, I'm sure. They're an extremely test-obsessed/cramming culture. :glare: