Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:"Finnish schools do not have classes for gifted students."
I wish we'd go that route here. The whole AAP and/or gifted thing is out of control anymore.
The forced academic learning of the 2-4 year olds is also the wrong way to go.
Very young children learn through play. The brain adapts and molds. Studies all show that kids in a play-based environment in the early years start to show real advantages by third grade.
The problem is our school systems have already tracked by then. Tiger moms doing flash cards and Kumon up the wazoo make it difficult for real and appropriate learning to take place. Their child is oh so bored. Not gifted, bored because he's already been through all of the 2nd grade materials before he even reaches K.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/best-education-in-the-wor_n_2199795.html
Top five were, South Korea, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore. The other four do exactly the things you are critical of. Singapore in particular stands out since since it is ethnically diverse, and has to deal with the massive headache of differing "native" lanugages, and teaching in a different common language (English) that many residents do not speak natively. Of course, none of that fits your narrative, so it doesn't get mentioned.
More data:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/04/american-students-what-th_n_1076268.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-07/teens-in-u-s-rank-25th-on-math-test-trail-in-science-reading.html
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:"Finnish schools do not have classes for gifted students."
I wish we'd go that route here. The whole AAP and/or gifted thing is out of control anymore.
The forced academic learning of the 2-4 year olds is also the wrong way to go.
Very young children learn through play. The brain adapts and molds. Studies all show that kids in a play-based environment in the early years start to show real advantages by third grade.
The problem is our school systems have already tracked by then. Tiger moms doing flash cards and Kumon up the wazoo make it difficult for real and appropriate learning to take place. Their child is oh so bored. Not gifted, bored because he's already been through all of the 2nd grade materials before he even reaches K.
Anonymous wrote:I'm an educator, and my friends in the field and I have been adoring the Finnish school model for years. It's fair to say, though, that the homogeneity of the Finnish population plays an important role in all of this.
Anonymous wrote:"Finnish schools do not have classes for gifted students."
I wish we'd go that route here. The whole AAP and/or gifted thing is out of control anymore.
Anonymous wrote:Not even comparable to the US with many kids struggling due to language issues, inner city break down of the family unit, lack of parental involvement and support, etc. If you took all the schools out in those areas, you would see the U.S. numbers looking much better. Finland is homogenous and without most of the challenges the US public school system faces.
Anonymous wrote:Not even comparable to the US with many kids struggling due to language issues, inner city break down of the family unit, lack of parental involvement and support, etc. If you took all the schools out in those areas, you would see the U.S. numbers looking much better. Finland is homogenous and without most of the challenges the US public school system faces.