So, as long as we're talking about education...

This thread from 2015

What do you all make of this? http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-of-finland/408325/ Excerpt: "Bassok and her colleagues found that while time spent on literacy in American kindergarten classrooms went up, time spent on arts, music, and child-selected activities (like station time) significantly dropped. Teacher-directed instruction also increased, revealing what Bassok described as “striking increases in the use of textbooks and worksheets… and very large increases in the use of assessments.” But Finland—a Nordic nation of 5.5 million people, where I’ve lived and taught fifth and sixth graders over the last two years—appears to be on the other end of the kindergarten spectrum. Before moving to Helsinki, I had heard that most Finnish children start compulsory, government-paid kindergarten—or what Finns call “preschool”—at age 6. And not only that, but I learned through my Finnish mother-in-law—a preschool teacher—that Finland’s kindergartners spend a sizable chunk of each day playing, not filling out worksheets. Finnish schools have received substantial media attention for years now—largely because of the consistently strong performance of its 15-year-olds on international tests like the PISA. But I haven’t seen much coverage on Finland’s youngest students. So, a month ago, I scheduled a visit to a Finnish public kindergarten—where a typical school day is just four hours long."

I heard something recently on NPR about a Scandinavian school where very young children were taken out into the forest and (gasp) allowed to play for several hours at a time without adult direction (just supervision to ensure their safety).

Apparently without constant adult guidance the kids created some pretty amazing games and discovered many neat things about the woods and the world around them.

Arts aren't on the test, therefore there is no reason to teach it. /sarcasm

Imagine the novelty of allowing kids time to actually be a kid.

Remember boys and girls, this is one of those topics that can get out of hand quickly, so everyone remember to play nice.

Play doesn't get in the way of learning. Play is learning.

If you want to guide that learning towards particular goals that coincide well with a modern civilization, control the environment that the children will be exploring so that they understand abstract concepts like basic addition and literacy.

(I am a bit biased. I taught at a Montessori school. That is the core of the philosophy behind the Montessori Method.)

When I was in elementary school (through 6th grade) we had three recesses a day adding up to 1:15 plus they sent us outside at the beginning of the day until the bell rang. My kids get one 25 minute heavily supervised recess a day from K-4 and that goes to one a week in 5th and none from 6th on. If they show up early they are given work sheets. They're all doing extremely well academically, so I don't have too much ground to complain, but the poor buggers are missing out on a lot of the joy of elementary school.

1988RedT2 wrote: What do you all make of this?

That common sense does not live up to its name in this country.

My kids go To public school and have three recesses each day. When they were in kindergarten there was no heavy pressure on academics. I think that the writer may be gasp biased.

School districts are different but my wife volunteers at the school and gets really frustrated by articles Like this. I understand.

Sorry, but one recess A WEEK in Grade 5, and then nothing after that, is child abuse. Let them get outside in the open air and stand, walk, run, chase each other around, just breathe in the sunshine... whatever. And whoever is giving kindergartens worksheets doesn't understand their job. The fine-motor-control issues alone make worksheets for JK/SK pretty much a dumb idea, IMHO. And I can tell you for damn sure that worksheets in math before about Grade 3 are almost undoubtedly a sign that the teacher doesn't know how to teach math. (It's not their fault; probably nobody ever showed them.)

I'd like to believe that that method of teaching builds the best rally drivers in the world. It must.

Well my kid came home the other day(grade 5) and announced that his teacher told him that the conservatives have ruined Canada. She also "taught" the class that our sitting Prime Minister is a very bad man and that everyone should encourage their parents to vote liberal.

I may fly him to a Finnish school.

bearmtnmartin wrote: Well my kid came home the other day(grade 5) and announced that his teacher told him that the conservatives have ruined Canada. She also "taught" the class that our sitting Prime Minister is a very bad man and that everyone should encourage their parents to vote liberal. I may fly him to a Finnish school.

Not new, I'm afraid. A friend had to meet with the teacher about that very thing in the 80's.

chandlerGTi wrote: My kids go To public school and have three recesses each day. When they were in kindergarten there was no heavy pressure on academics. I think that the writer may be *gasp* biased. School districts are different but my wife volunteers at the school and gets really frustrated by articles Like this. I understand.

Where in the world? My children are repeatedly denied recess on many days, or get shortened recess in spite of a state law mandating a minimum recess period. I think your experience is atypical.

It's probable. We homeschooled until we moved to this school district, it is really good. "Country School"....

However; that writer is biased. Taking the kids to the woods a day would be fine but part of kindergarten is letting the kids learn how to learn in group settings rather that individually. Worksheets could be coloring sheets, letter association sheets, etc...

Stealthtercel wrote: Sorry, but one recess A WEEK in Grade 5, and then nothing after that, is child abuse. Let them get outside in the open air and stand, walk, run, chase each other around, just breathe in the sunshine... whatever. And whoever is giving kindergartens worksheets doesn't understand their job. The fine-motor-control issues alone make worksheets for JK/SK pretty much a dumb idea, IMHO. And I can tell you for damn sure that worksheets in math before about Grade 3 are almost undoubtedly a sign that the teacher doesn't know how to teach math. (It's not their fault; probably nobody ever showed them.)

My second grader bought home a NINE page math homework worksheet last night plus his normal homework. It's pretty hard to get his homework done before it gets dark, he wanted so bad to go out back and shoot his bow but by the time we got food in him and his homework done the light was gone.

Ha ha.... I went to four hour kindergarten in CA in '81.

Comment #2: The world is really worried about the Finnish dominance in Arts, Science, Tech, Economy, and Military. I mean, and god this sounds like the big kid in class still taking lunch money, but when they start creating E36 M3 that rivals ours, I'll start listening. Truth is, not requiring kids to be accountable to anything early in life- does that create a culture that- although really smart and well adjusted- can't create at the level a less well adjusted society does? Doesn't our disfunction really make our crazy a little more productive?

To Mr. Comstock: Well, 9 pages in Grade 2 sounds messed up to me. One of the things we do in this house is design, write, and edit math textbooks and other resources. I know what a curriculum looks like, and I know what the jargon means. FWIW, I looked at the Texas Grade 2 Math curriculum as adopted in 2012 and it sure doesn't say "Students will develop understanding of number concepts by going cross-eyed over worksheets." It says "Sort things," "Model things," "Use concrete objects," "Demonstrate," and a bunch of other active verbs, just as it should. So perhaps somebody isn't getting the memo. Feel free to PM me about this if you want. (To the OP: Please excuse brief diversion from the topic of Finland!)

dammit, kids need structure.. and for only $30k a year you can hire someone to make damn sure that they have it during recess:

http://www.startribune.com/support-seesaws-for-recess-consultant-at-2-edina-elementary-schools/330529851/

hate to sound all old and E36 M3, but back when i was in elementary school (early 80's) we were forced to go out and play on a paved playground.. yes, paved: as in "the same stuff that was on the streets"... we gathered in groups and played tackle football, which almost always devolved into a game of "smear the queer" as soon as one of the weaker kids wound up with the ball in their hands- especially if they weren't even involved in the game that we were playing... we learned a lot about physics when we would try to jump over the 6 foot tall fence by launching ourselves off the swing set or getting the merry-go-round whipping around as fast as we could and noting how far kids flew when they lost grip... then there was the monkey bars made out of pipe that was held together with rusty u-bolts that i'm pretty sure was made by the FFA class in the 60's sometime that worked awesome for human plinko and the metal slide that seemed like it was 30 feet tall and got up to about 500 degrees in the summer sun...

for me, kindergarten was just a few hours of hanging around with other kids while gluing sparkles to construction paper and drinking milk out of those cardboard containers and i don't remember ever having homework until 7th grade or so..

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Finnish dominance in Arts, Science, Tech, Economy, and Military... but when they start creating E36 M3 that rivals ours, I'll start listening.

They do more with less. They aren't so obsessed with growth that if they can make small improvements in efficiency or just enough development to keep the machine running, that's good enough for them.

Remember that many European countries don't have anywhere near the GDP as us, but they also get between 25-30 days of government mandated paid holiday/vacation a year. They are laughing while we work ourselves to the grave.

PHeller wrote:

Teh E36 M3 wrote: Finnish dominance in Arts, Science, Tech, Economy, and Military... but when they start creating E36 M3 that rivals ours, I'll start listening.

They do more with less. They aren't so obsessed with growth that if they can make small improvements in efficiency or just enough development to keep the machine running, that's good enough for them. Remember that many European countries don't have anywhere near the GDP as us, but they also get between 25-30 days of government mandated paid holiday/vacation a year. They are laughing while we work ourselves to the grave.

Roger all that- I love that here we get to choose to work ourselves into the grave or not.

Driven5 wrote:

1988RedT2 wrote: What do you all make of this?

That common sense does not live up to its name in this country.

FACT. my wife is a pre-school teacher and a private school and the kindergarten teachers from the public schools have told the the teachers from her school the the kids coming into kindergarten are, and I quote, "too smart, and need to teach them less". Some how the concept of dragging the class down to the slowest kid (mean that in a non-offensive way) has become the standard rather then bringing the class up.

Geez.  Spam for term papers deleted.  

Zombie educational canoe!

 This is part of the reason we sent our children to a Waldorf school through eighth grade. The motto there his head, hands, heart. It was a surprisingly unpopular decision where we live as many people move here just for the school district. People were horrified at the amount of time The kids spent outside, ‘playing’, working on art, music etc. You should have seen the horrified  faces when they heard that preschoolers use knives to cut up vegetables to make their own soup in school!!  

 All through eighth grade other parents were horrified at the apparent lack of homework. Modern education is so focused on standardized testing that it has forgotten the link between art, music, doing and the sciences. The universal traits we heard in feedback from high school teachers after kids graduated 8th grade (our school could not sustain a high school, although all the Waldorf schools do have high schools) was while they appeared to be behind when they first arrived, they had the ability to  actually learn rather than learn by rote. These kids who people thought were behind suddenly jumped to the front and top of their classes. Both our kids were straight A students in high school, although they both found High School utterly boring. 

There were a surprising number of public school teachers as parents  at our school as well, my experience is most teachers know the issues with modern education but society keeps telling them teachers are lazy and standardized testing and more and more ‘academics’ is is the only way to go.

Adrian_Thompson said:

 This is part of the reason we sent our children to a Waldorf school through eighth grade. The motto there his head, hands, heart. It was a surprisingly unpopular decision where we live as many people move here just for the school district. People were horrified at the amount of time The kids spent outside, ‘playing’, working on art, music etc. You should have seen the horrified  faces when they heard that preschoolers use knives to cut up vegetables to make their own soup in school!!  

 All through eighth grade other parents were horrified at the apparent lack of homework. Modern education is so focused on standardized testing that it has forgotten the link between art, music, doing and the sciences. The universal traits we heard in feedback from high school teachers after kids graduated 8th grade (our school could not sustain a high school, although all the Waldorf schools do have high schools) was while they appeared to be behind when they first arrived, they had the ability to  actually learn rather than learn by rote. These kids who people thought were behind suddenly jumped to the front and top of their classes. Both our kids were straight A students in high school, although they both found High School utterly boring. 

There were a surprising number of public school teachers as parents  at our school as well, my experience is most teachers know the issues with modern education but society keeps telling them teachers are lazy and standardized testing and more and more ‘academics’ is is the only way to go.

Interesting... I've never heard of the Waldorf schools. Out of curiosity, did you compare to Montisori and homeschooling? 

The thing that I keep coming back to is that each child is different. My brother went to the local Catholic high school, because that was what was right for him. I went to the public school, because that was what was right for me. And while I tested extremely well (i.e. 32 ACT, 5's on all my AP exams), I was a horrible student. Potential to be Straight A's, but way too bored. To this day, I maintain that the best class I ever took in school, college or otherwise, was a blow-off class I took in High School on Microsoft Excel. I use the things I learned in that class every day. Sure as hell can't say that about any others.