"Finland finishes first in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams that test 15-year-olds in all of the world's industrial democracies. Finland also finishes at or near the top in many global comparisons of economic competitiveness: Internet usage, environmental practices and more. Finland, where the modern cell phone was largely invented, has more cell phones per capita than any other nation -- nearly 85 per 100 citizens."
Now, today I was browsing the web and came across the following article:
Seven Of 10 Teachers In Missouri District Resign After Colleague Fired For Helping Girl
"EAST LYNNE, Mo. (AP) -- Seven of 10 classroom teachers in a tiny school district resigned after a colleague was fired for helping an 11-year-old girl who was left alone in a playground to pick up rocks as punishment.
The fourth-grader in the East Lynne School District in Cass County was assigned the task last September for refusing to do her schoolwork, but she was unsupervised except for a security camera. The playground was near a road but inside a fence.
The fired teacher, Christa Price, went to the principal, who is also the district superintendent and asked him to reconsider the punishment, but he wouldn't. So on her free period, Price helped the girl pick up rocks. Other teachers watched the girl the next day.
At contract time in March, Superintendent Dan Doerhoff recommended firing Price, a popular teacher who had had good performance evaluations, for insubordination. Seven other teachers then chose not to return their contracts...."
At contract time in March, Superintendent Dan Doerhoff recommended firing Price, a popular teacher who had had good performance evaluations, for insubordination. Seven other teachers then chose not to return their contracts...."
the article contines on to say:
"The girl, whose name was not released, told The Kansas City Star that the assignment "made me feel like a slave."...Doerhoff also refused to sign the certification renewal that Price needs to get another teaching job, saying doing so would have been inconsistent and "could put me in a pickle." "
How can the U.S. ever achieve any sort of improvement in it's public school system when stuff like this happens?? Score: Finland 1 ......... U.S. 0
And just to rub some salt in the wound :
(SOURCES: Statistics Finland, OECD THE WASHINGTON POST)
That's right folks 24th and 15th...Suomi FIRST.
5 comments:
Hey
I like reading your blog, since I know nothing about finland (some rally and F1 drivers aside ;-) Therefore i've been reading your blog for some days now.
After reading this post I thought I had seen that report somewhere before. Only I tought it said that Flanders (where I live) was the top mathimatics country, I recall the prime minister being very proud about it, even though he hadn't really done anything. This report gave me an excuse for being so lousy in mathematics :-) So you can imagine how shocked I was when flanders was nowhere to be found on your list.
So I looked it up, and it appears that in this test Flanders was actually 1st, hongkong 2nd and Finland 3rd.
http://www.vlaanderen.be/MVG_CMS/uploads/fl65_34-35e,0.pdf
So then I thought one of our sources must be wrong. Ofcourse I immediatly suspected a huge cover-up operation by the Flemish governement in order to keep their people down.
But then I saw that your list only deals with OECD countries. The full report mentions both Flanders and Hongkong, but even though these regions are largely autonomous (for example in education flanders is completely independent) they are not real countries.
I suspect the person who created the graph you use, changed the original list to make Finland look better.
Not that it matters really
Ciao have fun in finland, is it really that cold over there? :-)
Cedric
Cedric:
Thanks for the comment! Yes the graph I used was from OECD as reported by the Washington Post. I hope they didn't change it to make Finland look better - one would hope the Washington Post was a far more honorable publication than one who would do something like that. But I get your point :)
Finland is quite proud of the education system here and they should be.
To answer your question. I will tell you a phrase that I have been told many times by my Finnish friends
Q: What is the difference between a Finnish winter and a Finnish Summer?
A: There is less snow in the summer.
With that being said, this past weekend it was about 25c in Helsinki and beautifully sunny :)
"The Finnish summer is short and with little snow."
One of my favorite expressions ever, because it fully describes the Finnish sense of humor, which thrives on self-irony. :-)
I still don't understand why anyone would move to Finland. I'm planning on leaving as soon as I finish my free education which was provided by the state who, um, also gave me a place to live and some food to eat!
Usual academic politics...
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