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Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

news.bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

#91

Post by heresy »

btilly wrote: post #59
stretchwithme wrote: post #14

perhaps delaying the mind-warping effects of school for a few extra years really helps.

That leaped out at me as well. Piaget demonstrated that brain development tends to come in spurts that are closely correlated with growth spurts. One of the key ones generally hits in the range 5-7 and gives a sudden improvement in ability to learn concrete mental operations such as the ones involved in reading, writing and arithmetic. By contrast the decades long US trend is towards pushing abstract learning younger…

My mom held me back from going to school until I was 7, when the average person went to school at age 5 or 6.

I asked her about it the other day, and the reason was "kids need time to be kids".

I cannot thank her enough - I never had problems learning throughout my school career, and I was never behind the physical curve either, so did reasonably well in sports as well.

I know it's anecdotal but it's something I'd strongly consider if I had kids as well.

Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

#92

Post by heresy »

hugh3 wrote: post #66

One thing that shouldn't be forgotten in all the handwringing about the US educational system is that the US still has by far the best universities in the world. Whatever ranking system you look at, US universities dominate the top of the leagues table (along with a few foreign universities like Oxford, NUS and the Ecole Polytechnique). While there are many reasons for this, it seems like crummy performance in a few…

Just a nit, New Zealand is also in that list of small countries.

The University of Auckland (my alma mater) ranks 61.

Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

#93

Post by Adrock »

drunkpotato wrote: post #21
Adrock wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally unfashionable is the idea that there are advantages to homogeneous societies and classrooms.

Your statement is glib and unproductive. Obviously there are advantages to homogeneous societies. There are advantages to heterogeneous societies, which the U.S. is a pretty good example of. The point is not which is "better", but what lessons can we take to improve the things in our society which are deficient? Education in the U.S. is currently deficient, and we should look at why and how and try to find out what w…

My wife was teaching in a public school in NYC. They apply a teaching philosophy called "inclusive classrooms." The idea is that the highest performing kids and the lowest performing kids should all be in the same class so the advanced ones can "help" the slower ones. The result is the kids with promise don't get taught and can't reach their full potential.

You said it's "tricky to run experiments in education." I would modify that to say that it's tricky to run proper experiments. What they are doing is running experiments without using controls or metrics. How can they get away with this? I believe it is because of the unpopularity of the idea that differences exist and should be taught to differently.

Re: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

#94

Post by theoneill »

tokenadult wrote: post #78
theoneill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what percentage of the variance do they account for?

What exactly do you mean by your question? I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm happy to respond further if I can make sure to understand correctly what you are asking about.

You say it's false that genetic factors account for 60-80% of variance in IQ. What is the current consensus about the actual number? 50%? 10%?
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