Here = Australia. But, kindergarten is really just playtime, so it's not like you can't play at home. I doubt that the specific learning at kindergarten is as important to the next year as brain development in general is.
"It’s almost unheard of for a child to show up hungry or homeless. Finland provides three years of maternity leave and subsidized day care to parents, and preschool for all 5-year-olds, where the emphasis is on play and socializing."
^ AHAH - their "pre-school" is the same as our "kindergarten". So in this respect, school begins at the same age.
I should've known there was something fishy about the "school only starts at 7" thing. It's a difference of terminology, not practice.
And, here school is 6 hours for primary and 6.5 hours for secondary. Maybe Finland is less than USA but not less than Australia. I find it hard to believe that school would only last 5 hours there. What's the typical school hours in America?
EDIT: I checked and the school day in Finland is
6 hours, about the same as Australia. Not much less than America either. So that's not a reason, and no evidence that the Fin's believe extra home-time helps.
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But, even with (very marginally) shorter hours, that's not what the Fin's are saying is the "winning" point. So i don't think Finland's system can be used as a justification for "unschooling". In fact, all the "good" points of unschooling could be seen to be used within the Finnish education system. Which actually shows that there's no actual reason to home-school to get those benefits.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html?c=y&page=1"Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student. If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else. They seem to relish the challenges."
"Nearly 30 percent of Finland’s children receive some kind of special help during their first nine years of school. The school where Louhivuori teaches served 240 first through ninth graders last year; and in contrast with Finland’s reputation for ethnic homogeneity, more than half of its 150 elementary-level students are immigrants—from Somalia, Iraq, Russia, Bangladesh, Estonia and Ethiopia, among other nations."
(NOTE: this actually contradicts the BBC article which claimed ethnic homogeneity was the reason they do so well).
"here are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school. There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded. The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians. Every school has the same national goals and draws from the same pool of university-trained educators. The result is that a Finnish child has a good shot at getting the same quality education no matter whether he or she lives in a rural village or a university town. The differences between weakest and strongest students are the smallest in the world, according to the most recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Equality is the most important word in Finnish education. All political parties on the right and left agree on this,” said Olli Luukkainen, president of Finland’s powerful teachers union."
" “We prepare children to learn how to learn, not how to take a test,” said Pasi Sahlberg, a former math and physics teacher who is now in Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. “We are not much interested in PISA. It’s not what we are about.” "
" “Play is important at this age,” Rintola would later say. “We value play.” "