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[scriver]

The thing is, many European countries and especially the Nordic ones are relatively homogeneous and hold similar cultural values and emphasis on education. The white protestant culture, the hispanic catholic culture, the confucianist asian culture, etc. all have varying views on such. Our entire CULTURE has to be united when it comes to education for something like Finland's system to work.

Sweden is not homogenic. It has not been for hundreds of years. And even then there was the Sami and large regional differences and conflicts (Sweden is a country with tons of natural barriers which created tribal/regionalist clashes even though it was a somewhat sami "culture". The notion that Sweden was ever a unified people, culture or anything else is a nationalistic myth). We have always had huge influx of foreigners, either because of historical cultural dominance (Germans and French), direct planned "importation immigrants" (the... Ohgod I'm so embarrassed I forgot the name but you know, the "French" Belgian" people), and then still others like Turks/Ottomans because of politic happenstance, and the Romani showing via "nomadic" emigration, and then there's the natural flow of people from our conquering/colonisation in Finland and the Baltics.. And that's just before the 20th century. Looking back at the latest century we have even more Finns coming over, then large amounts of Italian and Jugoslavian workforce immigration, then (though admittedly smaller number) of Asian immigrants, then the many Chilean and Greek fugitives that ended up here, and then people start showing up from the Middle East, then more Balkans and currently mainly Middle Easterners and east Africans, and we're also currently directly importing Polish people to work here. Our country is built on a steady supply of immigrants or at least temporary immigrated workers. And that's, as I mentioned, besides the regional differences which still is pretty pronounced in places (and just back in my grandparents' day was enough to cause major prejudice and clashes).

Also, regardless of this Sweden-related tangent, Finland's schools are just as good even in the immigrant heavy areas where there wouldn't be as much "homogenity", so that obviously isn't the issue.

[Aklyon]

So as far as I can tell from here in the thread, Finland's schools work because of norse magic and not asking how they got it to work so well without it making anywhere else too terribly better if we imitate them.

[scriver]

..."Norse", you say?

* scriver watches Aklyon get hunted down and lynched by a mob of infuriated Finnish nationalists.

[Mr. Palau]

The thing is, many European countries and especially the Nordic ones are relatively homogeneous and hold similar cultural values and emphasis on education. The white protestant culture, the hispanic catholic culture, the confucianist asian culture, etc. all have varying views on such. Our entire CULTURE has to be united when it comes to education for something like Finland's system to work.

This relates a good deal back to the potential role of NASA. Back in the 60s, every kid and their dog wanted to be an astronaut or scientist; but with our current lack of projects TO GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE, why would they want to study math or science when all those do is make an I-phone with a slightly bigger screen?

Those things are hard and boorrrrrinnnnggg, I wanna be the next American Idol!

If NASA's budget were its original 5% of the federal budget instead of its current 0.48%, you can damn well bet kids would be paying attention in science class.

This so much. Also India scores higher than we do, and they are much more diverse. Despite them all being "Indian", there are many diffrent kinds of Indian. Seeing as how a united and independant India has existed for approximatly the same time as the EU, it would be like looking at half  the EU (or 2/3, whichever area equals out ot the size of India) and calling them all the same because they are all white people. I don't think cultural homogenity factors so much into a succesful education system.

The Finnish system has a minimum requirement of a Masters degree, but a lot of thse Masters degrees are actually in Education, which has a natural progression into teaching (pretty much how it works over here for anyone with a B.Ed or M.Ed. There are also requirements of a 35 week placement in subject knowledge and in teaching methods, no different to how it works in the rest of the EU, save for the Masters requirement. Thanks to its good reputation, there is a positive feedback loop going on in Finland - a good sector attracts good people.

Than clearly the US needs to replicate this.

Also as per the cost of building new schools, new classrooms and insuring they have proper support staff, you wouldn't go up to a tac payer and say "We need to raise your taxes to pay for more janitors at X school" you would go and say "We need to raise your taxes in order to provide a better learning environment for YOUR CHILDREN at X school through (list of things that sound better than hiring more janitors, improving teacher quality, renovating the classrooms etc.)".

Also even if increasing the standards for teachers, by requiring them to have a masters degree, and increasing the standards a masters degree entails, only raises a students grade by 10% over 30 years, I think it would be worth it. (This is assuming that what you mean by that is 30 years after he gets the degree, then his student's grade are 10%, if it is a cumulative 10% over 30 years than I don't think it is worth it.)

Also when it comes to old teachers handeling kids in a class room, I think it has much more to do with teacher temperment than age. My Englsih teacher (who was great and retired to Florida [how sterotypical] this year) was 68 and she kept all of us under control. Whereas my history teacher was ~55 is leaving this year and could not control any of his classes. Whenever we acted out in English, she would just send one of us to the principal, yet even though we acted out much more in history, I think kids were only sent out once or twice in the year, versus my teacher sending kids out at least 3 or 4 times in the last quarter alone.

Although you are right, they would likley be better spent teaching younger teachers. If Ms. Carel knew how lax Mr. Stanly was, she would have fixed that in an instant. Also this was in a class with only 15 kids (all the same kids, since at my school you go to the same history and english classes), so I admit that this is not the case in general. Also besides just ages in general Ms. Carel had been teaching for ~30 years, verus 2 for Mr. Stanly.

I second what scriver said.

..."Norse", you say?

* scriver watches Aklyon get hunted down and lynched by a mob of infuriated Finnish nationalists.

* Palau "Aren't they norse though"?

[Aklyon]

If not norse, then I was still in the general geographically neighbored region, and I couldn't be bothered to find a more correct term for a post thats all of one sentence. They are in the cold snowy north, and they are in europe, so based on how well most people could draw you a map of the world and say what part was what I'm still right in a vague way.

[Mrhappyface]

DODEA schools, which are run by the government for the children of military in USA all have teachers that are required to have master degrees. I went one for the whole of my high school years. They're on par with relatively affluent public schools and some private schools.

[Sheb]

Scriver, the world you're looking for is Walloon. I wonder what the fuck we were doing up there, but you never know. I recently learned that the 4 oldest quarters of Brno (Czech Republics) were the Jewish quarter, the Czech quarter, the Walloon (French-speaking Belgian) quarter and the Flemish (Dutch-speaking Belgian) quarter. :p

[ChairmanPoo]

The thing is, many European countries and especially the Nordic ones are relatively homogeneous and hold similar cultural values and emphasis on education.

.. don't you think this is sort of a blanket statement?

Here's an idea: maybe this supposed European homogeneity is born out of you not knowing a whole damn lot  of those countries and  their culture, rather than out of some kind of odd exceptionalism.....

[Osmosis Jones]

..."Norse", you say?

* scriver watches Aklyon get hunted down and lynched by a mob of infuriated Finnish nationalists.

...but finland is Nordic? They're not Scandinavian I thought?

(Finland is the grumpy guy in the hat)


Unless Norse doesn't mean Nordic? 

[Cthulhu Inc]

..."Norse", you say?

* scriver watches Aklyon get hunted down and lynched by a mob of infuriated Finnish nationalists.

...but finland is Nordic? They're not Scandinavian I thought?

(Finland is the grumpy guy in the hat)


Unless Norse doesn't mean Nordic? 

It doesn't--Norse refers to the formerly Viking countries, afaik. So Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. Not sure if Greenland and the Faroes, but Finland definately doesn't.

[scriver]

Finland is in the North, as in the geographical area. With "Norse" one often mean the Germanic group of tribes living up there, and the Finns aren't Germanic. Hence why Finnish nationalist killed Aklyon when he said they where "Norse", they're part of another group of peoples.

As for the the North, it's not a definite area, more a general concept of whereabouts. Kind of like the Middle East. Attempts to define who is in it and who is not will always be ridiculous and meaningless, because it's not used that way in reality. Same goes for Scandinavia as well. For most Swedes Finland would definitely be part of Scandinavia, and I personally don't count Denmark as a part of it.

Also, don't read that comic. It is stupid and will make you stupid if you believe you can "learn" anything from it.

Also don't use "Viking" to describe the people or culture. That's an occupation.

[Mongol13524]

PTW.

[Aklyon]

Well of course its stupid, its a comic. THat doesn't mean you can't ever fit anything relevant into it, scriver.

[scriver]

Yes. Yes it does. Not because it is a comic, but because of what comic it is. With that author, very much so.

[RedKing]

Wow...I gather someone's not a fan. Because she's Danish, because she's a she, or because she likes to stick a bit too much yaoi jokes in there?