Homeschool moms must be teachers too
I think the things in these two articles can be applied as much to homeschooling as to traditional schools.
“[T]he quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” – Mental Multivitamin
A homeschool is an education system unto itself; her “related posts” links she includes are all great, too.
What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? – Wall Street Journal
High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don’t start school until age 7. [...] Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it’s done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus, has no sports teams, marching bands or prom. [...] About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats. [...] Teachers must hold master’s degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom.
Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. “In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs,” [...] In November, a U.S. delegation visited, hoping to learn how Scandinavian educators used technology. Officials from the Education Department, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians saw Finnish teachers with chalkboards instead of whiteboards, and lessons shown on overhead projectors instead of PowerPoint. Keith Krueger was less impressed by the technology than by the good teaching he saw.
Click over and watch the 3-minute video embedded in the article, too.
Huh. I hadn’t heard much about Finnish schools at all. I’m going to have to look into that!
I thought everyone knew that the Finns were brilliant. My favorite part of the article was the line about slang: “Ask an obvious question and you may hear “KVG,” short for “Check it on Google, you idiot.”
Yes, that was the best part. :) That and wearing tank tops to prove how tough they are. :)
[...] STLtoday.com – Talking Tech wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt…wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt[…] About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats. [...]