It has been a while. Good intentions only get you so far. Then you get mired in the daily grind. Discipline is the only thing that will keep you going. I preach this to my pupils and then fail miserably myself.
I was strong-armed into revisiting my blog by a series of events. The culmination of which was that I might be visiting Finland in August to see first-hand how they manage to remain at or near the top of the global test results score card. One of my twitter-followers immediately challenged me to blog about my findings, hence the resurrection of Theuns' Homeroom.
Much has been written about the Finnish experiment. I will provide links to two articles at the end of this post, but some factors include well-trained teachers, well-remunerated teachers, well respected teachers - all of which allow the Finnish government and people to expect absolute professionalism from their teachers in return. There is also an emphasis on creating a positive culture of learning and not a culture of testing. For some perspective, read these articles:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-school-2011-12?0=international#more-from-europe-27
And on a more light-hearted note: http://www.cracked.com/article_20321_5-things-it-turns-out-you-were-right-to-hate-about-school.html
More to follow soon.
I was strong-armed into revisiting my blog by a series of events. The culmination of which was that I might be visiting Finland in August to see first-hand how they manage to remain at or near the top of the global test results score card. One of my twitter-followers immediately challenged me to blog about my findings, hence the resurrection of Theuns' Homeroom.
Much has been written about the Finnish experiment. I will provide links to two articles at the end of this post, but some factors include well-trained teachers, well-remunerated teachers, well respected teachers - all of which allow the Finnish government and people to expect absolute professionalism from their teachers in return. There is also an emphasis on creating a positive culture of learning and not a culture of testing. For some perspective, read these articles:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-school-2011-12?0=international#more-from-europe-27
And on a more light-hearted note: http://www.cracked.com/article_20321_5-things-it-turns-out-you-were-right-to-hate-about-school.html
More to follow soon.
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