it’s always good to learn from stronger n better others

正是知己知彼百战百胜, we have always heard and admired how well the Finnish’s system’s doing, and this morning saw the article “Why Are Finland’s Schools Successful?” being retweeted, and took a quick look and copied down some lines and some thoughts:

“Whatever it takes” is an attitude that drives not just Kirkkojarvi’s 30 teachers, but most of Finland’s 62,000 educators in 3,500 schools

in comparison, we’ve around half that number of teachers, and 1/10 the number of schools

professionals selected from the top 10 percent of the nation’s graduates to earn a required master’s degree in education.

i wonder which percentile of graduates is our education service attracting. we’re beginning to work towards leveling up the capacity of our teachers, but an all master teaching force is still some effort to put in.

Many schools are small enough so that teachers know every student.

WOW! reminds me of juniors’ childcare centre, the intake size that is.

If one method fails, teachers consult with colleagues to try something else.

哇!真的没有面子这回事的?如何塑造这种风气呢? 羡慕羡慕

“Children from wealthy families with lots of education can be taught by stupid teachers,”

how “stupid” can these teachers be when they are top 10% of the graduates, and when they’re so open to consult with colleagues?

said Timo Heikkinen, a Helsinki principal with 24 years of teaching experience. “If you only measure the statistics, you miss the human aspect.”

well said! we were also very much concerned about the “human aspect” and spent lots of efforts and resources on this, but somehow the feeling’s that parents/society’s only interested in the ‘statistics’ part?

There are no mandated standardized tests in Finland, apart from one exam at the end of students’ senior year in high school.

i could not have imagined how my schooling experience would be in such a system, and juniors’ schooling experience for that matter. 须要身历其境,亲身体会方可我想。

There are no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions. Finland’s schools are publicly funded.

most, if not all, of our mainstream schools are like that too aren’t they?

The people in the government agencies running them, from national officials to local authorities, are educators, not business people, military leaders or career politicians.

looks like they have no mid-career teachers joining the profession?

Teachers in Finland spend fewer hours at school each day and spend less time in classrooms than American teachers.

what’s the hours an American teacher’s spending? and in contrast, how much time’s our teachers spending on average?

Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’ fascination with standardized tests … “Looks like we did better than average two years ago,” he said after he found the reports. “It’s nonsense. We know much more about the children than these tests can tell us.”

indeed there’s only so much those numbers derived from quantifiable stuff can tell us about our students.

spin spin means …?

2 post about NDP2011 in one day, was trying to check the traffic advisory and the website only shows me that forever ‘spin spin’, what’s this ‘spin spin’ in the centre supposed to mean? traffic’s smooth and feel free to drive around? *duh*

and ONE.MOTORING could have provided a better service if PDF road closure maps can be directly posted for downloading, instead of hyperlinking pple to that ‘spin spin’.

so conclusion, ‘spin spin’ = smooth traffic?  shall see (:

the ndp 2011 theme song mv

was trying to find out when’s the NE show this year and chanced upon this year’s theme song. first time hearing it, it’s another of those soothing series song though the singer tried very hard to inject power into the song. a very racial harmony tale depicted in the visual.

an 1-month in advance wish for the coutry, 在此预祝新加坡生日快乐,国泰民安 (:

musing …

was reading a doc and saw this in the concluding portion:

“Vasyrkvoyr pheevphyhz @aq z@grev@yf”
“Pbafge@vagf bs ybtvfgvpf, gvzr g@oyrf, @aq yr@eavat fc@prf”
“Y@px bs gbbyf sbe @ffrffzrag/zbavgbevat/srrqo@px sbe gr@puref gb rssrpgviryl zr@fher kkk”
“Trare@y t@c bs ubj kkk ybbxf yvxr sbe @ y@etr e@atr bs fhowrpg @er@f.”

.. @aq y@fg ohg abg yr@fg
“Fpubby‐jvqr phyghe@y @aq flfgrz pu@atr g@xrf gvzr.”

how interesting (:

New education minister tells teachers to ‘take a break’ during June holidays

and that’s a headline off The New Paper via asiaone yesterday.

“referring to retired teachers?”
“just finished 1 week of remedials, plus training the whole of today (my remedial students were still here!), now stressing out over overseas trip with students tmr”
“still trying to clear admin work this June plus …”

these are some of the (adapted) comments that i’ve collected via my fb thread. and this is my share of peeve:

wife’s P just took away 10-20 key personnels’ families’ weekend today! there’s 20 weekdays, and only 4 weekend Saturdays, why must he choose the 1 out of 4 to do RETREAT (and it’s by no means a treat)?!? if a leader prioritises work as everything in his/her live, the subordinates have to be no live as well?

“it takes some political wills to right things” said a colleague during lunch yesterday when we discussed this piece of news. such “high-handed way” is definitely not welcome by most (and it probably will affect popularity), but personally i think it is the single MOST effective way. cos by making 360 Ps (most likely lesser cos there are still many Ps with live) unhappy, 33000 teachers will be happy! let’s see when the decree of “all schools MUST BE CLOSED on Saturdays and Sundays” … “no BUTS. when there’s a will there’s a way. 有志者事竟成”. yes i hear boo-ing voices out there, but i’m one who’s hopeful, as always (: