and one of the key elements, as you said, was that they look at how a child's brain develops and design their curriculum around that.
The article I read, which was about 7-8 years old and in Smithsonian magazine, also mentioned that at that time there were lots of Russian and Ukranian immigrants to Finland, children who had to learn Finnish in order to do well in school. So they aren't as homogeneous as many people think. The schools hired tutors to teach them Finnish (which isn't an easy language to learn), of course, we do that here. But another thing that jumped out at me was that they look at the whole child. If a child is from a low-income family, they make sure that child has enough to eat and adequate medical care. And the let TEACHERS evaluate the kids' learning, not administrators or politicians or any wealthy person with an agenda. And there's a lot less testing going on over there. And a lot more recess, fresh air, go outside and just play. So a lot of what you brought up makes sense. I don't know why we can't take a look at their system and borrow a few things that might work over here.
= new reply since forum marked as read