On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 11:24:49AM -0500, Mark A. Hershberger wrote:
Since this discussion has very little to do with Linux or New Orleans, I
guess you won't mind if I side-track it some more ;)
But not by much!
Linus Thorwalds was a product of educational system in Finland. At the
time he attended the University of Helsinki, he probably paid hefty
$300-$400 for a school year. (Currently University fees are about 500
Euros, so they've come up a bit.)
It all has to do with what/how you learned growing up.
This is very good statement!
When I attended school in Finland, I remember us being taught first how
to use our brains..... to solve problems..... Then we were given
problems to solve.
We had very small amount of multiple choice tests. When I first
attended university in US, it was very odd to me that the answers were
provided for you to just do a simple elimination process. For me,
personally it has always been by doing stuff, not by "study" studying.
Naturally sometimes reading must be done (RTFM), no matter what.
BTW, I found a blog with discussion about the WSJ article. It had some
other Finns commenting about it as well.
http://giftedexchange.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-makes-finnish-kids-so-smart.html
Though one comment in the blog
"Many of the elementary schools are ungraded, which allows children to
accelerate."
That is something I have never heard of. I had grades and my nieces
going to school currently have grades. Perhaps that has been in some
sort of special schools... (Steiner school, or something like that,
though this schooling method produced lots of "waste"..... Not as good
as it was thought to be....)
Petri
Also, if you speak to people from other countries about who has a better educational system, they'll usually point out some benefits to how we do things over here, including that our educational system is a lot more flexible than the ones where you have to pick your career at age 13. Many countries force students to declare a "major" at a very young age, which I think we can all agree is incredibly restrictive.
It has also been pointed out to me that most work environments in the US reward PERFORMANCE and PRODUCTION, not necessarily the number of degrees you have, which is apparently the prevailing practice in Europe (or at least France). This sort of speaks against your comment of the US' supposed preference of talent over results.
Brett
Mark.
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Received on 12/08/08