This week in the Critical Thinking PLC we decided to look at education throughout the world, consentrating on those countries that are the highest achieving. I thought that it might be interesting to get some of your feedback on some of the things I found. I'm not sure if any/all of these facts I found are relavant individually or not, but it is definitely some food for thought. These are some factors that I found to be true in Sweden, Norway, and France, some of the highest achieving countries in language, math, and physics.
1. Average paid maternity leave 1 year
2. Average age to start school 61/2 years old.
3. No school affiliated athletics. (although almost 60% do club athletics)
4. Second language stared first year of primary school, third language started in about 4th grade, the 4th language often starts after compuls0ry school (grade 9).
5.School is only required until age 15 (10 years of school required on average).
6. At the age of 14 the students decide which field they would like to study and schools becomes specialized (there are even sports schools).
7. Almost no students have jobs or cars.
Anyone have any great insights or comments?
posted by bkitch @ 11:22 AM
1 Comments:
The one item on this list that scares me a bit is the thought of 14-year-olds deciding their life path. Maybe I was slow, but it took me until my second year of college to choose a major that fit. I like to think students would benefit from a longer time to explore.
Item #4 reminds me of a joke probably familiar to all foreign language teachers, but perhaps not to everyone:
Q: What do you call someone who speaks 2 languages?
A: Bilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks 3 languages?
A: Trilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks only one language?
A: American
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