Friday, December 9, 2011


In Finland, etc.


Once in the profession, teachers have a lot of autonomy over their classroom. A national curriculum set by the local government—with input from the national teachers union—explains what should be learned but not how to teach it. Teachers have control over that part.

"In Finland it's very common for us to write our own textbooks or choose the methods and curriculum or textbooks we want to buy," said Sepoo Nyyssönen, a philosophy teacher at Sibelius High School, an arts-based school in Helsinki.
"I think that's why I feel that teaching is good—you are like the king or queen of your own classroom," Nyyssönen said.

Curriculum
In the 1970s and '80s, Finland sought to eliminate a tracking system that divided students after fourth grade, at age 10. Children who seemed college-bound were offered a more rigorous curriculum, while others were ushered to less academic classes. The Finns instead implemented a comprehensive nine-year system of schooling that goes from age 7 to 16. At that point, students can decide for themselves if they want to go to the college-prep lukio to complete upper secondary school, or if they want to spend the next three years in the vocational high schools, where they can start to learn a trade.
Students can switch between the high school options, however, and choosing the vocational track does not preclude a student from getting into a university.
Recently, there's been more discussion in Wisconsin of breathing new life into vocational training options for high school students, and acknowledging that not all students need or want to pursue an expensive four-year bachelor's degree.

A bill batted around in Madison this legislative session called for more flexibility in substituting vocational classes for certain academic high school credits.

Local advocates of vocational education, such as Tim Sullivan, the former CEO of Bucyrus International Inc., have said that Wisconsin manufacturers have jobs to fill, but can't find qualified local graduates.

Play, Social Development
Just about everyone believes in the importance of getting children off to a good start in life from birth, but the Finnish government offers resources to make that happen. Taxes are high in Finland as a result: Income taxes are assessed on a progressive scale depending on income and range from 6.5% to 30%. Municipal taxes can range from 16% to 21% of a payer's income.
The trade-off: Parents can take up to about 17 weeks of paid maternity leave, and up to three years of unpaid leave if they wish to care for their children at home in the first years of their child's life.

There's a tradition of women working in Finland, encouraged by the fact that the government pays for day care from infancy to kindergarten. If parents decide to not enroll their child in day care, they receive an additional monthly child home-care allowance.

The government grants parents an allotment of child support money each month until the child turns 18, because it believes that raising children shouldn't be an undue financial burden for families.

Real academic learning doesn't take place until compulsory schooling starts in first grade. And even then, days for students include an emphasis on social skills and development. Being outside is also important—many schools in Finland are flanked by vast playgrounds and forests that allow children to spread out and play before, during and after school.

"If children don't have a good home background, we think they need sports and arts and other activities to help them feel good about themselves," said Irmeli Halinen, head of curriculum development of general education for the Finnish National Board of Education.

"If a child feels good, he learns better," she said.
Halinen said it's not just the education system in Finland, it's the whole support system that makes it happen.

"During the '72 through '77 reforms, there were parents who wanted their kids to have a better education," she said. "It was the time after the wars with Russia, and we were building and investing in technology and industry. We needed people to have a good education and knowledge."
The system is not perfect. Parents still complain about less-than-stellar teachers. School leadership still matters. High-flying students might get neglected in a system set up to improve the bottom and the middle.
But if steady overall improvement is the intent, the country is accomplishing it.
"It doesn't matter where you live here," Nordberg said. "You're going to get a good education."
Copyright (c) 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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reading, math and science, according to a respected international exam. The country has one of the narrowest gaps in achievement between its highest and lowest-performing schools, and on average spends less per pupil than the United States.

The country's education system has come to be regarded as one of the highest-performing in the world, and a growing number of foreigners are trying to figure out if and how they can emulate it.

Though its students always had good literacy skills, Finland used to be mediocre on other international measures, which prompted it to undertake a series of education reforms in the 1970s and 1980s. Those efforts reshaped teacher training by raising the bar to become an educator, and standardized the curriculum from elementary through middle school.

"We looked at what qualities we thought our kids needed to have to compete in the international world market, and then we made the changes to get that," said Olli Määttä, principal of the upper secondary school at the Normal Lyceum of Helsinki. Lyceum means high school in English, though the building serves grades seven through 12.

"We developed a system in what some call the fourth way, or the Finnish way," Määttä added.
Wisconsin is finding its own way through major reforms. It's trying to reshape teaching and learning by developing new teacher evaluation systems, a new school accountability system, more useful professional development and better outcomes for kids, all with fewer dollars than in previous years.
Wisconsin's government and demographics differ from Finland in some important respects, but there are still lessons to be learned from the steps this northern European nation has taken to better serve all students and educators, including:
• Improving teacher recruitment and training at colleges of education.
• Offering a high-quality curriculum with pathways to high-quality vocational training at younger grades.
• Emphasizing play and the arts in education.
In the current political environment, it's easy to fixate on the most tenuous aspects of Wisconsin's educational landscape: reduced budgets, teachers who feel like they're under attack, layoffs, larger class sizes, recall efforts.
But outside Wisconsin, there's growing evidence that American education as a whole has stagnated. Recent studies have shown the educational attainment of U.S. students has remained about the same while other countries' students have improved.
Several recent studies have sought to slice international achievement data in new ways. Adjusting for the differences in state, national and international tests, one report shows 56% of Finland's students perform at or above a level considered to be proficient in math, compared with 36% of the students in Wisconsin and 32% of U.S. students on average.
Finland has attracted attention largely because of its students' results on a respected exam known as the Programme for International Student Assessment. Also known as PISA, the test is given to a representative sample of 15-year-olds in participating developed countries every three years. In 2009, Finland's students scored third in reading, sixth in math and second in science out of 65 countries that participated in the exam.
American students scored 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in math.

But looking at the Finnish system comes with caveats—some characteristics of the country head in the opposite direction from the way things are moving in American education.
For example, Finnish education and government leaders downplay standardized testing. They place more value on developing creativity and independent thought, and don't believe in judging schools by test scores. The country's internal testing of students is so light that the PISA scores came as a surprise for most; many teachers say they knew their students were doing well, just not that well.

Finland has a relatively homogenous population; the country is predominantly white and Lutheran. The U.S. has a diverse population of people from different cultures, with different values and priorities, especially when it comes to education.
Strong believers in equality, the Finns have long supported a system where wealth is distributed more evenly, making it nearly impossible to live in abject poverty. The income ladder ranges more greatly in the U.S., with intense wealth at the top and intense poverty at the bottom.
Some schools in Finland do serve a predominantly low-income population, and the pace of instruction at those schools is indeed slower than at the schools in middle-income areas. But the low-income schools are supported in other ways to try to give all students the tools needed to reach a basic level of education by the end of ninth grade.
Teacher Training

Finland has been praised for the way in which it attracts, and subsequently develops, future teachers.
Education at the university level is funded by the government, but the openings are limited, which creates competition. Teacher-studies programs set a particularly high bar for applicants: At the University of Helsinki, a mere 6.7% of those who applied to be primary school teachers were admitted this year to the education school.

That's a lower acceptance rate than the 10% of applicants admitted to the University of Helsinki's schools of law and medicine. By comparison, the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee accepted 96% of undergraduate students who applied for the 2011 year, and 88% of post-baccalaureate applicants.

Gail Schneider, associate dean of academic affairs at UWM's education school, said there's more going on behind the numbers.

"While our admission numbers may appear relatively high compared to Finland," she said, "considerable levels of self-determination and advising occurs prior to the application process to ensure that applicants hold high promise of becoming committed, exemplary teachers."
At Marquette University, the College of Education accepts only freshman students who rank in the top third of their high school class, Dean Bill Henk said. The college's three-year average shows an acceptance rate of 63%.
Henk is a proponent of making it more difficult to become a teacher. But he worries about whether the current teaching climate in Wisconsin would attract any of the best and brightest to the profession.

Being a teacher in Finland, by contrast, comes with a status of prestige—though not necessarily high pay. Adjusting for currency conversions, teachers in Finland make less in gross salary and pay more in taxes than the average American teacher.

Part of what raises the status of the profession is the rigorous training they have to undergo. Teachers who plan to teach seventh through 12th grade in a specific area, such as math or history or English, need a master's degree in that subject. Classroom teachers—the educators in the younger grades—need a master's degree in a general education field.

"Every teacher has to be a master of something," Nordberg said one afternoon in September in his office after class at the Normal Lyceum of Helsinki.
Nordberg got his master's degree in English. His thesis focused on the way English core modals (can, must, may, etc.) are portrayed in Finnish upper secondary school textbooks. He also had to do a thesis for his bachelor's degree. And another specifically for teacher training.

"It was agony," he recalls of his master's thesis. "But I did it."
Like other applicants to teacher-studies programs, Nordberg had to have high academic marks, pass an entrance exam and pass an in-person interview before he was accepted to the program.STEAL THIS BLOG PLEASE! I, Praetorian

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This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out?

What's taking so long? This is the fight of our professional careers. Are You In or Out? "Hell has a special level for those who sit by idly during times of great crisis."
Robert Kennedy

The Art of SETTING LIMITS, Its not as easy as it looks.

Art of Setting Limits Setting limits is one of the most powerful tools that professionals have to promote positive behavior change for their clients, students, residents, patients, etc. Knowing there are limits on their behavior helps the individuals in your charge to feel safe. It also helps them learn to make appropriate choices.


There are many ways to go about setting limits, but staff members who use these techniques must keep three things in mind:
Setting a limit is not the same as issuing an ultimatum.
Limits aren’t threats—If you don’t attend group, your weekend privileges will be suspended.

Limits offer choices with consequences—If you attend group and follow the other steps in your plan, you’ll be able to attend all of the special activities this weekend. If you don’t attend group, then you’ll have to stay behind. It’s your decision.
The purpose of limits is to teach, not to punish.
Through limits, people begin to understand that their actions, positive or negative, result in predictable consequences. By giving such choices and consequences, staff members provide a structure for good decision making.
Setting limits is more about listening than talking.
Taking the time to really listen to those in your charge will help you better understand their thoughts and feelings. By listening, you will learn more about what’s important to them, and that will help you set more meaningful limits.
Download The Art of Setting Limits

SYSTEMATIC USE OF CHILD LABOR


CHILD DOMESTIC HELP
by Amanda Kloer

Published February 21, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT
category: Child Labor
Wanted: Domestic worker. Must be willing to cook, clean, work with garbage, and do all other chores as assigned. No contract available, payment based on employer's mood or current financial situation. No days off. Violence, rape, and sexual harassment may be part of the job.

Would you take that job? No way. But for thousands of child domestic workers in Indonesia, this ad doesn't just describe their job, it describes their life.

A recent CARE International survey of over 200 child domestic workers in Indonesia found that 90% of them didn't have a contract with their employer, and thus no way to legally guarantee them a fair wage (or any wage at all) for their work. 65% of them had never had a day off in their whole employment, and 12% had experienced violence. Child domestic workers remain one of the most vulnerable populations to human trafficking and exploitation. And while work and life may look a little grim for the kids who answered CARE's survey, it's likely that the most abused and exploited domestic workers didn't even have the opportunity to take the survey.

In part, child domestic workers have it so much harder than adults because the people who hire children are more likely looking for someone easy to exploit. Think about it -- if you wanted to hire a domestic worker, wouldn't you choose an adult with a stronger body and more life experience to lift and haul and cook than a kid? If you could get them both for the same price, of course you would. But what if the kid was cheaper, free even, because you knew she wouldn't try and leave if you stopped paying her. Or even if you threatened her with death.



Congress Aims to Improve Laws for Runaway, Prostituted Kids

by Amanda Kloer

categories: Child Prostitution, Pimping

Published February 20, 2010 @ 09:00AM PT

The prospects for healthcare reform may be chillier than DC weather, but Democrats in the House and Senate are turning their attention to another warmer but still significant national issue: the increasing number of runaway and throwaway youth who are being forced into prostitution. In response to the growing concerns that desperate, runaway teens will be forced into prostitution in a sluggish economy, Congress is pushing several bills to improve how runaway kids are tracked by the police, fund crucial social services, and prevent teens from being caught in sex trafficking. Here's the gist of what the new legislation is trying to accomplish:

Shelter: Lack of shelter is one of the biggest vulnerabilities of runaway and homeless youth. Pimps will often use an offer of shelter as an entree to a relationship with a child or a straight up trade for sex. In the past couple years, at least 10 states have made legislative efforts to increase the number of shelters, extend shelter options, and change state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police. Much of the new federal legislation would make similar increases in the availability and flexibility of shelter options.

Police Reporting: Right now, police are supposed to enter all missing persons into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database within two hours of receiving the case. In reality, that reporting doesn't always get done, making it almost impossible for law enforcement to search for missing kids across districts. This hole is a big problem in finding child prostitution victims and their pimps, since pimps will often transport girls from state to state. The new bill would strengthen reporting requirements, as well as facilitate communication between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women

We Must Never Forget These Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen and Women
Nor the Fool Politicians that used so many American GIs' lives as fodder for the fight over an english noun - "Communism"