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Paul Beaufait

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National - The Atlantic - 16 views

  • As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
  • The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.
  • Decades ago, when the Finnish school system was badly in need of reform, the goal of the program that Finland instituted, resulting in so much success today, was never excellence. It was equity.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Finland -- unlike, say, very similar countries such as Norway -- was producing academic excellence through its particular policy focus on equity.
  •  the number of foreign-born residents in Finland doubled during the decade leading up to 2010, and the country didn't lose its edge in education. Immigrants tended to concentrate in certain areas, causing some schools to become much more mixed than others, yet there has not been much change in the remarkable lack of variation between Finnish schools in the PISA surveys across the same period.
  • Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup.
  • When Finnish policymakers decided to reform the country's education system in the 1970s, they did so because they realized that to be competitive, Finland couldn't rely on manufacturing or its scant natural resources and instead had to invest in a knowledge-based economy. 
  • It is possible to create equality. And perhaps even more important -- as a challenge to the American way of thinking about education reform -- Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.
  •  
    Partanen, Anu. (2011). What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 9, 2012, from http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
Ebey Soman

Standards of State Recognition - 0 views

  •  
    How does a country recognize another state as legitimate? What views or doctrines are used to determine sovereignty or state recognition. Where does the United States stand on this matter?
lawagner

Writing Center Staff | Wilk - 0 views

  • delightful
  • gut-wrenching descent
    • lawagner
       
      Thesis: understanding the differences and cultural factors will help with some guidelines for communicating with ESL students/tutees, thus leading to more beneficial tutoring sessions.
  • ...56 more annotations...
    • lawagner
       
      Introduction
  • severe
  • ittle headway
  • communications gap.
  • made in the paper.
  • struggled
  • in my explanations
    • lawagner
       
      Since the first paragraph identified the problem and stated the solution, the reader needs to understand what is causing the probelm
  • cultural factors plague important aspects of ESL communications in the writing center.
  • ack of a shared linguistic knowledge base,
  • ifferences in the educational, rhetorical, and cultural contexts of their language
  • acquisition
  • learning
  • subconsciously incorporating of linguistic forms through reading and listening.
  • consciously assimilating rules and forms through study and instruction.
    • lawagner
       
      What causes the communication gap/ differences between what the ESL learner wrote and what the tutor is trying communicate as errors
  • Understanding those differences helps in formulating beneficial principles of communication
  • rhetorical models are quite diverse
  • In some cultures, one would be considered rude or abrupt to announce one's point immediately.
    • lawagner
       
      Socratic dialogue vs didactic context (lecture and passive learning)
  • Socratic dialogue
    • lawagner
       
      The tutor takes on the role of collaborator and is an authoritative figure based on didactic tutoring. Tutors don't need to know all the answers, but it seems this paragraph is saying start by using didactic tutoring and move towards Socratic dialogue.
  • didactic context
    • lawagner
       
      So we have a communications gap, how do we begin to communicate with the ESL learner. What tutoring style should we use? Didactic context and communicate collaboratively, but realize that tutor is more of an authoritative figure, telling/informing the tutee of what he/she must do.
  • shared assumptions and patterns of language
  • apply a principle they have learned to a grammar error.
  • communicate collaboratively
  • ole as cultural/rhetorical informants as well as collaborators.
  • Cultural differences in body language
  • attitudes and preferences
  • The acceptability of degrees of physical proximity and eye contact differ between cultures.
    • lawagner
       
      Cultural differences in body language (speaking without speaking), attitudes and preferences need to be known so that the tutor and tutee may communicate effectively. Examples of these cultural differences are given: Latin American, Arabic, Asian, and Chinese.
    • lawagner
       
      When I have gone to a new country, such as Zambia and Mexico, I looked up the ways in which to communicate with folks there, forbidden hand gesture, is shaking hands okay. In some culture they kiss each other on the cheek as a greeting. Ignorance towards body language, attitudes, and preferences may drive an eternal wedge between the tutor and tutee. This is a huge part of understanding cultural differences.
  • it down first and allow the student to establish comfortable body positioning
  • ake body language cues from the writer
  • encouraging the student to speak up or ask questions
    • lawagner
       
      This paragraph answers a question Writing Centers, directors and tutors may wonder: Do I have to know everything about every culture in order to communicate effectively? When writing essays it's important to keep in mind questions that may arise from the intended audience.
    • lawagner
       
      The tutor does not need to know everything about every culture, rather keenly observe the tutee, and modify behavior when appropriate.
  • utor can foster discourse through slightly modified behavior.
  • temptation to address too many issues in one session
    • lawagner
       
      Another issue with tutoring ESL learners: trying to fix everything at once. They are not the same as a native English speaker and cannot be expected to eat, chew and digest everything put in front of them. You need to pick up the steak knife and cut up the steak into manageable pieces. 
    • lawagner
       
      Native English speaker vs ESL learner; don't tutor them the same Although this paragraph seems slightly out of place and doesn't move the argument forward, it is a reminder that ESL students are tackling the foreign language and cannot be expected to handle the same workload as native speakers.
  • effective communications is best achieved by limiting the topics covered within the session
  • English is not the primary language.
    • lawagner
       
      Going back to ESL learners, a part of understanding cultural differences is understanding that they are coming to me for help with their writing-writing which is in a foreign language to them. Understanding prioritizing is part of the solution when tutoring ESL learner, and all learners consequently.
  • The driving force behind limiting is prioritizing.
  • the primary cultural barrier to communication
    • lawagner
       
      Explaining the differences in mechanics seen in varying languages spoken by other cultures. Patience is key nevertheless.
    • lawagner
       
      So how do tutors not overwhelm the tutees? By prioritizing-what is causing the most issues and go from there.
    • lawagner
       
      Communication barriers lie in the language itself and its attached conversational dialect, transcending into how the ESL learner communicates in their native tongue. * I think this paragraph could be two.
  • ack of fluency in conversational dialect
  • Close observation is a key to interpreting and dispelling cultural interference.
    • lawagner
       
      Summarizing the last several paragraphs; close observation is the key as well as other possible modifications.
    • lawagner
       
      Summarizing the main points is like the Therefore since we know all of this we can understand  the cultural differences between the tutor and ESL tutee and thus eliminate or at least reduce the cultural barriers.
    • lawagner
       
      Conclusion
    • lawagner
       
      A continuance of the last paragraph. All of this information presented  may help or it may not.
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