Skip to main content

Home/ Development across boundaries/ Group items tagged psychology

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Lucas Eaton

Brother of slain woodcarver takes the stand in inquest | KING5.com | Seattle Area Local... - 0 views

  •  
    Unfortunately, this is not the article about the original incident, but I'll explain what happened, I think it can relate to our topics: one area of downtown Seattle is known for its large numbers of transient Native Americans, many of whom are homeless or appear so. Sadly, they are often drunk in public and associate with a drug-using underbelly of the city. Of course this is a stereotype and not all the Indians in the area are like this, but many are. A few months ago, an older First Nations male from Vancouver Island who was a respected woodcarver in his community and was known among this "drunk/drugged out" crowd in Seattle was shot and killed by a Seattle policeman. Apparently the cop approached him and asked him to put down his carving knife. He did not obey, supposedly because he didn't hear because he was listening to music and was deaf in one ear. The cop opened fire and killed the man. Obviously, this generated a lot of controversy and protest especially among the Native American community of Seattle and North America. The man had some psychological issues according to some friends, but is that a reason to have opened fire on him? Do these tragedies have to happen for us to rethink our intercultural comprehension? This opens up wounds and old racial conflicts that have been going on for 150 years. The cop's previous experience with Indians of the area coupled with stereotypes led him to act, in my opinion incredibly irrationally, which resulted in the death of a respected wood carver. Sadly, the boundary present at this conflict was crossed by the cop in a brutal way, and this has resulted in the creation of more boundaries and perhaps a further divide between law enforcement officers and the people of the area. This will create fear and mistrust among the transient community and perhaps the Indian community as a whole, which in turn could lead to even more violence and further propagation of stereotypes. If handled poorly, no positive de
Sven A. Miller

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National -... - 4 views

  • Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
  • Yet Sahlberg doesn't think that questions of size or homogeneity should give Americans reason to dismiss the Finnish example. Finland is a relatively homogeneous country -- as of 2010, just 4.6 percent of Finnish residents had been born in another country, compared with 12.7 percent in the United States. But 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.
  •  
    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.
  • ...1 more comment...
  •  
    Sven, Equity is a nobel goal, in any sense. In my country politicians also say that but never provide the resources to accomplish such a goal in education. They compete on who is increasing the own bank account faster but money for education is never availeble. The salaries of the teachers and professors are very low and despite the good will of certain people involved in education we are far from obtaining equality. And I particularly think countries like the USA like it and would like to keep it this way. If the young population of Brazil were well educated we would take over the USA power. We have resources, we have industry and we have a huge population willing to work, and many wanting to change the world for a better, more cultivated, more respectuos and less consumist and selfish one. Equity in education in Brazil would change the whole world....for better!
  •  
    I think we cannot just look at the education system alone to consider if it is successful. The overall environment and peoples' effort in making equality works in their country are also important. If education system is just a mean to an end to achieve high score in PISA, it is not so difficult to do so. However, what exactly is the function of an education system in society is important.
  •  
    I admire Finland's intensive teacher-training and union collaboration. I think it is one of the important keys to the educational success. Of course, equity for students is very important. But, it is not enough to make the success. I would like to share a link which shows what Finland's Minister of Education says about their excellent teacher-training and union collaboration. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/justin-snider/keys-to-finnish-education_b_836802.html
1 - 2 of 2
Showing 20 items per page