Finnish authorities haven’t outsourced school management to for-profit or non-profit organizations, implemented merit pay, or ranked teachers and schools according to test results, they’ve made excellent use of business strategies. They’ve won the war for talent by making teaching so appealing. In choosing principals, superintendents, and policymakers from inside the education world rather than looking outside it, Finnish authorities have likewise taken a page from the corporate playbook: Great organizations, as the business historian Alfred Chandler documented, cultivate talent from within. Of the many officials I interviewed at the Finnish Ministry of Education, the National Board of Education, the Education Evaluation Council, and the Helsinki Department of Education, all had been teachers for at least four years.
anonymous on 02 May 10n order to introduce the concepts of the game to young children and really show off the educational value, Wizards of the Coast has released The Heroes of Hesiod, a free, stand-alone adventure with everything you need to play in a downloadable PDF. Anyone who has played D&D remembers the countless books you needed, the debating of the rules, and the general confusion that came with the open-ended game play. This made the learning curve steep and the age requirement high. The rules for The Heroes of Hesiod, however, are stripped down to the core and basic enough for its six-and-older age group. It takes about thirty minutes to play and, depending on what concepts you want to emphasize, can reinforce a variety of subjects from mathematics to leadership to creative thinking. Even if you've never played D&D you can easily play this with a group of kids. It requires no prior knowledge of the game whatsoever.
