Chinese and Finnish Students - Best Practices

Some conflicting articles, both from the Wall Street Journal. One about how some Chinese students are doing so much better than US students because they get more homework. The other about What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

The Finnish students rank first in Science and second in Science, but they don't start school till 7 and don't have the standards that are the foundation of most improvement efforts in the US. Taiwan was first in Math as my dear Taiwanese wife likes to point out (guess who does the math tutoring at home - and it's now me). My understanding of the article is Finnish focuses on high quality teachers that are given general goals and figure out how to meet them. More Entrepreneurial, where the US Education uses in most schools a general factory set up that is standardized. Reading is a focus from an early age where parents of newborns are actually given books by the government.

The take aways from the two articles. It's an interest of mine with my daughter on how to get Good Grades, Study Skills, and get into the right College. The Finnish and Chinese approach are opposite it would seem. What was not mentioned in either article was in China, the teachers are given more time to prepare than in US classes. For learning Math, I do believe at lower levels using rote is a good method as done with the Singapore Math Texts. This gets into the entire question of why are some School better than others?

China's Space Program

It's a nice touch that China named it's latest satellite that will orbit the Moon after the Moon Goddess (as in Moon Festival). Good background on China's Space Efforts by the Wall Street Journal. I hope that China's effort in space leads the US to do more real space exploration, like the Delta Clipper promised, but was killed by politics. The private efforts in the US are interesting. It would be so neat to actually have the chance to get into space!

If you ever have a chance, read the report by Dr. Feynman on the first Space Shuttle disaster. The last sentence is key: For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. I was lucky enough to attend in High school summer school at Cal Tech, and Dr. Feynman came in one day and did a lecture. He also used the same piano tuner my parents did (small world). Dr. Feynman also wrote a series of physic books that are still classics and his biography is a fun read! I remember where I was when I heard about both Space Shuttle disasters. For a previous generation, it was where were you when you heard about the President Kennedy being assassinated.

My daughter attended a Sally Ride Festival in Middle School that is hosted at Universities to interest girls in a career in science. If you have a chance to have your daughter go, it's nice and reasonable. I liked the sponsor booths where a previous employer of mine had pictures of some of their women engineers (the CEO got his PhD from Stanford as did Sally Ride). For higher price, there is the Sally Ride space camp which is a couple of days long.

Relevant Books:

The Moon Lady by Amy Tan

Moon Festival by Ching Yeung Russell

	Moonbeams, Dumplings & Dragon Boats: A Treasury of Chinese Holiday Tales, Activities & Recipes