Trust, Safety and/or Rigor = Success in Education

In more recent years the US has dropped from it's summit in the world educational ranking to the middle of the pack.  There are various reasons attributed to that decline, but let's start by looking at how developing trust and safety could affect our nations transformation in education.

A week or two ago our friend and colleague Joe Mazza visited Finland to learn about what they are doing as a country to meet with such tremendous results and one of the main points that was shared was that from a young age their is a tremendous amount of trust placed on the young students in Finland.  Another observation that Joe shared was "that children here are more comfortable and treat their school like their home.  Students don’t vandalize, mistreat school materials, or litter in their schools.  I feel that this is at least partly due to the fact that teachers try to create an environment that mimics their home as closely as possible."


In many Asian countries the approach is much different, but the results are similar.  There is a much stronger focus on the rigor that is being delivered and the amount of time spent at school during the school day as well as extending the school year.


Here in the United States as we begin our transformation we seem to be looking more toward the Asian approach, by looking to extend the school day and even the school year and devoting more of a focus to the core subjects, at the expense of the arts, something that Finland does not support.


What is the correct approach, or is it a balance of both?  Join us Sunday night at 8 PM on #edchatri as we take a closer look at this very important issue.