Finnlands education system is thought to be no. 1 in the world. How did they do that?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHHFGo161Os

BTW. In my son’s class there is a boy who’s academically more on the lower end. He is known to be the class clown. He mostly scores shy above the minimum for passing. My son says he’s very funny and always joking, and that his jokes ARE funny, not only silly non-sense.


Did you hear about these clever kids underperforming, because they are bored in normal lessons?

You do not need to be clever to be silly. But you do need to be clever to make good jokes.

Thanks for your reply, too!


To be very honest, I am not getting what you are saying. My apologies, but no ill intentions from my side.
It occurs to me that there is indeed a deeply rooted discrepancy in between us about what is gifted.

I do believe the government has taken some steps in the last years for making the school system better, more prepared for contemporary requirements. But these are tiny steps, too tiny in my eyes.

At the moment all the kids are sitting down with their mums and learn for the so called exams. In my son’s school they did extensively coins and bank notes, the clock and other similar subjects ( P3! ), until my son already rolled his eyes from boredom. But they did do not practice sufficiently fractions and 3 steps problems, just as examples. That’s what the mums are doing now with their kids now, right? Or they pay for extra tuition. Is that related to what you are saying about constraints in resources?

ChiefKiasu:

It is always difficult to say that a person is gifted because he could be good but only in a small subset of activities that we value. Education is costly and we can only evaluate kids along a narrow walkway of topics (read: English and Math). We can all argue about the topics and pedagogy, but in the end, the question remains if the GEP is really good for kids, whether they are in it or not. I think it is best to treat the GEP as experimental rather than a badge of honor, despite the fact that it is in our system for so many years. There will always be those who choose the Programme because of the honor it brings.

Hello ChiefKiasu,

I disagree that you can only teach a narrow walkway of topics (Maths, English, MT). I am stuck with the disadvantage not knowing more Singapore primary schools, but I am in the advantage of knowing German schools. Looking at their curriculum right starting from P1 there is a wider bandwith of topics included. That alone makes a school so much more challenging and interesting.

This is not a challenging and motivating learning environment. I do suspect the same applies to many, if not most other Singapore primary schools. And I do suspect that many Singapore kids may tell you something very similar, after they went through it. The idea of a kid being gifted bcs he's drilled for weeks and months is a faulty idea right from the start.

To the cost of education: On the long run investing in better education for a country is cheaper than saving on education. That is what I am convinced of, and I am quite confident saying among all the other points I brought up it is the point even the government will concur with me.

Gifted.

Gifted?

MOE Gifted Education Programme test results from my sons P3 class: One child passed.


It is the one whom’s mum had been preparing him with mock GEP tests for the last 6 months.

'Learning is not a competition': No more 1st, 2nd or last in class for primary and secondary students


https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/education/learning-is-not-a-competition-no-more-1st-2nd-or-last-in-class-for-primary-and

Why delay? Why not cut off all the slack once for all, and reduce testing and examinations to the amount that is actually useful to measure a learning result? ... and not how many times the child has been dragged to extra classes.

While I do fully agree that learning should be not a competition exercise, to my opinion there still should be a little of a competitive element.

And now I understand your position. I learned ACSJ is one of the good schools that don’t stress out the kids unnecessary.

A program that considers a child gifted who has been drilled like a monkey is not what I am looking for. Sorry for the harsh words, but that’s how I see this. I was upset when I detected what is considered gifted in Singapore.


My son is just a normal child. His priorities are friends and having fun, just like every 9 yo. If that goes along with learning something, then even better. But I can’t see anything outside the average, except probably his stamina and sport.

Good talking to you. Where are your kids?