theinfamousmissbeth

No, I am not making a trip to Finland, nor have I recently traveled to Finland. The one word answer of "Finland" was in response to my husband asking me what I thought would help "fix", "improve", "make better", (pick your favorite), the education system in our local town. The subject of school improvement has been on the radar for years and years now. It seems that a lot of people, apparently, feel like the education system in the United States is "broken", "poor", " not as good as other countries around the world" (once again pick your favorite). I, for one, and this is just my opinion, find basically three things wrong with the school system in my town and in districts around the country and they are as follows: 1. Standardized testing 2. Standardized testing 3. Wait for it, Standardized testing. I recently read Teach Like Finland , written by Timothy D. Walker, an American educator who spent two y

Not the real Fatima, but a good look-a-like. The following is a true story. When I was around 10 years old, I began riding horses. Almost every week-end, my cousin and I would go to a riding stable and enjoy each other's company as well as practice our riding skills. Then when I was 12 or 13 I began "pestering" my parents. I wanted a horse of my own! Of course, the initial answer was "no".  I'm pretty sure the next 20 or so answers were also "no".  However, I kept pestering  , begging, pleading , okay, I admit, whining, and as the saying goes,  persistence pays off.  I was finally going to get a horse! There was a pasture for rent right up the street from my house.  My horse was going to be only 3 blocks away!   It couldn't get any better than this, now could it? Wellll..... I quickly grew tired of carrying buckets, (very heavy buckets) of feed and water the three blocks from my house to the pasture. Since there wasn't a bar