Addressing American families, Howard Gardner, an education professor at Harvard, suggested to “‘[l]earn from Finland, which has the most effective schools and which does just about the opposite of what we are doing in the United States.’” William Doyle, writer for the Los Angeles Times, abided by Gardner’s advice and enrolled his seven-year-old son in a Finnish school. Doyle got an inside look at the higher education system as well when he became a professor in a Finnish University. Reflecting fondly on his family’s five months there, he refers to the school system as “stunningly stress-free” while being “stunningly good.” Doyle recalls, “Finns put into practice cultural mantras I heard over and over: ‘Let children be children,’ ‘The work of a child is to play,’ and “Children learn best through play.’” These values contrast greatly with America’s mentality of teaching for the standardized test.
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