education

Why Finnish Schools Always Finish First

- Adam Clare

Education is a very important part of any good society and a good equational system makes for a better world. In Finland, they have found a way to have a relaxing, effective, and the world’s best educational environment. The BBC has an article with some videos (which I can’t embed here) on the awesomeness of Finnish schools.

The Finnish philosophy with education is that everyone has something to contribute and those who struggle in certain subjects should not be left behind.

A tactic used in virtually every lesson is the provision of an additional teacher who helps those who struggle in a particular subject. But the pupils are all kept in the same classroom, regardless of their ability in that particular subject.

Read and watch more here.

Be Less Angry by Getting Educated and Ageing

- Adam Clare

Researchers from the University of Toronto have found out some the primary reasons people get angry. Thanks to their research we now know what one can do to lower their anger levels: get an education and keep on living.

It was found that younger people experience more frequent anger than older adults. This is mainly due to the fact that younger people are more likely to feel time pressures, economic hardship, and interpersonal conflict in the workplace (three core stressors that elevate anger levels).

Feeling rushed for time is the strongest predictor of anger, especially the “low-grade” forms like feeling annoyed, revealed the study.

Having children in the household is associated with angry feelings and behaviour (i.e., yelling) and these patterns are stronger among women compared to men.

As compared to people with fewer years of education, the well educated are less likely to experience anger, and when they do, they are more likely to act proactively (e.g., trying to change the situation or talking it over).

Read more at the India Times.

1,000 Chinese Youth Educating People About the Environment

- Adam Clare

The United Nations and China have started a program this summer that will employ 1,000 youth to talk about the environment. The youth will teach people how to be more conscious about the environment and what individuals can do to protect it.

Through a new training program called “One Thousand Environment-Friendly Youth Ambassadors Action,” eight Chinese ministries, along with the UNDP, hope to educate 1 million people about the actions they can take to preserve the environment and limit climate change.
The program started last month with training for 1,000 high school and college students in Beijing (north China), Shanghai (east), Xi’an (northwest), Chengdu (southwest) and Guangzhou (south).
Each young ambassador is expected to train another 1,000 people, hence one million people around the nation will be informed of professional environmental knowledge. The program is sponsored by the national Center for Environmental Education and Communication, China Environmental Awareness Program, Ministry of Environmental Protection, UNDP and Johnson Controls.

MBA Programs Going Green

- Adam Clare

Big businesses use a lot of resources to function, and some of the largest businesses are based solely on the exploitation of finite resources. The increased environmental awareness since Al Gore’s movie has impacted interest in the relationship between the environment and business operations. Now, MBA schools have classes that focus on the greening of businesses.

Most business schools say that although interest in these courses and programs is probably going to peak and then drop off a bit, the need to study and understand how business impacts the environment will never go away. And business schools are the ones shouldering the responsibility to train a new generation of MBAs who are equipped to make sound decisions. “We don’t want to be in the business of chasing fads,” says Forest Reinhardt, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, where environmental considerations and case studies have been woven into the fabric of many courses. “We would not be making these efforts if we thought this was the flavor of the month.”

Perhaps the closest parallel to B-schools’ current interest in sustainability, the environment, and social issues is the push to add ethics to the MBA curriculum following the collapse of Enron in 2001 and the era of corporate scandals that followed. However, unlike that effort, which never resulted in full-blown business ethics programs, sustainability appears to be a trend that is carving out significant space for itself in the curriculum.

Natural Pesticides and 4th Graders

- Adam Clare

In Oregon farmers are working with a class of 4th graders to educate them on natural alternatives to pesticides. For earth day this year the farmers from the Coalition of Environmentally Conscious Growers will release 10,000 ladybugs that will eat the bad things that hurt the farmers’ crops.

Because when you consider the fact that most people have never had the opportunity to watch tens of thousands of insects working together towards a positive, natural result I think it becomes obvious the kind of impression it will leave. And a lasting impression provides their teachers with a great opportunity to teach math, art, literature, social studies and science to them in various ways around the theme of environmental sustainability.

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