BBC: Why Dutch Kids Are the Happiest in the World

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1. John Ogozalek says:

   January 28, 2017 at 2:34 pm

   And it’s not just the Dutch, of course. Family members of ours lived for an extended amount of time in Switzerland. They had elementary age students. Part of the curriculum involved having the kids walk to school alone. No parents driving. “All the kids go to school by foot, bike or motorbike depending on their age and distance.” One kindergartner they met walked an hour each day.

   And, one day a week school was in the woods, rain or shine. Students learn about nature. “The Swiss saying is that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing.” BTW, the kids liked it.

   Meanwhile, here in the U.S. the helicopter parenting continues. Sure, there are dangerous neighborhoods where parents would be wise to worry about kids walking alone. But fear has so often separated and paralyzed us…..and I’m convinced there are powerful people who are counting on that fear to intensify…..it provides THEM with power.

   So our Trump-led government is quickly shutting down borders, planning for walls, and alienating allies. How can we learn when we are closed off from the world?

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   • Zorba says:

     January 28, 2017 at 4:23 pm

     I have German friends and relatives. Sounds like their kids, too. They walk, bike, or take the S-Bahn (the public rail system) if their schools are farther away. There is school bussing, but not like here, mainly in very rural areas.
     They get a lot more physical exercise, and go outside a whole lot. In fact, in many parts of Germany, they have “forest schools” conducted largely outdoors for kindergarten and pre-K kids (parents have the option to send their kids there, they are not required) and other kindergarten/pre-K programs are also optional. Public schooling is not required until the children are seven years old.

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     • GregB says:

       January 28, 2017 at 6:00 pm

       I attended one of those “forest schools” when I was in 3rd grade; it was an American Department of Defense school near the Rhein-Main air force base that used the German model. I remember more about that year than 4th-7th grade combined. We used to have days going through the woods learning about botany, ecology and physical education. Those left-wing teachers with a far left agenda (funded by DoD) were fantastic! We even had sex education, which put me far ahead of my peers when I took a similar class in a Birmingham, AL in 7th grade.

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     • Zorba says:

       January 28, 2017 at 6:08 pm

       This country could learn a whole lot from most of the Western European schools.
       And most of those schools do not constantly “test” those kids with mandated standardized testing, and teach to the test for fear of having their schools shut down.
       Ah, well, when will we figure out what the heck we are doing to our kids?

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     • GregB says:

       January 28, 2017 at 7:11 pm

       If I remember correctly, the first “standardized’ test I took was in 4th grade (also a DoD school), the “Iowa test.” It wasn’t a “high stakes, test and punish” test. Our teacher encouraged us to have fun with them and we never found out what our scores were. I took another Iowa test in 7th or 8th grade and the first standardized test that meant anything for me took place in 11th grade–the ACT that got me accepted into my first choice school and eventually in the school that I attended. My standardized tests had no impact on my teachers’ careers.

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     • Zorba says:

       January 29, 2017 at 5:41 pm

       I recall (dimly) taking one standardized test in elementary school, and it was no big deal. The next standardized tests we took were the SAT’s and/or ACT’s (depending upon the colleges you were applying to) in high school. I only took the SAT, because that what was the schools I was applying to required.
       That was it, until I took the GRE and the Miller Analogies Test (now, that was a weird one) to get into graduate school.

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2. bethree5 says:

   January 28, 2017 at 7:40 pm

   The Euro education described is not much different from my US rural childhood education in the ’50’s. Walking & biking oneself to destinations w/n 3 miles was expected of any child 6 & up. School & residential properties included & were surrounded by woods, fields & marshes which were routinely explored with only very-light adult surveillance.

   Our particular topography was once inhabited by Iriquois & blessed with deep gorges whose shale outcroppings are rich with thousands of years’ worth of undersea fossils. Every kid hunted for arrowheads & trilobites, shell & grass imprints. Upstream, we had shallow creeks with uneven slate beds loaded with tadpoles and crayfish. The soil in the [unasphalted] driveways offered quartz, fool’s-gold, red & yellow sandstone, dolomite, serpentine, magnetite, pumice, basalt. I remember hunting galls among the snowy winter weeds, looking for the tell-tale hole where insect emerged, sometimes finding the larva. And in spring the girl-scout troop would comb the woods for a sight of even-then-protected rareties like Mayapple and jack-in-the-pupit.

   I’ve raised my family in densely-populated central NJ. When my boys were little, they hung out in “Sherwood Forest” (a strip of forest between developments which is gone now). But I’m happy to note that my local primary (aided by parent volunteers) has expanded from window-sill seedlings to a school garden. And our nearby chain of state parks has become part of the 93-mi PA-to-NY “Greenway” hiking trail, which means connected paths & plaques identifying key tree types.

   The raw materials for Euro-ed as-described are there in most US communities. Urban areas offer exploration of museums, parks, concert-halls, open-air ethnic markets, historic sites. What we need is the will & activism to keep our public schools funded, keep informing the public, turning them away from silo-ing into low-funded alternatives which shelter kids into 4-walls test-prep w/no view of the world around them.

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   • John Ogozalek says:

     January 29, 2017 at 7:34 am

     Really nice description of where you grew up, behree5. It reminded me of the freedom I had to explore when I was a child.

     Kids in our suburban neighborhood of half acre tract homes were lucky to have a large expanse of woods and old farm fields right next to us that belonged to a foundation for experimental biology. (where none other than the birth control pill was invented.) There was also a derelict Gilded Age mansion/haunted house on the property. We were chased out once in a while but generally left alone by adults.

     And, that was one of the main points, as I tell my classes today. To get AWAY from the adults. There were no cell phones to track us down. GPS was only science fiction. And, it wasn’t necessarily safe. I can recall getting lost in a dense tangle of bushes and having to find my way out. It was the same sensation as climbing very high in a tree then realizing you just might not be able to get back down. A metaphor for life, perhaps.

     I became interested in the past while wandering around the woods and surrounding town finding all kinds of old stuff. Standardized testing, APPR, VAM etc…etc… has only made me hate history. And, I’m a history teacher. Can you imagine what it’s doing to our children?

     But, you know, maybe that’s one of the unspoken objectives, or more fairly an unintended consequence of the so-called school “reform” nonsense we’ve been enduring. If people don’t care about history, if we don’t appreciate it, if citizens associate learning about their communities and government with the boredom and drudgery of endless test prep, then isn’t it that much easier to control all of us?

     Sure, our young adults were able to pass standardized tests about history and government. But will they be ready and able to stand up to a two-bit blowhard like Donald Trump, now that he’s our demagogue president? I sure hope so. We need them more than ever.

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     • GregB says:

       January 29, 2017 at 11:16 am

       bethree and John: Enjoyed reading your comments!

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   • Zorba says:

     January 29, 2017 at 5:29 pm

     Yes, bethree5, and John, I grew up walking or biking to school (almost a mile), and my siblings and I used to go outside (after our homework was done) and walk or bike……wherever. Just be home for dinner. In the summer, we were gone most of the day, “just be home for lunch and dinner, and after dinner when you go back out, when it gets dark.”
     My folks didn’t know where we were. We explored creeks, fields, all kinds of things.
     I feel sorry for today’s kids who are not able to do this.

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3. Norwegian Filmmaker says:

   January 29, 2017 at 1:00 am

   Rudy must feel like a fool after reading this.

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   • GregB says:

     January 29, 2017 at 10:43 am

     For you, my Norwegian friend: https://www.yahoo.com/news/dutch-commit-10-million-replace-lost-u-abortion-170917172.html

     Skål!

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