I found interesting this U.S. News and World Report “How They Do it Better”.
In this admittedly admittedly “unscientific and decidedly incomplete” study they explore thirty three ways in which other countries do something better than we do.
There are real questions as to why we can’t do some of these things here, the undo-able are so mainly due to economics. My favorite and the most workable here are listed below.
Finland’s The Secret to Smarter Schools. No Child Left Behind having been such a failure, and with the state of education continuing to deteriorate here it would pay us to look closer at Finland.
“In the early 1970s, Finland scrapped its old education system, which steered students into either vocational or academic tracks at the end of fourth grade. In its place, Finland developed a system of “comprehensive” schooling-free public education for all children from grades 1 through 9 that combines students of all academic abilities and socioeconomic backgrounds in the same rooms. This heterogeneous approach focuses on equity for all.”
Sweden’s Straight Facts About the Birds and Bees. Needless to say a good number of us already know that this is the way to go, admit it is natural, going to happen, and that no one’s virginity belongs to Daddy. Give them all the information they need starting at a very young age and move along. Why we complicate it so much is beyond me. The solution is and always has been simple. Knowledge is power (no) baby.
“Since 1956, sex education has been compulsory in Swedish schools, from the earliest grades through high school. Sex is a natural human act, the educators reason, and most people become active before they’re 20. Since there is no changing that, the Swedes figure, young people should at least understand sexuality and reproduction, as well as the risks of unprotected sex. “The idea is that no one gets hurt, and no one is having unwanted children,” says Swedish sociologist Bo Lewin.”
I found the part about Italian eating ways interesting because I have always thought of food as fuel, nothing more.Maybe Italy has always had it right. Food Not as Fuel but as a Way of Life
The problem here is people are doing everything so fast they do not have the time to sit around and appreciate it as the Italians choose to do.
“Authentic Italian cooking uses much less sauce or garlic than its heavy-handed American versions. Antipasto may simply be lightly grilled fresh vegetables with a mere drizzle of olive oil and parsley. And even if restaurant food tends to be richer in Italy, at the home table the portions are small. “You don’t eat seconds,” says Lesser. “And you don’t feel stuffed and comatose at the end.”
The French and their Art of Conversation.
“But conversation, like any other art, has its rules. Rule 1: A conversation is an end in itself, with no purpose. Rule 2: Rhapsodies of brilliance are to be avoided at all costs for fear of disengaging one of the participants, who may feel excluded or humiliated. Finally, disagreement is permitted and even encouraged. “But it has to be good-natured,” Miller says. “Otherwise it kills conversation.” Those subtleties again.”
Check out, Where Talking Is a World-Class Sport
Yes well I should have read this some time ago. …that having been said the art of conversation is something which we could all spend a little time perfecting I think. With technology such a force and with many conversation in real life becoming almost pundit like — keeping real conversation alive is important. If we never had the skills of the French maybe now is the time to start.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Check out the report and let me know what you think is do-able or not and why?
I still have the post on pornography pending but as I want to make it brief and as un-preachy and reader friendly as possibly I have to wait until I have time to focus on it a bit more.
Oh, if
Apolo Anton Ohno was a foot taller he would so be my fake, young, skater-dancer boyfriend.
The eating part just not compatible with the fast pace of life here, sure we could do it and probably should do it but it won’t happen. We are gluttonous in our varied consumptions, food is just the tip of the iceberg.
Japan too in ” Skimpy Portions and Satisfied Stomachs”.
This “Novel Aides for the Aged” is very creative, but wouldn’t work here at all.
Newt Gingrich always blamed his ample girth (but not his ann coulter, apparently) on the hearty PA Dutch food his mother stuffed down his throat whilst he was but a wee lad. PA Dutch, btw, is german. Chocolates, chicken corn soup and large blocks of greasy pork result in slightly roundish mid-sections that never, ever go away. Yet, many PA Dutchers do not suffer from high cholesteral. Go figger.
I’ve been trying to slow down my own life to the point where I don’t need to be in a hurry to eat. That is part of the reason why I live as simply as I can and am not interested in a job that requires 50, 60, or 80 hours per week (or more).
Eating American sized portions is part of the reason I am the size I am. Not all of the reason, but supersizing things as a child didn’t help.
I like the idea of removing the stigma of sex and, oh I dunno, ACCEPTING that people have sex instead of keeping it as some sort of big, dirty, adults-only mystery. Remove the mystery, and you remove some of the compulsion to go exploring.
I love the line about disagreements being encouraged. Sometimes, there is nothing like a good, old, no-hatred disagreement
I never liked comparing one country against another. It just breeds contempt or jealousy. True, we may be ineffective in some arenas compared to other countries, but I think we make up for it others.
If I subscribed to your rss feed, I wouldn’t see the changes, and this is my favorite.
I’m reading Mojo’s comments and so wanting to agree with him, and think “what ways?” Calcium consumption comes to mind that leads, in my warped mind, to manicure/pedicure salons – we probably have the most, the most efficent and the cheapest.
Thing is I first noticed how modern Italy had become in 1977 – by that I mean they had ATM machines that actually always worked. We didn’t. I began to notice that American ingenuity was sorely lacking while other countries both preserved their old ways and went ahead technologically
that was around the time, American fast food restaurants then other restaurants began introducing super sized meals. It was great for me – I could have one expensive dinner and make it last for at least two more meals.
Cooper I promise you – one day you will think of food as more than fuel – happens to the best of us
We’re famed for our cheaper material good. We have clothes made in countries that work for cheap wages
We are a great country, but we will never get ahead educationally which is the crux – for many reasons – local school districts won’t merge with other districts when one is ranked 10th in the nation, and the one that the county say wants them to merge with is at the bottom
They’re not given incentives to do this. People who pay 30k a year in property and school taxes don’t want to subsidize people who pay 4K a year. It would make the people who are already over burdened with taxes pay even more while the quality deteriorates because we won’t spend the money to properly train the staff.
You can’t really blame the people who pay the 30K. Everybody wants the best for their child.
It’s been known forever that NYC pays the state much more than they get back in school aide and the city can really use that money. The Campaign for Fiscal Equality won a series of court cases that are currently being appealed
NYC subsidizes upstate which gets the money and services the city then has to somehow find
The two reasons that the city is doing so well are Wall Street and the 14% tax the city collects when an apartment or house is sold
States hide behind states rights. I have been hearing a lot from too many Democratic candidates, but really nothing about education because “no child.…” is a joke and nobody real knows how to fix the problem without trampling on state and local school board’s right
Without a massive overhaul of our educational system we’re doomed. this isn’t a new problem. It’s a big part of the reason I’m done with issues.
A nation that doesn’t put education front, center and middle is a mediocre nation, no matter how much you love it or how great you think it is.
Sex education? We have become such a puritanical nation, despite the overt sexuality that many parents I know practice the don’t ask don’t tell policy. That’s probably one of the causes.
I’m totally fed up for the above reasons and many more
In answer to your comment on my very meandering post, I was trying to imagine what it was like for my mother as she loved my father probably too much
I think as Americans we give up little and want so much. We could never be like Italy although be it were so.
We’ve sent thousand of men to fight and die in a war which started in part because we were not paying attention and we have given up nothing.
We consume food like we consume technology.
Money is our king.
Our system of education is a disgrace, but as long as the haves have it their is not real effort put behind reforming it.
I love this country but it would pay to look at some of these things education, sex education, drug laws etc a little closer.
Singapore and their broom clean streets?
Don’t they cane people over there at a drop of the hat?
That I could do without.
Cooper. I missed this.….
” Knowledge is power (no) baby”
This is why my wife is in love with you and reads you every day.
It’s why she doesn’t care that I read blogs because I showed you to her.
I have to remind myself to read your stuff slowly so as not to miss the little things.
It’s the little things.
That mean a lot..
Old song, I’m not even sure why I know it.
Coop, am inclined to agree with you .
It’s too bad we missed the people watching phase. the Europeans cities have.
btw
I subscribed to your feed for the first time and just looked at it raw first, i usually just read you from my home page. The copyright statement made me laugh.
Y –t-il quelque chose a dire?
Non.
You always say it all.
A “Tête-à-Tête” is always a good thing.
I’m not a violent person but I always want to slap people who pig out at McDonald’s.
What’s the point?
Tete a what?
I’m for the slow life.
That song is too much.
I’m with you and would like too add the gun control of Japan, but that is not going to happen.
I’m not going to comment on the comments this is a self sustaining thing.
It was just meant as something to think over.
Besides I just got an email from a prof
“cooper you are not done yet, you may want to consider getting back to the city.”
So much for trying to get my real life settled before it begins.
In case you are wondering, and because I had a couple of emails inquiring as to the song. I know I said the song would reflect my mood but the song currently there does not. It was just a jaunty little version of “Suicide is Dangerous” by The MSP and I liked it.
i found this enlightening in all sorts of ways, and i found none of these nuances in my own country. i received an email, actually, from a friend on sweden’s “slow down” culture and thought it was absolutely brilliant.
It’s a matter of priorities. See, France has all the good reindeer recipes. The Swedes give all their meatballs to the Finish people at CERN for mobiles that swirl in their unkempt offices.
And as per ususual the French are all going to hell for being too judgemental.
As for me, I judge myself to be out of your league.…
:p
Transcience: As — I still think of you that way — I am always happy to enlighten the girl of the beautiful locked away words.
protagoras: There is no league, but you really should start your blog back up again.
We are all too judgmental. I am happy to see you around, and glad that I do not seem to be disturbing your piece of mind these days.
Not comment on the comments? Are you sure I’m in the right place? lol
I remember the song from which your title line came. Reminds me of a sardonic greeting I used to get from a former friend: It’s a business doing pleasure with you.
I haven’t looked at your source materials, but I’ll venture an hypothesis why some of these things work there and not here.
Common cultural consent.
I happen to think that the worst system imaginable will work if everyone agrees to it, while the best one will fail if there is significant dissent. Trouble is, common consent is philosophically opposed to individual liberty, which is the great myth underpinning America.
America has had periods of common cultural consent. For example WWII (which, ironically, was immediately preceded by an era of cultural dissent comparable to today’s — and to the Vietnam War era) and afterwards into the 60s. These periods have, as far as I have been able to find out, been marked with serious repressions, vigorously supported by the populace whether they themselves enforced them or insisted that the state do so.
Vietnam broke America’s latest “common consent” phase, and it has never been regained. A symptom of this is the Reaganomics phenomenon of “no cross subsidy” — in which the system sanctioned the 30K person refusing to subsidize the 4K person. Naturally, the communal “flower children” of the 1960s mostly subscribed to the “Reagan revolution”, now that they had stock portfolios to guard.
The practical — and the philosophical — withdrawal of support by the well-off to those less so, and the refusal by those less well-off to see such support as an opportunity rather than as an entitlement (or a weapon), represent, I think, our greatest challenge. The War on Terror is a chimera — says the amoeba who has spent much of the last two days shoeless in lines at airports. People do not hate without reason. We are the reason.
How to cook without garlic and speak without purpose are absent skills, not missing ones.
I guess teaching kids is probably a good thing to be good at, though.