Benjamin > Recent Status Updates

Author claims it is novel that in Finnish schools students rely largely on notebooks, and glue their charts and papers into the notebook. (In fact fairly common in US schools from what I have seen, that says more about author's teaching experience than Finnish schools). Genius hour (learn what they want). Three levels of trust. High level of self regulation earns more trust and offers more freedom to students.

The importance of teacher autonomy. Communication between all parties. In 2014 FInland established a national framework but it wasn;t a Common Core as curriculum is determined at local level with involvement of teachers. Integrated multidisciplinary learning that was falsely reported by media as getting rid of subject. A key component is project based learning. Their positive mention of John Dewey makes me suspect

Talks about how teachers learn. There is a lot of practical training and not a lot of meeting with a professor at the education school. They directly meet students and their lead teachers. Masters degrees are required for teachers. They also have mentors (not professors). Secondary level a lot of preservice teachers come form background outside teaching. Constant feedback from mentor and kids. 3 years.

Jan. 2000. Founders wanted Republic, not pure democracy or monarchy. They would be appalled at the power government now has. Talked about Echelon phone spying program. Criticizes Education and Housing getting worse under government. Government props up Corporatist insurance & makes things worse. Founders explicitly opposed modern welfare, includes corporate welfare. Police state with Waco & Ruby RIdge examples.

He expresses opposition to free needle programs. He is concerned about the future of the republic expression issues with Fed, spying, UN and a national ID card. It is 1999. Says there aren't currently any ward US is involved in (mentions recent involvements in Kosovo). War Powers act makes aabuse worse. Banning flag burning was first thing Communist China did to Hong Kong when they gained control from Britain.

Previously it had mentioned how one of the issues in American education was how reliant they were on testing, and things like No Child Left Behind and race to the top only made it worse. Now they talk about what is expected of teachers in Finland. Saying it is harder to become a teacher than get into law school, with all teacher requiring a master's degree and how well they do academically not necessarily determine

To desecrate flag means it was made sacred in the first place. Supports Istock Amendment which would allow more religious freedom in public schools. Mentioned how congress now careless about Constitution and brings up Lysander Spooner. He talks about an article in the New Republic that basically calls the Constitution outdated and says only right wing radicals adhere to it. He brings up Jury nullification.

Speeches on the house floor and you can hear the procedures in the beginning of each speech. Paul talks about police abuses, killing dogs and cats and abusing pregnant women to the point of miscarriage. He questions why police wear masks to hide their faces (back in 1997) . Talks against abortion. He talks about how anti-flag burning attempt would require constitutional amendment (and does so sarcastically)

Talk about how children in Finland are trusted with more independence at a younger age than many other places (age 9 shop at grocery store, 11 visit dentist alone, 13 start earning money). In the early 2000s Finland started ranking highest on education and initially the local experts couldn't explain it. Finnish teachers gained more independence due to budget cuts, less admin, less testing, less bureaucracy.

Culture of trust and how it is implemented in schools. Claim that Finland has a higher trust in teachers than anywhere else in Europe. They throw around the claims about how Finland is better in most metrics such as being safest , least crime, and most stable (several are completely false such as claiming to be the most free, but they do not have true free speech, and bets government which is really subjective).

The Foreword is written by someone who just seems to talk about how glad he is not to be in the US and doesn't seem to directly relate to the topic of the book at all. Then the authors give some background on the authors, one originally from Finland, the other from the US. They talk about the key to Finnish education is trust. Five elements: Benevolence, Honesty, Openness, Reliability, Competency.

Livy claims the Trojans were Venetians. He also seems to take the story of Romulus as historical.

He has gotten quite technical but still explains well. Talks about Quantum Cosmology. Claims that the idea that time is a spatial dimension was an idea invented by Stephen Hawking who took Einstein's calculations and did substitutionary math (imaginary time replacing real time) to make the conclusion fit that the Universe did not have a beginning in time, even though the evidence said otherwise.

Criticizes the RNA-world hypothesis. He addresses challenges from different flavors of evolutionism. He goes into the issues with the multiverse and its relation to string theory. How it actually creates a bigger issue creating even the need for even more complex design. using Ocham's razor to show how theism is less complicated explanation. Atheists admit they don't even want "A divine foot int he door.

He talks about how design points to a theistic God and along with rejecting materialism and pantheism, explains why deism also doesn't work. He uses DNA as part of his evidence . He also briefly mentions pan spermia just to point out how it doesn't solve anything.

It gets fairly technical with science and equations but mostly to demonstrate how naturalistic explanations can't explain how the universe came to be, and theories that try to either just push the can down the road a bit (such as panspermia), or are so speculative as to be unsupportive. He also gets a little into the philosophy behind it.

Talks about how the rival theories to the Big Bang fell apart and the last issue with the big bang was resolved, but then when scientists looked more into it, it leaned more and more in the direction of a creator of some sort. It wasn't definitive proof, but it made more sense than energy and matter creating themselves.

Talks about the origins of the Big Bang theory, starting with Einstein's theory of relativity ands how space and time are connected, and how that effects light and hoe speed and distance seem to the related. The Catholic scientist that proposed what would become the big bang, but Einstein originally dismissed, said was based on Christian creation view, but started seeing evidence for.

Goes into the theories and observations about light, in being able to tell how far away stars and galaxies are (ie Red shift) and if the universe was finite or infinite. Says Poe beat astronomers to the idea of a spatially finite universe. Hubble then plays a big part in the debate.

Scientific materialism, and he includes, Darwin, Freud and Marx in this as their theories were based on the assumption. The lead to the idea that science and faith were incompatible.

Kant particularly opposed the Kalam argument as he disputed the universe had a beginning. While Newton believed in God, he also believed the universe was infinite, and that stars kept equilibrium against each other, but secularists picked up on this. Design argument attacked by Hume as he said organisms differed from machines, they could reproduce. Paley defended design.

Scientists started rejecting the idea of God during the enlightenment. IN particular the author blames such Hume, Kant , and Comte. They may not have rejected Goe entirely, but accepted a more deistic God, but rejected God as a cause and continued interaction in the world. Talks about the Kalam argument originated from Muslims.

Section focuses on Newton and how he argued that there must be an immaterial force to explain how Gravity could work, not a purely mechanical one. He even clarified this with his interactions with Liebniz. Something must have set everything on its course and keeps the universe orderly, and Newton along with other contemporaries used this to infer God, in contrast to many scientists today who try to explain away God.

Talks about three views of nature. One is like a book which is how early Christians saw it. Another is like a clock, as proposed by Robrt Boyle, that God was the one to wind up the clock of nature. Third the one he gets most into is as laws. He said early civilizations didn't see it this way and treated nature as necessary axiom, until monotheistic view that a single law giver could explain, led to modern science

Says when scientists stated using Christianity, they realize that we could reason things but also that human reason was fallible. Talks about Ockham's Razor a little bit (parsimony) and how he was critical of using Aristotelian methods which relied on defining the nature of something by its effect.

Claimed that "Natural Philosophy" (what we today call science) only really took off when they got past the Greek ideas of first principles, and looked at things more systematically, and deduced there must be a creator.

Points to how many ancient civilizations such as the Greeks or Chines had the material necessity for science, yet a systematic study of science really didn't get going until about the 16th century in Europe, due to Christian presuppositions. (I want to see if he will mention the earlier Arabic scientific revolution).

The revisionist history of those who claim science killed religion.