Leahs Cafe

As more parents are pushing academic to their children at a younger and younger age, one of the most successful educational models in the world does the exact opposite.

One of the secrets of the success is: former schooling in Finland does not start until the children are seven years old. Nor do they push reading before children get to school. It is my understanding that the preschools are based on play and children are out in the natural world for much of their day. Not all children develop at the same pace, but majority of children are more or less developmentally ready for schooling by the time they are seven, thus less disparity between the ready and the not so ready ones. Run, mummies, if you worry whether your child is going to play catch up all his life, read this article on the Wall Street Journal.

Our present system which emphasizes too much on academic can suffocate many. As we all know, not everyone is interested in academic and wants to go to college to pursue a degree. Some children may want to be nail artists or rap singers when they grow up! Some may be interested to go to one of the beauty schools to learn manicure, pedicure, cutting, coloring, chemicals and facials. They may even be the ones that doing better than lawyers and doctors in our current economic model!