What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

I really enjoyed reading the article, "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?" It really helped me put a perspective on the education system in the United States. Finnish students are among the smartest people in the world, and their system for homework and school is a lot different than expected. The article states that "students rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night." Students in the United States are known to get more than an hour or two of homework nightly. I think that less homework that means more helps students in the long run. If you tire them out by doing long tedious homework, they are not likely to put the needed time into it. I think that shorter to the point assignments are more beneficial to the student as well as the instructor.

They also mentioned in the article that there aren't as many standardized tests in Finland. I think that this is better because in the United States, teachers tend to teach to the test. They need so many students to pass the standardized tests to meet different requirements and the easiest way instead of teaching needed material is to teach the exact information on the test. I don't think this is beneficial to the students in the long run because they learn and memorize information for the test but do not keep that information in their brain.