September 20th, 2007, No Comments »
That’s the question posed by yet another great BBC radio documentary, entitled Top of the Class. There’s a ton of fascinating insights, some of them pretty counter-intuitive, into the devising an educational system that maps to a country’s social structure and policy. A few unexpected facts from the program:
- Finnish students don’t start school until the age of seven.
- There’s only a 4% difference in achievement between the students at the country’s best and worst schools.
- Though it’s above-average, the Finns spend less on education than many other nations, including the US and South Korea.
I know I’ve mentioned a lot of these docs lately, but I’ve been really digging them. They’re exceptionally well done, and–at 22 minutes–an ideal length to listen to while, say, stretching, doing the dishes or sweeping the patio.
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May 12th, 2007, 6 Comments »
We just watched the 24 finalists perform in the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest at the local public house. We’re currently in the 15-minute voting period, after which (I gather) each country’s voting pattern will be announced, and eventually a winner will be crowned.
In the meantime, allow me to pick whole I think will win. I wonder, are any of these videos up on YouTube yet? Hmm…not yet, YouTube appears to have blocked all Eurovision-related submissions for today.
Anyhow, I’m going with:
- Russia
- Hungary
- Finland
Hungary deserves to win, I think, but it’s hard to beat three hot Russian girls all tarted up and singing dirty lyrics.
I must find a video for the Ukrainian entry. If defies description, and expresses everything that I find so deeply surreal about this whole event.
UPDATE: I have located the Ukrainian entry. This isn’t from the contest tonight–I assume it’s from an earlier performance. You can get a sense of the weirdness nonetheless:
UPDATE #2: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Serbia’s answer to kd lang wins? And the mad, mad Ukraine comes in second? I call block (or is that bloc?) judging.
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