Comparing Primary Education in Finland and US

choi

Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle, To Really Learn, Our Children Need to Play; A major lesson from Finland's education system: Instead of stress and cookie cutter testing, focus on well-being and joy. Wall Street Journal, Aug 10, 2019 (in the "Review" section -- mostly about books -- every Saturday).
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to- ... of-play-11565262002

My comment:
(a) In Finland: "Students got a 15-minute outdoor recess every single hour of the school day, rain or shine."

I wonder what is so special about itl after all, school children from primary schools to colleges experience the same. I ask a librarian in Brookline public Library who says: children in primary schools stay in the same classroom, and the same teacher teaches them various subjects in different hours, there is no recess between subjects, there is a half-hour recess in one entire day, and school children stay inside (the enclosed) school while there (even before mass shooting makes it necessary), unable to come and leave as one wishes while in school.
(b) "In China, an experiment in outdoor-play-based preschool and kindergarten known as Anji Play 安吉游戏 [2014- ; initiated by 浙江省湖州市安吉县 教育局学前教育科科长 程学琴女士] is proving so successful in more than 100 rural schools that it is being expanded—and widely hailed as a national model for early childhood education. In Singapore, education officials are trying to shift a nation of high achievers away from stress, academic ranking and over-testing toward a new vision of childhood exploration and 'purposeful play.' In a 2018 speech, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung" 王乙康