The Atlantic: What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success

Finland's schools owe their newfound fame primarily to one study: the PISA survey, conducted every three years by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The survey compares 15-year-olds in different countries in reading, math, and science. Finland has ranked at or near the top in all three competencies on every survey since 2000, neck and neck with superachievers such as South Korea and Singapore. In the most recent survey in 2009 Finland slipped slightly, with students in Shanghai, China, taking the best scores, but the Finns are still near the very top. Throughout the same period, the PISA performance of the United States has been middling, at best.

Compared with the stereotype of the East Asian model -- long hours of exhaustive cramming and rote memorization -- Finland's success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play. All this has led to a continuous stream of foreign delegations making the pilgrimage to Finland to visit schools and talk with the nation's education experts, and constant coverage in the worldwide media marveling at the Finnish miracle. [...]

This notion may seem difficult for an American to digest, but it's true. Only a small number of independent schools exist in Finland, and even they are all publicly financed. None is allowed to charge tuition fees. There are no private universities, either. This means that practically every person in Finland attends public school, whether for pre-K or a Ph.D. [...]

For starters, Finland has no standardized tests. The only exception is what's called the National Matriculation Exam, which everyone takes at the end of a voluntary upper-secondary school, roughly the equivalent of American high school.

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Katoikos: Is the European Union falling apart?

Fear itself can be dangerous. Accompanied by horror and panic, it can induce changes in behaviour and prompt people to react to events irrationally. And there are many sources of fear in Europe. The flood of immigrants and the terrorist attacks are two of them, but unemployment is another one. As a consequence, the psychological landscape of Europe has been transformed and traditional cultural behaviours have been distorted.

In fact, the immigrants’ influx in Europe has revealed a number of serious political fault lines. Initially welcomed by many, refugees were eventually considered an anathema by many governments, which claimed that they could not deal with them logistically, that the newcomers were a threat to national identities or a risk to national security. Measures to prevent immigration (link 1, link 2) went from border controls and the closing of borders to fence building, suspension of ferry links and rail travel, spot checks on cars and even state of emergency declarations with soldiers’ deployment. [...]

According to the above table, there are two countries or regions registering the emergence of parties of the far-right in their National assemblies or parliaments for the first time in 2016: Kotleba (People’s Party Our Slovakia), whose chairman is considered a neo-nazi, positioned against the euro, and against NATO; and, in Wales, UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party), a great supporter of the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum of 2016. In Romania, a catch-all party also emerged for the first time, getting the third place. [...]

The EU has not been doing enough. Decisions are taken in the grey towers of Brussels, with short briefings to the media, hardly reaching the common citizen. Bad or good, people do not know what Brussels decisions are about, tending to blame the institutions and their bureaucracy for all the wrong-doings and the malaise affecting their national states. And we see no real will and synergies to change the situation. The EU leaders are not giving answers. There is no vision, no credible proposals, no assurances.

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Deutsche Welle: Solar panels make Morocco’s mosques a model for green energy

It's all part of a scheme being pioneered by Morocco's Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Of around 50,000 mosques dotted across the country, the ministry is responsible for energy and water in approximately 15,000. The government plans to install electricity producing PV, or photovoltaic panels, LED lighting and solar thermal water heaters at around 600 mosques by 2019 and more after that. [...]

The changes taking place at mosques are just some of the measures Morocco is taking in developing its renewable energy sector. A frontrunner in the region, the country has already rolled out large wind farm and solar energy projects. In 2015, the King of Morocco announced the country would aim to get more than half its electricity from renewables by 2030. [...]

Currently, Morocco is heavily dependent on energy imports. AMEE estimates that more than 95 percent of its energy comes from outside the country, which makes it vulnerable to energy price fluctuations.

The government believes that energy efficiency and renewable energy are the key to reducing the country's dependency and providing people with an affordable source of power, at least in the long run. But the initial costs for installing solar panels or measures to make their energy more efficient are beyond what many Moroccans can afford.

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Curbed: The 19 most beautiful libraries in the U.S.

From museums to churches, architecture in U.S. cities ranges from jaw-dropping modernist masterpieces to historic gems hidden on side streets. But an oft-overlooked category of Instagram-worthy architecture is our country’s libraries.

Although the first function of a library is to house books and manuscripts, they also serve as places to study, research, and contemplate. Historic libraries, from New York to California, feature massive reading halls, many with coffered ceilings, chandeliers, and the warm glow of reading lights.

More modern buildings—like the Seattle Central Library or the Billings Public Library—are not only architectural marvels, but also function as community gathering spaces and technology hubs. Today’s libraries don’t just stop at books; new designs include recording studios, computer labs, and even art exhibition spaces.

In honor of their beauty, and to underscore their continued relevance in an increasingly digital world, we’ve rounded up 19 architecturally significant libraries throughout the United States.

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Creative Boom: Neglected Utopia: Photographer explores the forgotten modernist estates of Paris

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Paris was booming. Foreign migration and urbanisation of the city caused a huge surge in population and a crisis for housing. France’s solution came in the form of vast housing projects and so during this period massive, modernist and really quite unique estates sprung up across the city — aiming for a new way of living.

Just a few decades later and these towering buildings look dated, discarded and forgotten. Often stigmatised by the media, they divide opinion in France and have been left mostly occupied by the ageing community of ‘urban veterans’ who first made it their home, as the younger generation are drawn to more contemporary city living.

Local photographer Laurent Kronental has become fascinated by the ‘ambitious and dated modernist features’ of these estates, known locally as ‘Grands Ensembles’. Since 2011 he has developed ‘Souvenir d’un Futur’, a series of stunning photographs documenting these neglected communities and capturing what he calls ‘the poetry of ageing environments’. He also explores the idea of the aspirational ‘utopia’ design contrasted with the neglected state they are in today, by consciously conveying the impression of towns that have been left almost empty.

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