I've taken every spare moment to walk around town, explore, read, and talk to people so I haven't blogged very much. Sorry! Here's a quick one to let you know what we've observed after many school visits.

Early Childhood Education centers are outstanding! The teachers have the same (well, similar) training to primary and secondary teachers, so they provide wonderful environments for learning for little ones.

Primary schools (grades 1-8) are very student centered as well. There are many examples of flexible learning. Children are known as individuals and teachers are cared for.

Primary schools and secondary schools (grades 9-13) are "self-managing." That means they have a principal and some deputy or assistant principals (numbers depend on the size of hte school) and a school board to set the direction. They are overseen by the federal Ministry of Education, so there are not many layers. All the principals and most of the teachers we talked to really liked this system.

Secondary schools are miuch more traditional. The students usually sit in rows, listen to lectures, and take assessments. It must be a tough adjustment for students who have experienced such freedom and self-directed learning in earlier grades. The best explanation we have heard for this sudden shift is that there is state testing in years 10, 11, and 12 of secondary school.

The university professors (in schools of education) say there are examples of more interesting secondary schools, but we haven't seen them.

So I have gleaned many ideas from primary and intermediate (only grades 7 & 8) schools that I intend to bring back to Ventura. Stay tuned!