Finnish National Standards

I've been spending some time perusing the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Basic Education lately and finding it quite pleasant. It is hard not to like a set of standards that puts on page 2:

The pupils will learn to recognize the importance of aesthetic experiences to the quality of life.

"Quality of life!" That's a difficult concept to articulate in American education. We've pretty much got a choice of:

• Don't talk to me about art until everyone's up to grade level in math, reading, science, and (once we write the test) technology literacy (NCLB-ism).
• Art, your pathway to a creative class job (P21-ism).
• Eat your art, it's good for you (Core-ism).