From Last Place to First Place

Last night, in riding the T back to Riverside station, after being at Fenway Park for a Red Sox playoff victory, I thought that I would share the joy of that moment here in Patch land.  And oddly, this morning it came to me how that moment ties into the achievement gap  -- so don't miss the the last paragraph about Finland.

After my father retired from the Army in 1967, our family moved to western Massachusetts, where my father grew up.  So to me, the Red Sox doing well was not something foreign.  For long suffering Red Sox fans, the 1967 season was a Miracle.  And I got to call my father (who died in January 2007), at about midnight, after the Sox won the World Series in 2004, but could not do so again in 2007.  And then the suffering in September 2011 and the disaster that was 2012.  So going from last to first in 2013 has been a great experience, and the ride is not over yet.

Our oldest daughter, who is working on going to all of the MLB parks, and who is a Sox fan, wanted to attend her first playoff game.  She was lucky to experience a playoff victory yesterday.  I've been to one World Series loss in 1986, and two playoff losses in 1988 and 1990.  During the regular season the crowd will stand after two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth.  In the playoffs, the crowd stands for the whole ninth inning, and after after two outs in the 6th through 8th innings.  It is great to experience this energy in person.

OK, so here is my weird thought throughout the ninth inning.  I stepped back to observe a Boston crowd cheering crazily for two Japanese relief pitchers.  Yes, I did think of how they would have been treated anyone from Japan 70 years earlier.  Then I came back to the moment.  And I enjoyed the moment, even more for having had my temporal displacement moment.  (And I clutched the bag that held the Uehara T-shirt that I will be sending to my younger brother in Japan.  And I thought of how Junichi Tazawa was born in Yokahama, where my brother lives, and my brother's wife if from Osaka, where Koji Uehara was born.  My father always liked instances where the phrase is, "It is a small world.")  Emotions can get to you after going from last to first.

Anyway, on to Finland.  In the 1970s, Finland had one of the worst educational systems, for the developed countries, in the world.  For a while now, it has one of the best.  So how did Finland close its achievement gap, and go from worst to best?  Someone sent me a very long article describing how Finland went from last to first in student achievement.  I'll copy and paste that article in my blog area soon.  I'll highlight what I think are the key paragraphs and sentences, for those who want the abridged version.  And I'll post the whole article.  So why do I find this so important?  Because it shows us hope.  A whole country has gone through what Windsor needs to do, and they did it.  And the article indicates that other entities (e.g., states of some counties) have successfully made the journey of closing the achievement gap.  I've been so bummed out from the understanding that the turnaround has not happened in the United States yet.  (I'll keep searching for that story, hoping to find it.)  I've mentioned before that I've collected sayings for over 40 years, and this one kept kept running through my mind:  "When the legends die, the dreams end.  When dreams end, there is no more greatness."  After reading the article about Finland, I am now renewed with hope.  And with hope, I see a brighter future.