Last year I was able to take a visit with one of my classes to a Finnish kindergarten. Stepping into the brightly lit main room, we were first greeted by a child being gently prompted to put on his shoes to go outside. He stared as twenty or so of us multicultural university students filed in. We were lead to a large room lined with benches along one wall. In the corner, were hobby horses hanging from the wall. In another corner there were puppets, and in another, guitars hanging in a line. Finnish kindergartens are a different world from kindergartens in the US. The children in Finnish kindergartens are anywhere from 1-5 years old. They spend their time playing with peers and exploring the world (much of it outside) while in the US, kindergarten is for five year olds who are preparing for first grade. If children in Finnish kindergartens don’t want to learn to read, they don’t have to. Tuition for kindergarten depends on the parents’ income level to mak