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What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

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Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#41

Post by Alex3917 »

gojomo wrote: post #25
occam wrote: post #4

"... one of the lowest percentages of immigrants of any Western European country: only two percent of its 5.2 million residents. And a substantial fraction of Finland's immigrants consist of spouses of Finns, Finnish-speaking citizens of Russia (there are pockets of Finnish-speakers throughout the forests of northern Russia), Estonians, whose Uralic language is closest to Finnish, and Swedes (Swedish is the second of…

I'm pro-immigration, in the classic "the more the merrier" tradition of those with confidence in both markets and human innovation. But to be intellectually honest, we have to acknowledge that immigrants of different languages, cultures, and economic backgrounds will bring many 'average' statistics of education (and health, etc.) down. This is even true if the immigration is a net-benefit to both natives and newcomer…

"the massive downvoting of the parent comment is a dishonest enforcement of political correctness."

I don't read Sailer's blog, but from what I understand it's mainly devoted to proving that African-Americans have lower IQs because of inferior genetics. Now you might say, well if this really is true, then wouldn't denying it be intellectually dishonest? Here's the thing though. The black-white IQ gap has been almost entirely explained by controlling for SES and other factors. Anyone who spends all day quibbling over the last two or three points clearly just has an axe to grind for other reasons.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#42

Post by dgabriel »

mynameishere wrote: post #37
dgabriel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

Your neighborhood or mine? Is it okay if the good and decent men of congress choose your neighbors? Or should nationalist groups like La Raza be in charge of determining the country's composition? That's what I mean by "legally-enforced diversity": Powerful people, deciding for other people, whether they are acceptable, or whether they should be numerically marginalized.

If you are asking if enforced diversity as it exists in this country today is ok, as in one cannot be discriminated against based on nationality, color, creed, or sexual orientation, then yes. I prefer that to a nation where tiny city states can determine whether or not they want their neighbors to be all white, or bosses can decide if they only want to hire men. That's totally fine with me, even if it needs to be legally enforced.

La Raza is not a nationalist group, but an organization to help disadvantaged Latinos. Do you know La Raza members?

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#43

Post by mwerty »

enra wrote: post #9

I'm Finnish and I would say "I don't know". Article paints quite a rosy picture which isn't necessary true. Finnish schools(elementary to high school) are very boring. There are almost no other activities, no special classes, no school sports(only p.e. for everybody), no advanced classes and teaching is mostly done with books, paper and board. Teachers maybe still care little bit about there students and think the ma…

I'm curious about competitiveness: Are your grades public? Do people know how much other people scored in tests, etc.?

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#44

Post by neilk »

wave wrote: post #36

Then why is the US the most innovative country in the world? I am not saying the others aren’t, but overall the US is the most innovative regardless of the poor schools. Maybe it doesn’t really matter who earns the top scores, it is what you accomplish with it.

The USA rewards innovation and has the least friction applied to people trying to innovate.

This doesn't have anything to do with the question of whether the average student in the US is learning anything.

I can walk into any building in Silicon Valley and the Indians will come close to outnumbering the natives (and if the battle were held on a syllable-by-syllable basis, a clear loss for the home team.) It seems to me sometimes that Silicon Valley built something great based on widely available, merit-based, quality public education. Then around the 1970s they stopped funding that and started to rely only on prodigies from wealthy families, or outlier freaks from America, and the educational product of all the other countries.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#45

Post by astine »

mynameishere wrote: post #28
gojomo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro-immigration, in the classic "the more the merrier" tradition of those with confidence in both markets and human innovation. But to be intellectually honest, we have to acknowledge that immigrants of different languages, cultures, and economic backgrounds will bring many 'average' statistics of education (and health, etc.) down. This is even true if the immigration is a net-benefit to both natives and newcomer…

legally-enforced homogeneity Honest question: Would you want to live in a country with legally-enforced diversity? (Because that's where you're living.)

How about freedom of association? I heard that they tried that once. Seems like a good idea.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#46

Post by lexlibra »

Alex3917 wrote: post #41
gojomo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pro-immigration, in the classic "the more the merrier" tradition of those with confidence in both markets and human innovation. But to be intellectually honest, we have to acknowledge that immigrants of different languages, cultures, and economic backgrounds will bring many 'average' statistics of education (and health, etc.) down. This is even true if the immigration is a net-benefit to both natives and newcomer…

"the massive downvoting of the parent comment is a dishonest enforcement of political correctness." I don't read Sailer's blog, but from what I understand it's mainly devoted to proving that African-Americans have lower IQs because of inferior genetics. Now you might say, well if this really is true, then wouldn't denying it be intellectually dishonest? Here's the thing though. The black-white IQ gap has been almost…

The black-white IQ gap has been almost entirely explained by controlling for SES and other factors.

I used to think the same thing. But when I actually spent some time reading and evaluating the evidence, it turns out that is far from the case. The official scientific consensus is that the jury is still out. But there is certainly a strong case for the genetic basis - see this article in Slate for example: http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#47

Post by enra »

mwerty wrote: post #43
enra wrote: post #9

I'm Finnish and I would say "I don't know". Article paints quite a rosy picture which isn't necessary true. Finnish schools(elementary to high school) are very boring. There are almost no other activities, no special classes, no school sports(only p.e. for everybody), no advanced classes and teaching is mostly done with books, paper and board. Teachers maybe still care little bit about there students and think the ma…

I'm curious about competitiveness: Are your grades public? Do people know how much other people scored in tests, etc.?

No. We only have one nation wide test, which is a marticular exam(consisting of atleast four subjects: math, natural/social sciences, Finnish, English) in end of the high school. Even there they only publish(with your permission) if you passed or failed. At the ceremony where you get your final report and certificate, they usually state in loud if you scored Laudatur(10) or Eximia(9)(in scale of 4-10) and thats about public at it gets.

In elementary you only get grades at the end of the school year, and for first years you only get stated that if you're good or not so good in some subjects. At junior high to high school you usually get grades(4-10) on single courses which are then averaged and rounded to annual grades. So particular exam scores are not so important. If you're a good and active student, a one bad exam won't affect your annual grade so much or even at all.

So grades aren't public, but usually other students and teachers know who is doing well and who isn't.

And I would add that none of our exams are multiple choice. In social sciences they are mostly essays and open questions, in languages vocabularity, listening, grammar, and writing tasks, math is math, and natural sciences are math and essays/open questions. So you cannot probably even fully compare your answers since sometimes there are more than one right answer and a way to answer it.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#48

Post by aswanson »

Hexstream wrote: post #15
aswanson wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't bait him. His SEO technique is to spam more popular blogs/forums with links back to his, and to get into these types of arguments, producing more link opportunities for him. Worse, we may get more of his constituency moving in. (There goes the neighborhood). The best method to protect the site from being inundated with more stuff like this is to try to stay as hacker-focused as possible, perhaps relegating the…

I'm assuming if your comment has negative karma its links are necessarily nofollowed? edit: Then the strategy aswanson alleges occam is pursuing is totally misguided. Maybe a little note on the bottom of the comment box that all links are nofollowed would prevent any further such attempts.

...would prevent any further such attempts.

Presuming he is smart enough to understand the implications.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#49

Post by jbrun »

Part of the reason surely has to do with the economy. In Finland, two sectors are highly subsidized via R&D: Information Technology (Nokia) and Forestry (which is highly scientific).

Interesting article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071127....

These two drivers for the economy surely reinforce the importance of science and math in school. Students are more focused on areas of study with practical applications (jobs) in their own country - hence high math and science scores. And where you have more competition you have a positive feedback look (Kenyan Runners: http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2007/11/kenyan-runne...)

My two cents anyways.

Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

#50

Post by rms »

aswanson wrote: post #48
Hexstream wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming if your comment has negative karma its links are necessarily nofollowed? edit: Then the strategy aswanson alleges occam is pursuing is totally misguided. Maybe a little note on the bottom of the comment box that all links are nofollowed would prevent any further such attempts.

...would prevent any further such attempts. Presuming he is smart enough to understand the implications.

>perhaps relegating the race/gender/IQ trifecta to the same status as religion and political discussion, or to accept the likely degradation in discussion.

I'd prefer to accept the degradation. "X racial subgroup is better/worse in some way than y racial subgroup" is one of the unnamed Things You Can't Say and I see no need to censor it here, even if the discussion makes me uncomfortable.

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