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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#92
post #57
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course higher intelligence is a privilege, as is higher sportive ability and other attributes given to you from birth. This includes your own personal attributes as well as the privilege that comes from your family's wealth and status. But actually, the word "privilege" muddles the waters, because those are two very different things. I agree that schools should not differentiate based on families' status and wealt…

Schools do not treat stupid and intelligent children the same, teachers - with few exceptions - do. Not because they are evil, but because to be able to cater to the different levels of intelligence and the variation in interests that you will naturally find in a random sample of children they require the time and opportunities to do so. As long as we treat teachers as the least important workers, without acknowledgi…

Let's be clear: teacher of young children is not a job which requires a high level of intelligence. The main skill required is patience with children and ability to follow a standardized lesson plan.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, do you at least have as mc donalds nearby so you can get a few of their cheap "child sized" burgers? Hope you can find a better school!

This is amazing. You recommend eating burgers from McD for lunch every day? Not fruits, not home cooked food, not simple sandwiches, not street food --- but MacDonalds burgers in Sweden Holy shit.

Yes, eating McD on a daily basis is not only boring but downright unhealthy. I remember eating at McD when in college because it was perceivably cheaper and while I was enjoying the food when I was hungry I always felt not so good afterwards. I haven’t touched any MCD in 10 years and won’t do anytime soon unless there’s an emergency

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#94

KTH tests engineering students math abilities by giving new students the same test every year. There is nothing gained or lost from this test so nobody studied for it. Anyway, this gives us a reasonable trend in how well students know the basics, and it shows that students are getting better and not worse right now. The worst class was the one starting 2007. https://www.kth.se/aktuellt/nyheter/trenden-har-vant-mattek…

So they have already been accepted... Not a truly random sample.

“Nobody studies for it” is surely an overstatement. Do not underestimate the fear of tests.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#95
post #88

KTH tests engineering students math abilities by giving new students the same test every year. There is nothing gained or lost from this test so nobody studied for it. Anyway, this gives us a reasonable trend in how well students know the basics, and it shows that students are getting better and not worse right now. The worst class was the one starting 2007. https://www.kth.se/aktuellt/nyheter/trenden-har-vant-mattek…

Note that KTH is an elite institution so there is a selection bias. It's like saying education in America must be going well because new MIT students are getting better.

Now you are exaggerating. KTH is of course a good school for Swedish standards but calling it elite is weird. In what way would you say that KTH is elite, because I genuinely do not understand how the word "elite" applies to this school?

I'm a bit out of touch, but of all schools in Sweden, the only I'd call elite - by the common meaning of the word - is Operahögskolan (I think it's called, the Opera school) and possibly Stockholm School of Economics and the medical schools of the larger older universities + Karolinska. Those places are highly competitive.

Everyone I know, from the little village I grew up in Sweden, who wanted to go to KTH, did so.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#96
post #86

Incredibly melodramatic. Comparing yourself to someone denouncing an anti-semitic persecution (and by implication your opponents to anti-semetic persecutors) is not really a good basis for discussion. I cannot find anything resembling an argument in this entire article. If the swedish education system is so uniquely, shamefully terrible, wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other count…

Swedish PISA results have fallen continuously in the past years. Last result showed a break from that but later it turned out that many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question. There is huge concern in Sweden over the state of the schooling system. It is complex because so much have changed over the past 30 years. It is usua…

> Last result showed a break from that

Correction: The last two results.

> many students which could have been expected to test poorly were dissuaded from participating. So the result from that year is in question

You mean newly arrived immigrants. They would greatly decrease the results depending on how many were excluded, yes, but PISA makes a distinction between immigrants and natives anyway so just look at the natives results and you still see a strong positive trend.

Also you could argue that immigrant performance isn't a good indicator of the school system of a country, only an indicator of what kind of immigrants they take in. So the only real number from PISA is actually the performance of students who grew up there and got their entire education in the country.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, do you at least have as mc donalds nearby so you can get a few of their cheap "child sized" burgers? Hope you can find a better school!

This is amazing. You recommend eating burgers from McD for lunch every day? Not fruits, not home cooked food, not simple sandwiches, not street food --- but MacDonalds burgers in Sweden Holy shit.

No, I reccomend changing schools as their lunch allowance isn't enough to cover even a full meal at McDonalds. If they just got cash the recommendation would be to get something from a supermarket, but it's locked to restasurants so single burgers is likely an upper limit outside of the cointracted restaurants that, as stated, sometimes denies service.

I wonder what gives you the idea that hot dogs is much better than McD, as that's about the limit of what 55 SEK will pay for in terms of street food.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#99
post #75

Incredibly melodramatic. Comparing yourself to someone denouncing an anti-semitic persecution (and by implication your opponents to anti-semetic persecutors) is not really a good basis for discussion. I cannot find anything resembling an argument in this entire article. If the swedish education system is so uniquely, shamefully terrible, wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other count…

Agreed, arrogating Émile Zola's battle cry for yourself is in my view overreaching. On the other hand, as Wikipedia notes, "J'accuse! has become a common expression of outrage and accusation against someone powerful", so I think it has become more generic, and doesn't contain the implicit accusation of anti-semitism anymore. > wouldn't we expect it to actually lead to worse results then that of other countries? It mi…

Sweden has had private schools for decades now though, and results are improving since the last reform. Also I don't think private schools is a big deal, good students avoid them since they all have really bad reputation. Nobody will think "Wow, you went to $private_school?" instead it is more like "You went to that school huh, are you an idiot?". There are a few exceptions, but only for the few schools that were private before the reforms this article talks about and they take in so few students that it wouldn't show up in statistics.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#100
post #95
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that KTH is an elite institution so there is a selection bias. It's like saying education in America must be going well because new MIT students are getting better.

Now you are exaggerating. KTH is of course a good school for Swedish standards but calling it elite is weird. In what way would you say that KTH is elite, because I genuinely do not understand how the word "elite" applies to this school? I'm a bit out of touch, but of all schools in Sweden, the only I'd call elite - by the common meaning of the word - is Operahögskolan (I think it's called, the Opera school) and poss…

Maybe elite is the wrong term, I'm not a native speaker... what I meant is that KTH is probably the best technological university in Sweden and one of the best tech unis in Europe overall, so the math level of its admitted students is not necessarily representative of the general level.
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