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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#121

Post by AdrianB1 »

viceroyalbean wrote: post #19
UrsaMedius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you call "most and least gifted" is in my opinion better described as "most and least privileged". And coeducation of students of different levels of privilege just seems like a good thing, nothing that needs to be dealt with.

The issue, in my experience, is that you have to compromise somewhere. That means either leaving the higher performers to be bored, or leaving the lower performers not achieving the minimum. Neither seems like a desirable outcome.

No, you don't have to compromise at all.

Personal experience: I had a great math teacher in mid school; he gathered the best students from the 5 classes in that year in one class and he set the baseline quite high. For the last 2 years half of our class was taking the prizes at all the inter-school competitions in the city and a few of us from the nationals. Most of that class went to the best high schools in the city and most are today great doctors (medical) or scientists. Imagine that did not happen in mid-school and everybody would be an average Joe - that is a loss for humanity, not just for us.

Try to read Ender's Game (the book, the movie is terrible). This is very tough, but if you need great people you can help by creating the conditions to grow them. How many Einsteins wasted their lives achieving nothing and how earlier curing diseases and improving technologies was possible if that waste did not happen?

The compromise is to waste the resources that we have in the name of equality; we cannot make everyone smart, we only can make them all stupid, so let's do equality.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#122

Post by alvarlagerlof »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #98
vagrantJin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

We used to have the option of regular supermarkets, but they later banned it because they didn't want students eating inside the school at winter.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#123

Post by kakoni »

distances wrote: post #59
kakoni wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland, Local ”moderats” and liberals managed to cut over 1.5 billion euros from education in the past 10 years. Pretty sure they have private venture backed school system in mind.

> Pretty sure they have private venture backed school system in mind. Would you have something to back this assumption up?

Sure. These links are in Finnish

[1] https://www.kokoomusnuoret.fi/kannanotot/2015/05/suomi-tarvi... [2] https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/pitaako-vanhempien-saada-valita...

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#124

Post by japhyr »

corty wrote: post #7

While I agree with the article about the problems of profit-driven schools, the whole situation (and the article in parts) points to a imho bigger problem in most education systems: Profit-driven schools cater to the more able, easier to educate and more intelligent pupils. Why can they do that? Because public schools almost everywhere insist on coeducation of the most and least gifted. This is severely holding back…

This is not always the case. There's a growing number of states in the US that allow state education funding to follow a student wherever they go.

Wherever these laws arise, profit-based schools appear and attempt to draw in as many students as they can. Often times it's the least educated, least privileged people who are pulled into these programs. There is little or no regulation on claims these schools make in their marketing materials, so they promise the world and then dump students into large classes led by gig-economy "teachers".

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#125

Post by japhyr »

For anyone interested in this issue in the US, there's an excellent new book out called A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire. It traces the push and pull between the promise of quality education for the masses through public education, and the attempt to extract as much profit as possible from schools that's been going on for a very long time.

They dispel many myths that persist about public education, and connect current privatization pushes to decades-long attempts to undermine public education.

https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Schoolhouse-Door-Dismantling-Edu...

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#126

Post by vanderZwan »

username90 wrote: post #80
vanderZwan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that explain why my bachelor students were so unbelievable inept at emotionally dealing with and resolving conflicts when I taught at university there?

How could you learn that from teaching a course? Did you create conflict among student and note how everything became chaos? Or do you just mean that a few complained about grades?

Neither. It was a design bachelor with group projects. You get to see a lot of interpersonal dynamics, and you also have a lot of direct interactions with your students.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#127

Post by hnburnsy »

brtkdotse wrote: post #18
HPsquared wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your equation misses an 'efficiency' parameter.

Ah, yes, the fabled “efficiency” of private companies. Where would you have me put it? On teachers salaries? On building costs?

Place an efficiency factor on not only teacher selection but on the curriculum which I would argue is more important than quality teachers. A well implemented curriculum with good teacher support is the biggest quality differential between schools of similar demographics. When I say curriculum I mean everything from books, to teacher hiring, results monitoring, and teacher support.

See what charter school CMOs like Kipp (targeted at underprivileged), Success Academy (targeted at NYC) and BASIS (targeted at students willing to work hard) are doing.

Many schools just take whatever teachers they can get, throw teachers into the classroom with no support, use whatever curriculum has the best sales team, and does little adjustment based on results or outcome.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#128

Post by jelliclesfarm »

alvarlagerlof wrote: post #122
SiempreViernes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

We used to have the option of regular supermarkets, but they later banned it because they didn't want students eating inside the school at winter.

Do they have food trucks in Sweden? Maybe students can pool in money and hire a cook or contract with a food truck to provide meals on time.

When I was in school back in India..and this was many decades ago...me and my cousins would get hot lunch delivered by my grandparents. But there was this group of kids who had working parents and from nuclear families...and a bunch of them hired a lady to cook meals for 10-12 of the kids to have hot fresh homemade lunches delivered. They felt it was better to feed them varied and fresh home cooked meals even if it had to be outsourced

Because it’s India and the cuisine is very regional, all the parents spoke the same language and had the same food habits.

Also..it was usually a good side gig for housewives who had a little extra time and had cooking skills. They are not competing in the market or with restaurants. They just like cooking and kids. I knew that this lady sometimes made extra food for kids who couldn’t afford homemade fresh lunches.

Of course...there were no overheads like incorporating it as a business or paying taxes or working in a paid commissary kitchen or bookkeeping etc...the moms just paid one of their neighbours who was also their friend. It was trust and word of mouth. No one was going to write a bad Yelp review for over spiced curry. So there’s that. It was just ingredients plus a profit margin as far as the housewife/caterer was concerned.

Childhood eating habits shape healthier diets in adulthood. Maybe someone from Sweden in HN can run with this as a startup?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#130

Post by Grustaf »

> With the deregulation of the 1990s, the ambition was to create thriving, independent schools, foundations, parent cooperatives and small limited company schools with educational alternatives.

Sure, and the purpose of privatising welfare institutions, railroads and electric grids is to benefit the citizens, not the cronies of politicians...

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