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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#191

Post by Grustaf »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #147
nearbuy wrote: post #139

What's confusing to me is it says the private schools are attracting more driven, independent and smarter students while increasing class sizes, reducing teacher salaries and reducing resource staff. So how are they attracting these students and why can't the public schools attract these students? Where I'm from, small class sizes is one of the first things parents want.

Public schools have to take in everyone. And this means the kid sitting next to your child could be a druggie or have a vile temper or tempt your child to ‘go down the wrong path’ Schooling is more than grades. It’s a place ones children disappear for about 8 hours and you can’t have access to them or what influences them. Private schools = a little bit of control you can exert on how one would want their children to…

In Sweden all schools have to accept everyone, you definitely can't discriminate on social or financial grounds or even based on grades.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#192

Post by riffraff »

bjeds wrote: post #64
alvarlagerlof wrote: post #55

I'm a student in one of the AcadeMedia for-profit schools. They have around 30 schools with the same brand name as mine and they keep on buying others. There's over 600 of them. There are of course other brands that they own but this one is focused on technology. Now let me tell you about my experience. First, this school is very focused on marketing. They keep on doing things that are only for seemingly attracting s…

Thank you for your reply, I didn't expect I'd find a comment from an actual student of these schools here at HN. Your perspective is valuable. If you follow Swedish media you probably know there's a large discussion/controversy right now about high school students (and younger kids) changing their behavior to avoid crime/trouble. For example see this recent article at SVT: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/man-maste…

> a large discussion/controversy right now about high school students (and younger kids) changing their behavior to avoid crime/trouble

Could you explain this? It seems people avoiding crime wouldn't be a source of controversy.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#193

Post by viceroyalbean »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #121
viceroyalbean wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cit…

If I'm understanding your story correctly your math teacher did the opposite of what the person I responded to said - he separated out the high performers, creating an environment that allows them to thrive and achieve high results. This is great, but what about the ones who weren't picked into the high performing class?

There is nothing saying you can't have good classes for both high and low performers, but with schools that have limited resources it often works out to a poor medium where no one really thrives (hence the caveat of 'in my experience' in my comment).

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#195

Post by valuearb »

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…

Yea, thus ain’t true.

When my daughter was diagnosed with autism three weeks plenty of for profit options. We ended up putting her in a charter school because it was far more flexible and attentive to our needs than public school was, where all decisions seemed to revolve around what was best for the school, not our child.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#196

Post by username90 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #126
username90 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I assumed you taught some technical class since this was HN, but if you didn't then I understand since those programs aren't well regarded in Sweden. If it isn't business, medical, law or STEM then it is almost surely ill regarded. I'm not talking badly about those fields in general, just that Sweden doesn't have any good programs for the so the students you get there are really poor.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#197

Post by cloudfifty »

sha1337 wrote: post #181

I would like to give some context to everyone who doesn't come from Sweden. >The following article [...] appeared in the Swedish publication Expressen. Expressen is a known right-leaning news publisher. They are the Fox News of Sweden, you should keep that in mind. Here is an example of the kind of trash you find in Expressen (taken from the article): >I accuse you, the Sweden Democrats [...] you support a school sys…

Oh, dear. You're reading this very wrong. The subject is not immigration and/or muslims, but about for-profit schools! That radical Islamists have been able to start their own school is just an example among others of this system's failings for crying out loud.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#198

Post by lou1306 »

corty wrote: post #110
lou1306 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

School should also teach kids that they live in a complex society, where people have different backgrounds and, yes, different skill sets. I'm afraid that relegating "more gifted" kids (whatever this means) into a world of their own is not only harmful to those who are left out, but to them as well.

Getting beaten up by the differently-gifted jocks is beneficial?

Posting snarky replies on HN is beneficial?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#199

Post by vanderZwan »

username90 wrote: post #196
vanderZwan wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I assumed you taught some technical class since this was HN, but if you didn't then I understand since those programs aren't well regarded in Sweden. If it isn't business, medical, law or STEM then it is almost surely ill regarded. I'm not talking badly about those fields in general, just that Sweden doesn't have any good programs for the so the students you get there are really poor.

It was an Interaction Design bachelor, and I taught programming. Maybe you should stop assuming so much.

Also, my goodness, blaming the students for systemic issues in society much?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#200

Post by logicchains »

barry-cotter wrote: post #81
logicchains wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same is true in Australia: parents choose "not-bad" schools to minimize the chance of their kids being knifed or beaten up by other kids. But it's not due to immigration, instead just to "white trash" for lack of a better word raising violent, substance-abusing children.

As an Australian you must know that when the middle class are sneering at the working or non-working class the term is bogan. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bogan

Yeah, but while "bogan" connotates unsophistication, bad fashion sense and the like, bogans are usually portrayed as somewhat likeable and not actively criminal.
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