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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#201

Post by corty »

lou1306 wrote: post #198
corty wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Posting snarky replies on HN is beneficial?

I was trying to prompt the obviously necessary reflection on what you said.

But I'll make it explicit, if irony is considered too snarky: Exposing more gifted children to less gifted ones might be beneficial in small doses, it isn't in general. One group will always be detrimental to the other:

Because the more gifted children get bored, learn to minimax everything and to procrastinate because nothing really requires their full application and attention. Maybe you give them harder tasks, but seeing that in the presence of the less gifted children they can also get by with less work if they just play dumb, they will learn to adapt and play dumb. Tons of psychological problems like procrastination and impostor syndrome (that HN likes to complain about) are caused and worsened by these mechanisms.

If you do the converse and do your teaching on a level appropriate for the more gifted children, the less gifted ones will be in over their heads. They won't learn most of the curriculum, but they will learn their inferiority and helplessness. They will also learn to hate the more gifted children, and seek an outlet through violent means if possible. I suppose a good part of the HN population has been on the receiving end of that one.

If you need examples where coeducation is never done, look no further than the school's choir, orchestra or sports teams. If you aren't in the top group of abilities for those activities you are either not selected, or selected for the second team. With good reason.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#202

Post by randomdude402 »

logicchains wrote: post #40
bjeds wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree with what you are saying (I'm also Swedish) but I think the incentives are different, and due to the American dominance of Hacker News readers it's worth to clear up: Swedish middle class parents do not choose "good schools" because they want a "great education" for their kids as a competitive advantage... in the sense of a well-off American parent want their kids to go to Harvard or MIT or similar. S…

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.

We do the same here in the states. Some folks pay for private schools so their kids don't have to be exposed to perceived riff raff, while others choose to live in more expensive neighborhoods where the only benefit is often that there is less riff raff in the public schools.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#203

Post by bjoli »

Grustaf wrote: post #180
bjoli wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am saying is that free schools end up with the easy students. It is not as easy as "anyone can go there" since we have the principle of proximity (närhetsprincipen). People living close to the school will have a higher probability of getting a place. In which areas are the schools of Engelska Skolan? Academedia? Kunskapsskolan? Look in areas above the 80th socioeconomic percentile. In a system where each schoo…

> What I am saying is that free schools end up with the easy students. Of course they do, but isn't that sort of the point with competition? The good schools get the good students, that would happed regardless of who owned them. > In which areas are the schools of Engelska Skolan? Academedia? Kunskapsskolan? Look in areas above the 80th socioeconomic percentile You keep repeating this, I'm not sure why. Do you think…

Corrected for socioeconomic factors free schools do worse (as per the latest OECD report). One can have many things to say about that way of counting, but if we are to have a system with so many apparent problems, shouldnt we at least get something for it?

And I think that is where the problem lays: we have publicly funded for profit schools. The only way they can make money is by not letting taxpayer money for education go to education. All my other points stem from this.

It is pretty telling about the free school interest group's response to the report of equivalence ("likvärdigheten") of the Swedish school system: they hated all suggestions the report made to make the situation better. Even pretty benign ones like mandatory school selection, removing queued days as grounds for selection and so on. My theory is because they know those things are what makes it possible for them to pocket such a large part of the money they get.

The problem, however, isn't any individual company. It is the law that allows it. Which makes it even more provoking: we have had the numbers for 20 years. Looking at the statistics since 2000 you can see in which direction things were heading. Why didn't anyone go "this is not what we want. Let's re-evaluate".

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#204

Post by Grustaf »

bjoli wrote: post #203
Grustaf wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I am saying is that free schools end up with the easy students. Of course they do, but isn't that sort of the point with competition? The good schools get the good students, that would happed regardless of who owned them. > In which areas are the schools of Engelska Skolan? Academedia? Kunskapsskolan? Look in areas above the 80th socioeconomic percentile You keep repeating this, I'm not sure why. Do you think…

Corrected for socioeconomic factors free schools do worse (as per the latest OECD report). One can have many things to say about that way of counting, but if we are to have a system with so many apparent problems, shouldnt we at least get something for it? And I think that is where the problem lays: we have publicly funded for profit schools. The only way they can make money is by not letting taxpayer money for educa…

The obvious solution is to abolish the possibility to make a profit. I think they should allow private schools, let them charge fees, select students the way they want to but simply not allow any profits. That system works here in Denmark and public schools don’t seem to have suffered from it.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#205

Post by lou1306 »

corty wrote: post #201
lou1306 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting snarky replies on HN is beneficial?

I was trying to prompt the obviously necessary reflection on what you said. But I'll make it explicit, if irony is considered too snarky: Exposing more gifted children to less gifted ones might be beneficial in small doses, it isn't in general. One group will always be detrimental to the other: Because the more gifted children get bored, learn to minimax everything and to procrastinate because nothing really requires…

> But I'll make it explicit, if irony is considered too snarky: Exposing more gifted children to less gifted ones might be beneficial in small doses, it isn't in general. One group will always be detrimental to the other

I do see your point, but it's a matter of tradeoffs. Not exposing different children to each other may benefit the best ones (and maybe even the others, who knows), but may also foster a classist view of society. Similarly, we started coeducating male and female pupils because the previous system was seen as fostering a sexist view of society.

> If you need examples where coeducation is never done, look no further than the school's choir, orchestra or sports teams.

That actually strenghtens the point though, doesn't it? You can also have chess teams, science clubs, and other activities which cater to the best pupils, while keeping the current educational model.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#206

Post by sha1337 »

cloudfifty wrote: post #197
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.

Muslims teaching the Quran and Arabic is hardly a problem that warrants calling them radical islamists and other charged words like them. The problem I'm trying to address is the partisan attitude of Expressen and their consequent dishonesty when it comes to issues related to muslims. It's just tiring to navigate through all the ideological and religious non-sense that these pieces of propaganda stem from, because they are not honest and they resort to these sorts of tactics. If they think their ideology and convictions are true, let them pave the way for discussion, surely they will annihilate Islam and Socialism ideologically in no time. But that's not what we see, it's the same old trash: terrorism, radical, islamist, and on and on it goes. Just throwing these words around in hopes the public feels threatened that the people Expressen dislikes so much are about to undermine the nation. Basically they would like to see a Crystal Nacht for muslims, they just don't know how to get there.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#207

Post by corty »

lou1306 wrote: post #205
corty wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to prompt the obviously necessary reflection on what you said. But I'll make it explicit, if irony is considered too snarky: Exposing more gifted children to less gifted ones might be beneficial in small doses, it isn't in general. One group will always be detrimental to the other: Because the more gifted children get bored, learn to minimax everything and to procrastinate because nothing really requires…

> But I'll make it explicit, if irony is considered too snarky: Exposing more gifted children to less gifted ones might be beneficial in small doses, it isn't in general. One group will always be detrimental to the other I do see your point, but it's a matter of tradeoffs. Not exposing different children to each other may benefit the best ones (and maybe even the others, who knows), but may also foster a classist vie…

Coeducation and joined competitions still aren't a thing in sports, even chess. It isn't a problem to separate, if there really is a difference imho.

> That actually strenghtens the point though, doesn't it? You can also have chess teams, science clubs, and other activities which cater to the best pupils, while keeping the current educational model.

No, it doesn't. If you really would go through with that, you are making the better pupils waste their time in regular boring classes with the same effects on them I've described, and then make them take more clubs in addition to the boring stuff. And it will be quite a lot of clubs, one for each subject basically. That wastes school resources as well as pupils' time. And it reinforces to the pupils that being smart is a curse that will make you waste extra time in school just to not be bored out of your scull watching the worse pupils scratch their heads over trivialities.

If you want to do it right, you need alternative regular classes or alternative schools for better pupils.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#208

Post by cloudfifty »

sha1337 wrote: post #206
cloudfifty wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Muslims teaching the Quran and Arabic is hardly a problem that warrants calling them radical islamists and other charged words like them. The problem I'm trying to address is the partisan attitude of Expressen and their consequent dishonesty when it comes to issues related to muslims. It's just tiring to navigate through all the ideological and religious non-sense that these pieces of propaganda stem from, because th…

Not sure what you're on about really. But in this case the previous CEO of this particular school, Kunskapsskolan, was expelled from Sweden after a decision by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) after being deemed a threat against national security. What more does it take?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#209

Post by sha1337 »

cloudfifty wrote: post #208
sha1337 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims teaching the Quran and Arabic is hardly a problem that warrants calling them radical islamists and other charged words like them. The problem I'm trying to address is the partisan attitude of Expressen and their consequent dishonesty when it comes to issues related to muslims. It's just tiring to navigate through all the ideological and religious non-sense that these pieces of propaganda stem from, because th…

Not sure what you're on about really. But in this case the previous CEO of this particular school, Kunskapsskolan, was expelled from Sweden after a decision by the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) after being deemed a threat against national security. What more does it take?

I didn't know about that. But it still doesn't warrant banning religious schools completely due to isolated incidents, and that was sort of the point I was making earlier. This is what the author was hinting at needs to be done, it's not an uncommon sentiment among the right either.

There are a few bad apples among every religious and non-religious group, it's just how it is. Doesn't mean one should attack an entire group, unless one is in a crusade or something. For every ISIS supporter I bet you one can find 10 pro-violence far-rightwingers. That doesn't mean one should lump the entirety of that side of the political spectrum and call them a danger to humanity/minorities. It's not fair to do so with the right, and it's not fair to do so with the muslims.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#210

Post by AdrianB1 »

viceroyalbean wrote: post #193
AdrianB1 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sc…

The ones that weren't picked in the high performing class had the same teacher, but they only studied what was in the standard manual, they did not go above and beyond what they were capable of. At the same time they were not pulling back the ones more capable.
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