As recently as 2006, Finland used to lead the PISA studies designed by the OECD to evaluate educational systems. The latest PISA results show kids in Finland have fallen substantially behind their Asian counterparts, and the trend is very clear since 2008.
Finnish schools haven't had serious budget cuts, don't suffer very badly from parents' culture wars, and also remain largely single-language environments as they used to be. (While the number of immigrants has increased in 15 years, it's nowhere near as large to explain the PISA score drop.)
The primary culprit seems to be students' phones and the poorly thought rollout of various digital gadgets into classrooms to replace books and chalkboards. While Finland's scores have dropped, neighboring Estonia has risen to the top of the rankings with its more old-school educational environment.
Also covid happened and online only schools might have an effect too
Speaking from personal experience, when I try to read a book nowadays I find I need to reread paragraphs a lot at first until my mind settles and can get into the flow. Being away from tech distractions for a day or two, e.g. camping, seems to have a similar restorative effect on my attention span. Even then, am I at 100% of the attention span I'd have if I never indulged in scrolling feeds and reacting to social media and whatnot? Maybe. I'd guess not. It's worth trying to understand.
Too many people leave the default notifications on and assume it’s just how things work. People need to be taught to realise their attention is valuable and that notifications are taking it for free.
People need to be tech literate, banning phones for students won’t help them down the road, it’s only deferring the problem.
For one example, the push notification system is absurdly abused, and it's difficult to get the right balance of awareness versus distraction. Trying to get the notifications settings how I want tends to fail in one of two directions:
1. I miss an important/urgent email or message (terrible), or fail to respond to a dating app message in time. (Not responding quickly to messages is offensive to some...)
2. I'm just constantly annoyed by irrelevant updates or even blatant SPAM.
Ultimately, I disagree that the problem with phones lies with how users choose to use them. It's that the environment provided is overrun with software that's hostile, geared towards unhealthy usage. With new OS updates and new apps come new pitfalls and additional effort needed to get everything behaving how a reasonable, tech literate, self-respecting person would want. Some will jump through the hurdles to get things under control, but most just default to being abused, and I strongly believe it's asking too much of people, especially younger people, to understand what's at stake and to make all the right moves. When I point to phones as a source of problems, that's really what I'm talking about.
I have kids, and this is literally the first time I've ever seen anyone mention this. "Peppa Pig" and "[x] likes Peppa Pig" are phrases thrown around with reckless abandon among parents and children.
You can't live your life being worried about offending people who have chosen to be offended.
> Across the OECD, science scores peaked in 2009, and reading scores peaked in 2012. Since then, developed countries have as a whole performed “increasingly poorly” on average
Are you saying that the developed world as a whole is misappropriating school funds and cutting budgets?
Test scores are probably declining because parents are more worried about the sexual orientation of cartoon characters rather than their child's test score, among other distractions. The root of the problem is that respect for education in the US is low.
Yep, that’s the way to do it, and it can be fun, especially since it’s just helping rather than full on home schooling.
Most school curricula have different and concrete objectives (basically meeting aggregated KPIs) rather than “is the student actually learning?” Also teachers have a lot to deal with, and always have, tangential to actual teaching, like disruptive students.
I think the best part of the supplement is that most school work has no context (“will this be on the test?”). Especially in math, where you spend 12 years “learning the alphabet” and only after high school do you get to the fun parts, if ever. So at home you can actually see how the stuff you’re getting in school actually relates to the realm world, and can pursue interesting paths.
I found the biggest problem of his approach is that he didn't care about figuring out my interest (TBF I didn't know either). The extra-curriculum study is mostly aimed for getting into a better school later so he first taught me Math in advance and then some extra for competitions. And even for programming he extremely hates gaming (to this day he thinks game developers are bad people, like people who do narcotics) and ONLY wants me to do competitive programming. Anyway I did not have any interest for anything he taught so it has been a painful drag for both of us until he kinda gave up when I reached grade 10.
Now that my kid is 3.25, I want to try something different. But I do find myself lacking the time or knowledge to prepare material for such activities. I want to expose him to a variety of activities after he reaches 4, say arithmetic and simple reading (so he can then spend more time reading books by himself), but I do not know how to approach teaching the topics. He is as impatient as a child can be and of course he is not interested in learning stuffs, which is definitely less interesting than, say, watching tanks crashing cars.
All in all, I know nothing about pediatrics education and need to know more before damaging our relationship as my father did back in the day. Neither do I have the mental energy reserve to burn candles to research on such topics. But I'll try.
* well, down to the Planck length I suppose :-)
Most math education is syntactic transforms, not understanding. There are lots of skill-appropriate puzzles in books and online you can do together so your kid can see that math can be fun. Same applies to other subjects — learning about US history? Make a trip to some local historical thing and when kiddo is bored just run around or whatever.
While not scientific, it is a sentiment described in _Diamond Age_.
On one hand, I've heard that a class of 30 kids gets almost half a million dollars of taxpayer money per year.
On the other hand, I've heard that teachers get a salary of about $50k, and have to beg on gofundme to equip their classrooms with basic stationary.
I really have no idea how to get these two facts to line up.
If you ask anyone, they'll tell you they're busy because that's the socially acceptable thing to say. If I'm honest, I don't do that much work (I tend to believe that's actually why we create and maintain all of these machines - so we don't have to work very much, but I'm apparently a disagreeable sort), but I still say that I'm keeping busy because if I said that I'm basically lazy and just want to meditate or watch TV most of the day away, people (particularly my employer) might take issue with that.
My cousin is a teacher and manages that job plus a couple side businesses plus 3 kids. Somehow he finds the time.
One takeaway from the covid lockdowns I took is it seems that to a first approximation, school is where children go for babysitting and perhaps learning happens there somehow. That would reflect my memories (plus it was a good place to score drugs).
I didn't think much of the system at the time, and even less upon reflection some years later, and it's not a system I'd want to put kids through, but I seem to say that about an increasing number of aspects of the modern world, so it's likely I'm just some sort of antisocial malcontent.
I'm regularly confused by people whose entire knowledge of classrooms comes from being a student, who nevertheless feel like they are experts and have all of the right answers.
Do you know why teachers get paid so little? Because there's a surplus of people who want to be teachers; actually getting a teaching job, let alone one at a good school, is a serious accomplishment. The schools that have a hard time keeping teachers are the ones with shitty students (due to shitty parents) which burn out teachers fast. The ones who can hack it at those schools use their experience to seek employment at better schools (positions at good schools are so competitive that having experience before applying is almost essential.)
What on earth?
- https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1164800932/teacher-shortages-... - https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2023/10/17/tea...
> I know several teachers
So, because 'some' of them don't work very hard, it's your 'belief' that all teachers aren't as busy as they say they are? Or are you now back-tracking your earlier comments? Does re-using lesson plans mean that those teachers aren't grading course work, or doing other activities, or are you assuming that "lesson plans" is the sum total of any extra work they may be doing?
I feel like this is just a cop out comment (particularly with the mealy 'I totally know some people' as evidence), moreso given the clear lack of understanding of the acute teacher shortages in this country, particularly in rural areas and particularly exacerbated over the last 4 years that you nevertheless think not only doesn't exist but is actually a surplus, in complete contradiction of literally all available evidence.
And to reiterated, the difference between a good school and a bad school is the quality of the student body, who reflect the quality of their parents. It's not funding. Often the worst schools have the most funding because people think that will make the school better, but over-funding schools won't fix kids who are fucked up by their parents.
Anyway, you asked for comments from people who know teachers. I know teachers, but I'm not here to back up your preconceptions. Deal with it.
This is not supported by any evidence, unless you assume that all rural schools, for instance, are "shitty schools". But hey, let me throw yet another link you'll not look at while repeating things that are patently untrue:
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/25/texas-teacher-shorta...
I've no idea why you're talking about funding, as if that has anything to do with anything I've said, but article after article suggests the absurdly low teacher pay is a major issue - talking about ephemeral 'funding' in that context is dishonest.
But sure, you "know" teachers. You're not answering the questions because... you don't want to back up my preconceptions that are based on direct experience, er, I mean, "preconceptions"? Um, ok.
> but I'm not here to back up your preconceptions.
Says the guy who just keeps repeating himself when faced with linked evidence his preconceptions are incorrect.
So while the statistics may break it down to a half million per classroom, that classroom doesn’t actually see that money. It’s chewed up with special education and the bureaucracy.
My local school district (generic midwest USA), there's a 17:1 teacher ratio, each student represents $13,011/yr in funding (so a single classroom gets $221,187 in government funding each year). Of that, the teacher in that room collects a salary of $40k to $60k W2 salary each year (plus benefits). Or, a teacher's salary is basically ~20% to 25% of the budget for that classroom, and the rest goes elsewhere.
And yeah, our teachers get literally nothing for their rooms, so they have to beg parents to donate crayons and tissue paper and pencils and basically anything else in their classroom, every year. (generally, each parent is expected to pitch in about $100 per student per year, in donate-ables to cover the stuff the district won't provide for teachers)
The proportion that goes to the management levels above the teachers keeps going up, instead of to the teachers or teaching materials.
What do you think this means? Is having a picture of me and my wife on my desk "pushing my heterosexual orientation" on my co-workers?
I'm really confused by what you think is upsetting in a cartoon with multiple Mom/Dad characters, also including a lesbian couple. Why is it ok to "push" one sexual orientation, but "worrying" to "push" another?
This is patently and demonstrably false. Numerous cultures and societies have happily tolerated homosexuality.
Again, what is being "pushed" on kids? What are you suspicious of? I don't understand why you don't want to answer a very basic question.
It is.
> with the subtext that they should experiment with it.
This is purely something you've invented, whole cloth, out of nothing. No one is suggesting kids experiment with any sexual behavior in elementary school, and the belief that telling your child that "Jane has two mommies" is encouraging your kid to hook up with their same sex friend is absolutely as patently absurd as the notion that telling your child "Jane has a mommy and a daddy" is encouraging them to hook up with an opposite-sex friend.
I've never seen an abstinence curriculum that avoids mentioning the existence of heterosexual couples.
The fact of the matter is that homosexuality isn't learned, it is something that people inherently feel.
The school didn't come up with the cartoon, others in society did. Children are going to talk about cartoons that they watch. My parents didn't always like the cartoons some of my classmates watched. Their solution was to not let me watch them, and instill their own set of values in me. They didn't ask the school to shelter me from the existence of other's ideologies.
There are ways to discuss sensitive and ideologically divisive topics in an academic and neutral way. The way religion and politics are covered in social studies courses is often a good example of this.
You don't have to pick sides to cover a topic in a neutral manner.
Over the last decade or so, quotes like that and the parable of "The Emperor's New Clothes" have gone from old pearls of wisdom for me to basically just describing the way the world works.
You see places like Thales academy growing and killing it on a budget far smaller than our per student budget and you really have to wonder as well, because it implies the budget isn't the real issue either. I sometimes wonder if the big thing is parents at home who are pushing in the right direction followed by teachers that just teach and don't taint things with political BS, as my best teachers were the ones I couldn't tell you who they were going to vote for (suspect left to far left candidates but I couldn't be sure because they presented issues mostly neutrally).
I did attend a US high school at a time and place where evolution was given equal footing to creationism which was bizzare for me having moved from a largely atheistic society. One minute talking about plasma as the 4th state of matter the next minute about the 'theory of dinosaurs'. My concern is any rights used to protect access to Peppa Pig will also be wielded by religious zealots to force religion back into science and everywhere else. Is Peppa Pig really that important to be worth that risk?
lolwut? What's the context on this?
But that phones are a huge distraction devices isn't particularly controversial; this has been observed internationally, and also in contexts outside of education.
That there are also other issues with education is a separate thing.
For context, my experience with school had been different, so I do think they is a lot of variety. I also see that different families have different uses of technology. Some I find healthier than others, for my definition of healthy which is using it more to explore and be curious but less to mindlessly pass time.
The apps kids are using on phones have the mechanics of slot machines. There is no way that this is good for them.
Unfortunately, they are not using their time online to research 9th century Persian literature.
I was born in the 70s.
We needed to take our own tissue boxes to school.
No one mentioned Peppa Pig, of course, but for other reasons.
A grammarian my age would tell you that "in a myriad of politics" is incorrect.
It's insane? /s
Sounds like bullshit. If you're talking about the so called "don't say gay" law, that's not what the law does and nobody is barring students from talking about gay things.