Link was wrong:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

>> ^quantumushroom:

Why are these two smirking and proud?
Liberals run the show in US government schools, and conservative politicians are complicit, though without them the socialists would have already gone further.
Read all about it in this free-to-download e-book
The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America

That's why school boards have tried to stop teaching evolution--because it's an evil liberal plot.

Hi! You might like this.

http://videosift.com/video/Finlands-Revolutionary-Education-System-TYT

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I also noticed you didn't even contemplate my analogy because I didn't provide evidence of one thing (public education) being "equivalent" to another (public control of media). What if you tried to show me how the analogy doesn't hold somehow, because analogies are just abstractions, are they even supposed to be backed by evidence?

Did that analogy scare you?

I agree it's not possible to have a healthy debate with someone who tries to intimidate and hide behind request for evidence for anything the other side may say, even for a simple analogy.

I think it's either very naïve or disingenuous of you to accuse me of political bias, without providing evidence yourself (not that I would request it) while assuming that whatever interpretation of evidence that you gathered through the internet can't possibly have any political bias whatsoever.

However, I confess it was disingenuous of me to focus on the issue of political bias when I personally think the results are probably true regarding students in Finland having better scores, even though I don't consider that being "better" education.

You want links, you can find them using Google. Links are nothing but referring to the interpretation of someone else, whether that interpretation is based on evidence or not, whether that interpretation is biased or not, and whether the evidence is even true, is another matter altogether. So please get off your righteous evidence-supported high horse and try to talk to me as a regular person.

If you want to back away now because I have no evidence, fine, but could you please indulge me by answering about that analogy? Sorry for the wall of text btw.

>> ^renatojj:

@SDGundamX so, either I'm trolling or doing politically-biased speculation, however your research could never be politically-biased, because those results were confirmed by the OECD, a respectable organization that happens to be run by members of various governments. Public servants, unlike me, would never have any political bias, specially towards statism.
Why stop at education then, why not leave newsletters, TV, and the internet with the government, so it can provide us with information and news? If we all believe in the dream of allowing everyone access to the truth, maybe the government, who is so much better at providing education, should be better at providing all kinds of information too, specially the truth, doesn't that make sense?


I read your post and I see you didn't provide any evidence that a competitive-based model is in any way, shape, or form better than Finland's model; you implied that because some (not all) of the research was confirmed by the OCED it must be biased and therefore discounted (without providing any evidence of bias in the studies under question and ignorning the fact that the studies were published in peer-reviewed journals that have no affiliation with either Finland or the OCED); you also threw out a red-herring by implying that the government ensuring free public education for all is equivalent to the government controlling the flow of information (yet again without any evidence).

Given the above, I don't see this discussion going anywhere. You're not bringing anything to the table other than your own unsupported conjecture and unfounded accusations. If you've got some links that support your position(s) by all means post them and maybe I'll have a look and get back to you. Otherwise, I won't be responding to any more of your posts on this topic.

Not sure if you're trolling or not, but if you'd read the links I posted it's clearly spelled out--with research-backed evidence--how and why Finland's system is one of the best in the world. You show me good empirical research that less government involvement produces the amazing gains not just in academic performance but overall societal well-being (i.e. happiness) that Finland has shown in the past decade and maybe we'll have something to discuss. Otherwise, I'll take well-conducted research over politically-biased speculation any day of the week.
>> ^renatojj:



You guys might want to consider that the right path is not Finland, but going the other direction, with less government involvement in education. This is about putting education and its institutions in a more competitive environment, governments will always bog them down, making it more about teachers or whatever else, turning them into the massive faceless institutions that are like prisons like @dag points out. Instead, we should put on schools the pressure to compete in quality and price for those who'd normally be paying for education, the students or their parents.
Mintbbb points out that bullying does exist in Finland, even though they have a lot less of it. A finnish friend of mine once told me he never saw a fist fight in his entire life, ever, not even as a kid. However, just because they had the decency of adopting anti-bullying measures, doesn't mean letting government educate and make choices for our kids is any better, don't let that fool you. Bullying has been going on for so long it's become an institution in itself, public schools in America and elsewhere have little incentive of stopping or even acknowledging it as a problem.

>> ^renatojj:

You guys might want to consider that the right path is not Finland, but going the other direction, with less government involvement in education. This is about putting education and its institutions in a more competitive environment, governments will always bog them down, making it more about teachers or whatever else, turning them into the massive faceless institutions that are like prisons like @dag points out. Instead, we should put on schools the pressure to compete in quality and price for those who'd normally be paying for education, the students or their parents.
Mintbbb points out that bullying does exist in Finland, even though they have a lot less of it. A finnish friend of mine once told me he never saw a fist fight in his entire life, ever, not even as a kid. However, just because they had the decency of adopting anti-bullying measures, doesn't mean letting government educate and make choices for our kids is any better, don't let that fool you. Bullying has been going on for so long it's become an institution in itself, public schools in America and elsewhere have little incentive of stopping or even acknowledging it as a problem.


For-pay schools exist. Gasp! If you want to send your kids to one, you can do it. Bullying still exists in them.

You guys might want to consider that the right path is not Finland, but going the other direction, with less government involvement in education. This is about putting education and its institutions in a more competitive environment, governments will always bog them down, making it more about teachers or whatever else, turning them into the massive faceless institutions that are like prisons like @dag points out. Instead, we should put on schools the pressure to compete in quality and price for those who'd normally be paying for education, the students or their parents.

Mintbbb points out that bullying does exist in Finland, even though they have a lot less of it. A finnish friend of mine once told me he never saw a fist fight in his entire life, ever, not even as a kid. However, just because they had the decency of adopting anti-bullying measures, doesn't mean letting government educate and make choices for our kids is any better, don't let that fool you. Bullying has been going on for so long it's become an institution in itself, public schools in America and elsewhere have little incentive of stopping or even acknowledging it as a problem.

I grew up in Finland and went to school there. Yes, some kids were bullied and none of the teachers ever noticed some of that. It didn't happen in the school, but when I was on the second grade n(elementary school), I definitely had two biys bullying me for a while. After school ended and we had to walk home, they'd follow me, push me around, scare the crap out of me. I was the only child and very quiet, timid, easy to scare.

Those boys really scared me, I remember just running off and grabbing the arm of a woman walking home from the store, to make the boys think I knew her. It eventually got bad enough that I just refused to go to school. My mom didn't understand what was going on, and she threw a frigging fit that scared me even more. But still, I refused to go to school.

Eventually it all came out. I eventually talked to my parents, and my mom came to observe this after one schoolday. She grabbed the kids when they started attacking me and scared the crap out of at least one of them. He was nice after that, he just said 'please don't tell my parents, I didn't know I was really scaring her!" My dad went to talk to the other bullys parents on one night, and they had no idea he was doing that. My parents had a talk with my teacher too. I was left alone after that (and luckily thye worse kid actually moved away before too long). It wasn't anything too bad, but at that time, it was awful. Some kids maybe just not realize what they are doing. And the parents really had no idea.

Teaching kids bullying is bad should really start at a young age. You have to make them realize what they nare doing is wrong, and how wrong it can be.

On junior high we had a girl who me and my friends made fun of. We thought it was just a 'fun' thing to make comments about her hairdo, or things like that. We were still 'friends' with her, but I bet she hated us. I myself never realized that little comments like 'your hair looks like a sausage roll', even when made in a 'friendly way' hurt her.

I didn't even realize that until I was way older! If I could go back in time, I'd never make those comments! We all thought we were just being funny, but little things like that can also hurt. I am not sure how one could deal with things like that, but we all should just be taught that little things can hurt. It doesn't have to be pushing and hurting, it can be just silly little remarks, and I know I will feel bad about all that for the rest of my life!

Bullying of even that kind usually stopped (mostly) after people graduated from Junior high, and went to either highschool, or vocational school. I went to highschool, so I have no idea how life in a Finnish vocational school is (we were told horror stories though, that vocational school woulod be really bad and everybody was being bullied to death, but I think it wasn't true, or at least not today).

To me watching American TV shows about high schools, and seeing kids bullying, being bullied and so on, was awful. To me, high school was a whole different planet. Kids were trying to be nice, or at least more adult-like, and bullying wasn't there. At least according to the TV shows, High school is bullying heaven! And all about cliques! Maybe because we really didn't have jocks or cheerleaders, it was better? No drama clubs, glee clubs.. You might have bene classified as a 'nerd', or a 'good girl', but at least not too many peoiple were outcasts in my school. And if they were, it was because of their personality, not because of what they wore or were interested in.

It really breaks my heart to know kids are bullied so bad they feel like the only way out is to kill themselves.

People will need to care more, to put themselves in anothers' shoes. When you are a kid, it can be hard. But I think it should start from the home, and schools should try to do whatever they can. People just need to understand how it feels, and how you'd feel if somebody did that to you, or to your loved one.

Excuse the rant, my dog has gotten me up at wee hours (around 4:30am, though this morning she graciously let me sleep until 5:15am) every night for quite a while and I am seriously lacking sleep and can be emotional and/or weirdy irritated and grumpy, not to mention insane.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Nice links. I like this particular section very much:

As for accountability of teachers and administrators, Sahlberg shrugs. "There's no word for accountability in Finnish," he later told an audience at the Teachers College of Columbia University. "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."

For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

@smooman

Yeah, I think the way you worded your first post led me to believe you were advocating just doing things the way they've always been done until now and that you didn't consider it that big of a problem. I think though that bullying is much more complex than just the parental/family issues you mentioned. Certainly I'm sure you going to find something there, but I think @dag has pointed out that institutional learning as it is currently carried out in most Western countries carries part of the blame as well. My question is, do things have to be this way? Do we have to be complacent with the current level of bullying? Is it beyond our control (i.e. we can't change what is happening in the homes after kids get out of school). I don't believe so, and I think Finland's school system is pointing the way for how we'll get there.

You and @dag might want to take a look at Finland's educational system, in particular their anti-bullying measures, which have been shown to a statistically significant degree to reduce self and peer-reported bullying. For an overview, check out this website: http://www.kivakoulu.fi/there-is-no-bullying-in-kiva-school I googled some of the articles cited and found them online if you want more specific information about their program and how they defined and measured bullying.

Of course, Finland's education system has introduced some other radical changes which no doubt are also contributing to the decline in bullying. See this article for more informations: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/

My point is this--I agree with you that we can't eliminate bullying (within schools) entirely. But I think we reduce the frequency of its occurrence and deal with it in much better ways than we currently do when it does happen. Like you said, we need to address the causes--psychological, social, institutional, etc.--rather than put out fires after they've already been started.

It's not that he looked at all, but that he was such a, well, boob about it.
>> ^poolcleaner:

If boobs are around, people want to see. ESPECIALLY princess boobs. How often does one have princess boobs in proximity? I'd be appalled if this man didn't take this opportunity as seriously as he did.

>> ^quantumushroom:

Ladies, if a man is staring at your boobs, THEY'RE WORKING!
Not always! Sometimes I stare at boobs in my free time, too.