Berry Picked Education

But, it is more the way the article was phrased that I found interesting, as at least anecdotally, the experience I have seen and heard of is quite different.

A few quotes from the article to illustrate what I mean:

According to the paper, 14 percent of Finnish ninth-graders read so poorly that it makes it difficult for them to function in society.

Saying that it is "not clear" why there is a degradation, with no single reason for it.

Then,

First of all, writes Helsingin Sanomat, we have to rule out one explanation that easily comes to mind: immigration. It is natural to think that for children from an immigrant background, the Finnish language creates difficulties and this is reflected in studies. However, according to researchers, this does not explain the general decline in reading skills.

Okay.

"The impact of immigration is very small, because immigrants account for only five to six percent of the students,

Hmm.

So, the impact of immigration is small because immigrants and children of only account for 6% of the students, but the way it is phrased and positioned makes it seem that childhood literacy issues are high amongst immigrant children. And it is with this that I take a bit of an issue, because as I said, anecdotally from my experience, immigrant children might be bringing up the average, not lowering it.

My daughter who would be considered an immigrant child is 6 and in preschool, where in the classroom, they are learning to read. However, once a week they have a "masters" class, where those who can read well enough go to the next class up for additional challenge. There were 4 originally and now 5 children that do this from the preschool classes. The 4 originally starting from their second week of school, are foreign background children, the fifth who joined this week, is a "native" Finn.

After talking with some colleagues and friends, this seems to be the norm in these types of groups and it isn't just for literacy, writing and math skills are also "overrepresented" by immigrant children.

And I think that this is common around much of the world where immigration is high, because in general, immigrants do not have access to the same opportunities as the born natives, which means they have to work harder, often doing jobs that are beneath their education and ability. This I think is one of the driving forces behind immigrant parents being more driving for academic success, as they want better opportunities for their children.

The other is that in many parts of the world, education is not a right, it is a privilege, and when coming from a culture where schooling is poor or difficult, getting the opportunity for a good education is valued, not taken for granted.

This is something that I have found interesting in Finland over the years, as there is a general expectation from parents that the school system is the educator, not them. This means that they do very little to educate their children academically at all and instead, let them be kids. That sounds great, but the problem these days is that being a kid is often spent in front of a screen and on the internet, which is cited as one of the reasons that literacy is in decline.

With most of my friends being Finns, with a few foreigners in the mix, what I have noticed (so again anecdotally), is that Finnish parents buy phones for their children at a younger age than the immigrant parents. And, since the majority of my friends are working professionals, this isn't explained by a lack of money, meaning it is likely cultural. Even the foreign friends of mine who are tech professionals, put off getting their kids phones in comparison to their Finnish counterparts.

In the past, the role of school as the primary place to learn and get information was undisputed.

Yes. and there is a subtlety in that sentence that might be lost if not paying attention, as there is a differentiation made between "learning" and "getting information". Information is cheap and easy to get, however learning is an active process for knowledge application - it is a skill. If a child doesn't have a child hasn't developed the skills to learn, knowledge becomes useless. And, as a million studies have shown, the more reliant we become on tools that do things for us, the more our skills degrade.

With information and answers being constantly at our fingertips, we do not need to build the mental processes to even recall information, let alone problem solve. We just have a question, search for the answer and take what is kicked back as truth. We don't have to think critically and we don't have to remember it once we no longer require the information. While some thinks this frees up space for other processes, that is like saying that, the less languages you know, the more languages you can learn. Technically that is the case, but at a practical level, it definitely isn't.

This is definitely not about immigrant children being better or worse than their Finnish peers, but they do have a different experience than them, as do their parents. This means that there is going to be a greater variation in outcomes, so there will be better results like what is being illustrated at my daughter's school, and worse, which seems to be what people expect from immigrant children.

One general difference between the groups is, circumstances tend to be harder for immigrant children overall and, they often have to "know more" in order to cope. For instance, as my Finnish is terrible, my daughter has to speak English too, but there are other children who have three languages they are negotiating, as their parents don't speak English at home, but another tongue. On top of this, foreigners tend to earn less on average than their local counterparts and, they also have less of a support network, meaning they have to spend more time fending for themselves with little safety net. All of these things add up and while some children will end up disenfranchised by the conditions, others will end up empowered, skilled and more independent.

Regardless of pupil background, there is a meta trend in play in terms of education, and the systems are not handling it well. Yes, the sources of information has changed, but the need for skill development (not information distribution) hasn't. When parents rely on their schools to teach their children fundamental, it is no wonder that there are going to be large skill gaps in later life, with literacy being just one of them.

It is going to be an interesting future though, as if the trends continue, the only solutions the majority of people will be able to provide, is what the search engine serves them. This doesn't bode well for innovation, though at the end of the day, only a small percentage of people develop most of what has value anyway, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]