Pressures to extend school day
I was in a school that was full day, and you know what; half the time I spent in the classroom was wasted on me. Bored to death, not allowed to open some useful book on a different topic, I had to sit through hours and hours of bullshit.
The trade union representing teachers in Finland, the OAJ, is calling for longer school days as a part of an upcoming reform in the national curriculum.
More class hours = more teachers & more billable hours = more financial power for the union.
Simple.
It is not about the children.
This is the same mindset that has the audacity to claim that abortion is "for the child" when there is a long waiting list of couples who want to adopt a native Finnish baby.
With wanting to increase the school hours for children, one would think the Finns are illiterate.
So, we are to break what is not broken, in the name of progress.Even though Finnish children spend well below the OECD national average of hours in class, academic performance is among the best in the world.
This is where it gets interesting:
Central planning anyone?A new national curriculum for elementary schools is currently being formulated behind closed doors at the Ministry of Education. The group of civil servants working on reforms has not shown the plans even to the OAJ, the union that represents teaching professionals.
Central planning without including the people with hands-on experience?
"Central planning", that has been the most murderous political idea of human existence?
Like the apparatchik poets planning the harvest?
Like the apparatchik chemical engineers planning the waterways?
Interesting this is, the least.
Professor Jouni Välijärvi of the University of Jyväskylä, who coordinates the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in Finland, says that longer days elsewhere is not a good reason to extend school days here.
Sometimes reasonable (in the real meaning, not the PC bastardized meaning of reason) people do make it to the news.
"the systematic education"... Fuck. That sounds like out of some political horror movie, A Brave New 1984."There seems to be something in the air in other developed countries urging an increase in the systematic education of small children. I am not convinced that this is wise. It could produce exactly the opposite results intended."
What is the next step?
The state taking babies at birth into "Newborn Education Facilities"?
Already babies who should be still sucking their mother's tits are given to daycare at 12 months old.
The first words are not "Mom", "Dad", "Pee", "Kaka", but whatever the
The most happy kids in my circle of friends are the three boys who have a stay at home mother. The boys are golden. They are boys. Wild, fun, happy, curious, territorial but cooperative. And they got a dad who says "Boys are boys" and would not make a big deal if one of them breaks an arm while jumping around. Compare this to the kid who cannot drive the toy Matchbox car fast through the carpet toy town in the kindergarten, because that would make him get used to fast driving.
Oh, eating mom's cooking instead of government approved crap, these boys are healthy as bulls; growing with mom's teachings, dad's teachings and a love for the family.
The system cannot have that.
The system wants your children, every one of them, in totality.
The system wants to devour the soul of your children, and make them into obedient PC-thinking slaves.
Ya ya, all in the name of the child.
America wants to say it's not socialist, but similar ideas are always being tossed around as ways to improve education and our national performance on PISA and NAEP (our internal progress report).
ReplyDeleteProponents say it will not only benefit children but will make childcare decisions easier on parents who will no longer have to worry about finding sitters or after-care for their children while they work a job over an hour away from their home. It's a bogus argument and really just continues to convince people to love their jail-cell jobs.
As far as unintended consequences are concerned, I'm not sure what could result because I'd prefer not to think about it, but it's frightening. We're already atomized enough by the pressures to work and buy stuff and get the kids into sports and perform and be high achievers - in short, to be ABOVE above-average, even when we are mostly, really, just people of middling intelligence and ability trying desperately to appear anything but.
And to say one is average is not bad, or denigrating. It's just admitting truth and accepting something about yourself. Once you admit it you can tailor a life of happiness around it, otherwise you're just chasing empty symbols of status.
It's a treacherous game that government plays: tell you you're not average, that you can be better, let us help you - we'll give you expert advice and plan everything for you and your kids so they won't be average either. Why should we do this for you? Because, well, you're average or less, and we know better!
Very insightful comment MadBiker, and saddens me greatly when I meet a mother of a three month old baby already cherishing the day she can put the baby to daycare (that is in 9 months) so she can return to work.
ReplyDeleteI do not see any bigger fulfillment than watching your own baby grow...
Do not see the fulfillment of working for an employee that can sack you in a second with backstabbing coworkers while your kid gets to know a state indocrinated minimum wage earner as a mother he shares with 15 other kids.