Some months ago, there was this video by a school teacher from the US who adressed the students who finished school, warning them to consider themselves to be something special already, because in the reality of the job world following, they are nothing special at all, but one ant amongst millions. It was greeted with much applause, if I recall correctly, and the appreciation Americans spend to this made it into the international news.

Wolferz,

in principle I agree with "know where to find the info when you need it", however, you also need a fundament that is non-negotiable and that you can base on freely and in virtuoso any time, always. The job world and way of lives have changed, much of what you learn you just learn to unlearn it again just short time later, and I think this is not always and is not in all regard a good thing. I link psychological syndromes to this modern way of life, too, not completely, but it is an involved variable (psychology is submitted to changing vogues, too, and is much lesser a solid science than its followers are ready to see - plenty of ideology there, too, for historical reasons...). There is much unrest, stress from too much acceleration of everything, and that produces condensates in "the soul" where you feel them.

The Finnish system is better in intenrational conmparison, mainly for two reasons. The passing of the children through the school system is more focussed on facilitating than on screening/filtering regarding this opposition of facilitating versus screening Takeda propaby is right when promoting the first; second is that they have smaller clases and more teachers in Finland than for example in Germany. Two years ago, classes still were bigger here, and the idea to have two, sometimes even three teachers in one class (one doing the main lecture, the assistants taking every kid by the hand when it meets problems and practicing with it until it understands it, without the whole class needing to wait for the "straggler") may be sound, but is unpracticable due to the immense higher costs - we currently reduce the number of teachers again, I think although even for our standards we currently have too few in many regions. It's all about the money. However, just facilitating is not enough if not also patience and discipline is facilitated for. Discipline is the practice that enables you to even practice the earlier ideal of "knowing where to find the solution".

Let me compare to my chess club back then. I was club player in the years around the end of my schoolyears, and a bit after that, before I switched to correspondence chess. We young wilde ones were motivated enough, nobody had to facilitaed us to learn theory and come to the regular theory trainings - if it was about what we liked to play anyway, that is ches sopening, and middle game strategy and tactics. Now, for some reason that most chess players even cannot explain, the end game is much disliked by many players. Maybe it is because here the long variations, the really in depth-analysis is the most unforgiving and the error margin is smaller, since there is just small amounts of material left on the board, and any error, any figure loss is much harder to compensate. To make a complex issue short: we hated end games, most players dislike endgames, and I still do so - although mastering endgame is the decisive art in chess, is essential and separates those playing just noise from those really understanding the game in depth. Facilitating does not help here, it remains "boring" to learn endgame theory. The only thing that helps you is: stubbornness, patience, and - discipline. To keep coming back to it, to carry on with it, no matter what. It was one of the two reasons why I started correspondence chess. End game theory is difficult, it is "dry", and it lacks the spectacular battles and and sensational special effects of furious tactical exchanges. But it is a must. Else you lose an equal position from middle game in the end game, or you are unable to translate an advantage from the middle game into city in the endgame. The answer to that need is simple: DRILL. Its the only thing that works, once you are on difficult terrain that does not find your interest. Drill means the discipline to nevertheless move on, carry on, repeat it, stick to it, sink your will, and teeth and mind into it. And here, fascilitating may still have some place, but in such phases has much, much lesser justifiction. When it does not interest you, then it does not interest you.

I could say the same on my martial arts and my combat and my swords training training, which was extremely repetitive, not to mention that it was every day, and for long time. The motive to stick to it was love for my mentor, and deep trust. But the gasoline that kept the engine running, no matter cold or hot weather, was this: discipline, drill. Obviously, drill in the military has other meanings and is more appropriate, than in school learning, and civilian life. But I stick to it: to some degree, drill and discipline are needed, you do not get far without them, nor can you become independant in your skill to find solutions to new problems.

Gustav,

I have a principle issue with multiple choice questionaires. That is they take you by the hand and lead you through a pre-established structure of possible problem solving "strategies". You do not learn to imagine the view or design or nature of a possible solution. You do not learn to think "outside the box" of prefabricated answers. Quite the opposite, you learn how to depend on a limited number of options presented, whose origin you must not understand or be able to analyse. You learn to function like a robot following the flow diagram of a program scheme. You function, but you cannot break out of the software code, the flow diagram.

Consequently, I am cautioning people to put blind trust into electronic learning and computer learning. A computer runs by software that already has filtered the reality that you are able to manipulate via the interface. You must bow to the needs of the interfaces syntax, you must learn to unlearn ways in which you would do things in real life but cannot in a computer . You win some freedom degrees due to the global connectivity, but you loose others due to the need to accept self-limitation, unavoidably. the machine is not so much becoming a part of you. You become part of the scripts and principles by which the machine runs. I do not demonise it, and I do not want to ban it, but I am irritated by the blind, headless trust and uncritical attitude to all this. Not to mention the dependency on communication satellites never failing, no ESM pulse from space knocking the IT network out, and so on. Show computers their place and there keep them on y chain, make sure they do not leave it, else we sooner or later all become slaves of theirs. Not in the way Terminator shows it. But by the way we are able - and no longer are able!!! - to think inside our biological brains.

For the sake of completeness, one should remind of one fact: the PISA studies beside expected confirmations have also produced some very counter-intuitive and self-contradicting data on several countries and especially Finland, too, its just that you need to dig that out in the web, because the mainstream media do not bring it up: their job is to sell the Finnish model as the holy grail, not to scratch its painting. For example I remember that numbers for Finland show the greatest gender disparity in Finland amongst all european states, with girls outclassing boys by some very hefty margin. Also, I recall by memory, it still is unexplained why a PISA study was not able to confirm the thesis for Finland that high interest in reading correlates with high competence in reading - PISA delivered numbers once that indicated that there is no link between both variables.

So, either with the PISA methods or with the Finnish system or with both, not everything may be like it seems. Could also indicate a favouring of female gender at the cost of the male students.

I hated just that when i took my cisco courses - all test were based on choices checkboxes and such.

for the entry skills at school that may be appropriate.
But the first time you are outside the Lab, and trying the same thing at gome with different hardware and software, you are SOOO FFF.

It currently torpedoes me every time i have to underatsnd a customer's Network setup on the phone.

The Customer, no matter if man or woman, or elderly person of any gender describes me the setup, i can fill in sime blanks.
I know the basics. I know from drill (2 years... not so long) how things should be.
But they are not.

IT, on my level has turned from a flowchart into a Caleidoscope.
Drill and repeating helped me blindly do the basics.
However, elements like
"keep at it, get back to it, try again and again and again, till you solve the puzzle"
can not be practiced at work, as i have 5 minutes per customer.

Putting the finger on the problem(s) of hardware, software, within 300 seconds is an impossible task.

It is like being given a Chess board in mid-game, and figure out a victory in a ridiculously limited amount of time.
and if you fail, you get a next try - but the game board is a different one.

I would say it is very, very hard to prepare people for the Productive world of today.

and i think It will become more and more important to Pimp up the Student's mental capacity, the algorythms and functioning methods, their CPU and RAM, instead of ONLY loading their Hard drives full of History and theory articles.

WTFFFFF! do i remember of that bastard french teacher that banged me with the finer points of french participe passé.:/\\!!
Or that Alcoholic Biology teacher that expected a mental copypaste of an Article on how the Human lung works.
:nope:

Neither memorizing the Data nor the principle of repetition, following a mental chart has helped me beyond School.
Because School is one thing, and the job is an entirely different Beast.

The only thing that remains is:

Whatever you fail to do now, do not despair, all your failures will make you better - if you put all your mind and muscle to it.

I slowly see how that applies.

Save your lecture, Skybird. I am not impressed. Very well, I will hold your hand through it.

The problem with higher education in countries like New Zealand and the United States is very simple. Colleges and universities have been run on the business model for about 60 years now. Tuition is life. As schools have begun to see the benefits of increased revenue, the floodgates opened and college enrollment skyrocketed across the board. The end result is that tertiary education has become an industry first and a tool for societal progress and benefit second.

I teach at a rather well-respected university. Even there, each year I see an increasing number of students coming into my classroom who are ill prepared for the academic rigors of school (which have not changed at all Skybird, sorry to ruin your narrative). I sit on the audition pannels, and we are shall we say 'encouraged' to accept certain quotas of students. That quota is not gender-based, race-based or ethnicity-based. It is simply a number. The university wants X number of butts in the seats for the fall semester. The end results is having students in the university that should not be in the university.

So what's the big deal? Just fail them, right? Not quite. Once they are there, the university wants to keep them there. Having a high turnover is bad for PR, as you can't claim that 'X% of our students graduate and move on to careers in their field' in your commercials. So, once again, the professor is 'encouraged' pass students who shouldn't pass. It is the bane of my existence; the last week of every semester results in a rather uncomfortable confrontation between myself and the Provost's office. See, I refuse to play ball, and I fail students that deserve to fail. I have my tenure, so the university cannot dismiss me for it. Granted, I will never be a department chair, but I am fine with that. I stand on principle.

This problem has trickled both up and down. Postgraduate programs, as your blogger hero has noted, suddenly 'producing' an increasing number of students that do not cut the mustard. Yet, the quality of the programs themselves have not changed, it is simply that universities have begun cashing in there as well. For pre-undergraduate affairs, an entire industry has sprung up around getting your child into the college of their choice. Aside from the obvious sham that the SATs have become, one can hire tutors and agencies to coach the child through the entire application process -- what to say, where to say it, how to write it, etc.

So what does Finland do better? Simple, their university system is not privatized. The industry does not exist there. Students are admitted based on a single test, not an interview, not an essay, not any of the things that allow for a flood of new students. It is about education, not money. Contrast this to what happens stateside. Schools are constantly expanding and constructing new buildings. And what are they constructing? New lecture halls? No, dorms. Go figure.

It is the elephant in the room, the answer is so obvious, but no one wants to talk about it. The reasons are various. For many politicans in my country, acknowleding this problem ruins the narrative that privatization is the answer to everything. For individuals such as your blogger hero and yourself, it ruins your opportunity to project your pet peves into the mix; in this case, political correctness, gender equality and multiculturalism. Such projection does not address the real and dangerous problem, and that is why you, Skybird, and your blogger hero have earned my scorn. You play a dangerous and destructive game to advance your political agenda at the expense of the system of education.

I'll buy that for a dollar.
 

Takeda, you sir, have banged the nail on the head.
"In everything it's all about the Benjamins
It's become a disjointed Orwellian dystopia. Depending on the assembly line education. Not only depending on it, but also expecting it.
There are too many school boards, responsible for primary, middle and high school education that don't encourage preperation for the real world in their curriculums. Instead they take the lazy, cheap way out by using standardized vocational testing to pigeon hole the children into job specific training slots and that's the curriculum they provide. Similar to the U S military method. One fortunate reality is they do still teach fundamental reading, writing and math. Only problem is the assembly line doesn't tolerate delays if one child is too slow to accept the basic programming and he is sent on up the line to remain with his age group. Tough Tacos kid, you should have applied yourself.
So, if one does some digging do you eventually find the treasure or come out on the other side with nothing but a hole? I feel like there are puppets in the high places of power that are molding it all with impetus on making money for the puppet masters. That, if true is so fundamentally wrong it's laughable.
Stick to your guns Tak. Provost office be damned.

Yet the universities get money based on the number of graduates, which leads to the grading system being pretty lax. The only time I have ever heard someone failing a course (bar some simple exams on certain books that are done just for the credits) was when a person from my seminar group turned in a 10 pages long essay filled with lots of personal feelings and plans on what should be done on the actual seminar thesis, whereas it was supposed to be approximately 40 pages of scientific research and the very last step before the master's thesis.

But otherwise? Sure, these days they say that you have to graduate in 7 years (the goal is 5, the average is somewhere between 5 and 6), but if you won't? Just go cry the powers-that-be a river, and they will give you more time simply because they won't admit having wasted 7 years on you for nothing.

I'm not saying we have it easy. Having quite a lot of experience from working with university students from various other countries, I'd say we are doing pretty well. They have agreed on that as well (and in fact been a lot more ardent about it than I am). But money certainly talks nevertheless.


Not entirely true. You can also, in some cases, be admitted based on your grades in the matriculation exam alone or have those grades help you along with good test score. It depends on school. My history department, at least when I applied, took 20 based on the test and another 20 based on the test and the matriculation exam. I had pretty good grades, above average, but I wasn't even considered to the latter quota.

And for the record, when I applied, there were approximately 450 applicants. I thought that was hard. In fact I had it easy: for some programmes there can be over 2,000 applicants from which 66 are selected.

Takeda, now take your first post #2, your latest reply #19, and then compare that to the article by Hartwich, the full original one. And then explain to me what your anger and your privatization argument has to do with that article's content.

:doh:

Next time skip the part with the cryptic hints and mysterious allusions, and just set up a post with your plain argument and points, and skip the comedy wrap around it. The result with be immediate. People will know what you want so say, people will know why you think what you say, people will not become increasingly irritated and angered.

Oh, and leaving out the personal sidekicks would be deeply appreciated.

And on Hartwich, maybe not the messiah to save the world, but probably slightly more than just my "blogger hero". I occasionally read him on the German site that I first linked and where he got reprinted, the original publishing was in a NZ newspaper. His articles to me makes sense, usually. He is no neocon or conservative by American standards, but a liberal by European standards, which probably means libertarian by American standards.

He just reported on his experiences in job interviews. If only I knew what your problem was. Next time, just say it, instead of sending people around circles, hunting wild guesses and assumptions about your motives.

Aside from the test(s), are there any other non-quantative criteria? Here in the 'states we have those in the form of persuasive essays, interviews, portfolios, etc. What I have read indicates that Finland does not use such things, but you would be a more authoratative source, seeing as you are there and have gone through it.''

And here we have the crux of the problem bewteen you and I. I shouldn't have to say it; you should argue honestly from the start. That is what elicits my contempt.

Skybird, stop playing games. The blogger complains that the quality of students coming from postgraduate education is of diminishing quality. This is true. However, those are the symptoms of the disease. I have offered the disease itself. Correct it, and your blogger's complaints vanish. To quote from the blogger himself:

This is what happened: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...2&postcount=19

It cannot be more clear and obvious. Oh, and I'm not angry, Skybird. You all have never seen me angry.

It depends on the school. There is an interview in some programmes as far as I know. In those of theatre and the elementary school teacher at least, both being some of the more difficult ones to get in. Whereas the constant reason for wondering is why the doctor programmes don't have one, when it's still an education tailored for such an employment.

But on the other hand we don't need letters of recommendation or other such stuff. We apply on our own and see where it goes, one way or another.

It might be worth noting also that when in the university, you might still need to apply for something every now and then and then the requirements might vary. I have had to do it twice. First to get in the museum studies I had to write a CV and a letter detailing why I want to include these studies in my degree. It wasn't just a formality: 40 applied, 20 were taken. And last spring when I applied for the teacher studies, I had to both provide a similar letter as well as to participate in both group- and personal interview. That, on the other hand, was a formality: there weren't enough applicants, so everyone was accepted. But I obviously didn't know it back then. :)

If you ever happen to get lost in Finland (any possible divine entity help you), I'd be glad to show you around our school system. I have a few contacts here and there.

Ah, okay. That would be somewhat similar to what happens stateside, but the process has really become a formality. Here, those students are getting in regardless.

I likely will take you up on that sometime. :up:

Hey...
you assume Skybird knows the stuff behind the first page of the book.
he does not, many do not.

YOU on the other hand are inside that system, specific to your country.
you can provide us with some insight.

and those that do not have that insight, do not need to be talked to like children, or their hands held through a discussion.

remember, he does not knwo what he is talking about, and as such brings this article here to gather points of View from others.

It's like at the end of that initial post he asks "what is your experience and point of View on the matter?"

I found that with your hand holding you ridiculed him.
there is no need to. because he is trying to gain an understanding that he does not have.
Tries to
Get a clue about something he dont know squat about, and has an uninformed of MISinformed opinion about.

He rather ask you.

If you can not reply, and teach, without that smug, rolleye expression...
Then by all means do not.

Hm?

We are Noobs at the subject. Treat us as such.

Since this is your first day on the forum, I'll explain to you that Skybird's entire argumentative style is completely fraudulent. It is based on the belief that he knows better that you, me and everybody else. It relies on ad hominems, circular logic and various other fallacies. He deals with people in a high-handed fashion and expect us to sit and listen as though he is the sage on the stage. All I did was give him a taste of his own medicine.

Now, if you can see past that, do you have anything to add?

Great, me and my big mouth again. :haha:

Techically you don't even need me: since the teaching in most cases is public by the law, you can just contact any given school and ask if you can come to observe their classes. Or just go there and say you want to do it, I suppose that would still follow the idea of the law as well. Not many people do that, but it's your right.

I just can't resist participating in these discussions, since people from abroad have some really funny ideas about the Finnish education. And Finland in general too, as I have gently tried to point out to some of our exchange students trying to convince me that I'm living in the best country ever, not the other way around.

I'd say the thing we do right is not any single thing in the education system, but the mentality. It's not unique to us, but we take this idea of "lifelong education" pretty seriously. People are encouraged to keep up with the development, to go study even at older age and it's supported in many ways. I have often seen a lot of older folks sitting at the lectures right next to me. Some are doing the whole degree. So in that way it's not "graduate and get out". But it can't work if people don't really want it. If you ask me, the myth of "Finnish education" is based on that.

The Irish admissions system is quite a bit different to what you guys are describing.

Final exams in high school are taken on at least 7 subjects - with English, Irish & Maths being compulsory. You can take the subject exams at Ordinary or Higher difficulty levels. Grades go A1/A2/B1/B2/B3 and so on, with a certain number of points awarded for each grade depending on difficulty.

A Higher lever A1 is worth 100 points, an A2 worth 90, whereas an A1 grade on an Ordinary level paper is worth only 60 points and an Ordinary A2 worth 50.

For university application, points from your best 6 subjects are added together, giving you however many out of 600.

Every offered course in the country is ranked by supply of places and demand for those places. Higher-demand and low-availability courses such as Medicine or dentistry tend to have extremely high points requirements in or around the 590 mark. General Arts programs tend to require 400-ish.

This system gets a lot of flak for being cold and somewhat remorseless, but I certainly found it reasssuring when I went through it. You work hard, you get the course you want. No bloody interviews or personal statements.

Absolutely!

IF he knows everything, and really is the king of the Books, has an intimate knowledge of the subjects he starts to talk about, he is the freaking arrogant GOD.

Sort of:
He does not realize that he indeed does treat others like he is in a superior position, from the top down.
I (too) fail to see him as someone overly secure of his opinion, knowledge and convictions.
Maybe because i am using YOUR language instead of mine.
its not an excuse, but a fact - we hardly manage to convey the finer points and variations we wish to.

However.
you are a teacher.
If from your point of view he knows Squat...
Either teach and correct him with patience or sit and laugh at his ridicule and ignorance.

Or, let me put it in a more personal way (independent of what i think of Skybird, his posts and his Arguments):

Come on, you are better than THAT.:up:

After all he provides us with a very wide array of subjects to discuss...