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Finland's Education System Supersedes "Subjects" With "Topics"
jones_supa writes Finland is about to embark on one of the most radical education reform programs ever undertaken by a nation state – scrapping traditional "teaching by subject" in favor of "teaching by topic". The motivation to do this is to prepare people better for working life. For instance, a teenager studying a vocational course might take "cafeteria services" lessons, which would include elements of maths, languages, writing skills and communication skills. More academic pupils would be taught cross-subject topics such as the European Union — which would merge elements of economics, history, languages and geography. There will also be a more collaborative teaching approach, with pupils working in smaller groups to solve problems while improving their communication skills.
Banish it as an anachronism of the failed imperialist feudal system.
Let's not be hyperbolic. While it's clear that you don't like what they're doing, can you point to anything they're doing that is actually illegal? Because that R in RICO refers to racketeering, and while they are indeed organized (which is their right under the First Amendment, since we have freedom of association) and do at times place their own interest ahead of those whom they are supposed to be serving (which is true of all of us, to some extent), you would be hard-pressed to argue that everyday schoolteachers are active participants in organized crime.
It's hard to have a reasonable discussion about the actual problems when you're practically Godwin-ing this conversation by implying schoolteachers bear such striking similarities to the Mafia that they deserve to be prosecuted using the same set of laws.
It was called vocational education, and it prepared people for skilled blue collar work. The purpose-driven approach wasn't really geared toward a liberal education or to prepare students for self-determined careers, but it did prepare people to work in auto repair shops, to fix HVAC systems, and so forth. It is not clear to me how the Helsinki system will prepare students for university work in liberal arts, sciences without immediate/clear applications, philosophy and mathematics, and so on. I assume they've thought about it, but I don't get it.
It should be a concern.
This is exactly what Evergreen State College in Olympia WA has been doing throughout it's history including when I attended between 1985 and 1987. One big topic explored from many angles for one to all three semesters of the year.
Finland has one of the best school results in the world so hopefully they know what they are doing it go back to what has worked before.
My high school in the US had a single joint history/lit class for 9th and 10th graders in the late 90s. Seemed like a natural union: learn classical civilzation, read Homer; learn about the scramble for africa, read Achebe. Not sure math and physics would get an entirely fair shake this way, but at least weaving it into a story might provide some better motivation than the study of platonic ideals for their own sake does.
given that people develop at different rates...
I wouldn't be surprised if the Finish school system.. Or well, maybe not, I don't know really, .. the the same as the Swedish one as in that everyone is supposed to progress at the same rate.
Which likely mean some are held back by those who are doing more poorly. But possibly also that those who are doing better can help those who are doing poorly go further.
Good or bad?
I think here it has even been claimed even for the good students this is beneficial.
I'm not really buying that.
Maybe beneficial in the same way as immigration.
In some non-real imagined ideological way.
If you have never experienced the clear, exacting system of thought in physics, mathematics or chemistry, you will always be an IDIOT who can be sold ANYTHING. You will be completely at the mercy of the person selling you some shit or some truth or a mix of both.
Clear thinking is based on standing of the shoulders of great scientists, not by standing on the shoulders of some AgitProp faggots and their paymasters in finance.
Read about medieval times and calculate how trebuchet works? Read about ming dynasty and learn how guns and gunpowder work? Read about space race and get to ballistics and orbits? History and math/physics are intertwined rather well I'd say.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
The state of drunken stupor?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
It makes a lot of sense to merge "economics, history, languages and geography" and talk about a slice of all of this while talking about really any event, organization, or nation. History is linked to all of these. But when do you teach calculus and chemistry? Even if you could find some reasonable time to intersperse them, it would never work. Some fields require current and indepth understanding of a whole host of concepts. Courses in Chemistry and mathematics are a constant ramping up of concepts. You cannot break it up without reteaching past concepts every time you do so.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The purpose of college is to give you a better life, make you a better human. Although it's true that many people go there merely to increase their salary, the wise professors are supposed to guide and open the eyes of their pupils.
Focusing so much on 'working life' can lead to a seriously deficient education.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There is a difference. Economics, geography, and history are intertwined and dependent on eachother. You need to understand the one to understand the other. Knowing the physics of trebuchets offers no further insight into history. In-fact since most of the people of those times did not understand them themselves it might actually make understanding that age harder. At the very least there is no benefit whatsoever in teaching projectile physics then as any other time before or after.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It sort of sounds like they might be getting rid of that customization. You just take the exact same courses of everyone else. There is no other way to run such a system.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
By subject separates the distinct skills. If you suck at math and are still trying to pass grade 9 mathematics you can still take grade 12 English and history. This method would means that if you are slightly slower than the average at any subject you are floundering and cannot progress. And everyone has a subject they are slower at than the rest.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Economics, geography, and history are intertwined and dependent on eachother.
Correct.
. Knowing the physics of trebuchets offers no further insight into history.
False, you're now missing the entire point of topical subjects, the core of what the whole thing is about!
You need to think it like a mind map, get facts/ideas and link them with relations.
Maybe the examples were bad, but I was approaching the issue from the side of linking physics and math to another topic.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Integration material chemistry could work really well, because that affected products that were desirable for trade, and as a result affected which cultures came into greater contact with others as a result...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because finnish teachers are not unionized at all, right?
As you presumably suspected - or already knew - was the case, they most definitely are unionized.
Nokia, saunas, and Linux.
You do know that 95% of teachers in Finland are teacher's union members right?
How many people will regret their childish decision without any chances to switch career later, because they received "cafeteria only" education? And often parents force kids to take certain "family" career path, but kids can grow up and switch careers... if they have got generic education.
The teach by topic sounds more like streaming at an early age. China does that because they cannot afford to give all students the same level of "higher education" so they stream people out earlier into more "technical vocations" earlier. This leads to a less flexible society that will not be able to adapt in the future. What you teach in school to some 15 year old may not be valid skills when they are 26. Teaching all the "subjects" to people in a "Cafeteria Services" program in an integrated way may seem like you are teaching them in a way that interests them, but in reality you are really streaming people at an early age into being a "cafeteria servant" and when those jobs are made redundant... so are most of those kids cum adults.
Yes, but if the only reason that you suck at mathematics is because you can't grasp the abstractness of it, then relating it in a real world sense might make it easier
I didn't understand trigonometry until we started using it for bevel joints in wood working class. Math teachers are terrible at teaching math.
Becoming a teacher in Finland is as competitive as getting into an Ivy League school, and Finland offers no other route into the profession. So, there is no Teach for Finland. To teach in Finland requires a five-year master's degree in education. Admission to a teacher preparation program includes a national entrance exam and a personal interview. Only one of every 10 applicants is accepted into a teacher preparation program in Finland; competition to become a primary school teacher is even tougher, with 1,789 applicants for only 120 spots, for example, at the University of Helsinki in 2011-12. Only eight universities offer teacher preparation programs in Finland, which allows the country to ensure consistency from program to program. Contrast that with Minnesota which has about the same population as Finland (5.2 million) but about 30 colleges that offer teacher preparation programs.
I also remember reading that about 90% of Finnish teachers graduated in the top quintile of their class. In the US, that figure is more like 4%. American students of education typically get the worst SAT and GRE scores of all the majors. We cannot ignore these facts when we're comparing educational systems. In the US it's easier to get into med school than it is for a smart Finn to get into teacher school. The quality of the people who make it through means that pretty much every innovation they try is bound to produce satisfactory results, because highly their best and brightest are in charge.
Maybe you should study history enough to know who actually did invade in the end.
If they are abandoning the teaching of core, pure subjects the way it sounds, it is certainly a bad move.
The correct method would be to have core classes in key areas, such as math, various sciences, literature and rhetoric, history and social studies AND THEN have derivative classes which fused concepts in practical and vocational settings. The chief problem in most educational settings is the student's lack of will to connect the dots. When I took a high school job at a restaurant, I could immediately see the applications from core Biology of sterile technique and protein / carbohydrate denaturing, most people fail to see those connections. A topical class like "Cafeteria Services" should teach students where to draw from key knowledge in a derivative and synthetic sense: math for accounting, inventory, and projecting trends, psychology and rhetoric for synthesizing menus and advertisements, biology for cooking and sanitation, and so forth.
This approach also better allows students to learn how to leverage their general "core subject" knowledge into changes in vocation because they have already learned the methods to apply what seems to some like dry, lifeless facts and calculations. Further, using such a system in the secondary levels (middle school / jr high / high school) would help students make better choices in the University system. The lack of topics usefully linking back to art history and anthropology would certainly help students to understand the lack of career value, except unto themselves in those fields. At the same time, it should increase the desire to get at least a basic understanding of such subjects as one sees the limited, but interesting ways to apply a general knowledge base.
I am from Sweden, a neighbouring country to Finland. 30 years ago, we reformed our school system to death (communitybased instead of state based, allowing private profit-driven enterprises and so on). Our results have kept dropping and dropping ever since, and it seems it will only keep on this way. We admire Finland; They have the great results we used to have. I really hope their politicians don't disrupt their system with unneccesary and untested reforms.
Roughly the same percentage can form the possessive plural properly. In English.
At the bottom of the
Arithmetic != mathematics.
At the bottom of the
I may be mistaken but basic counting is part of math. At least in Europe it is, not sure how that looks like in the land of the free tho.
So far they have better results then most developed countries. Can that be said of US?
My opinion is that education is about a great deal more than becoming a trained worker ant for some [US usually] multinational. Hey, a topic could be 'optimal picking in an Amazon warehouse', what joy! That would combine sports, graph theory, manual dexterity and subservience to the man.
Against this, I don't know exactly what the 'plan' is, so my comments could be wide of the mark. I hope so, in fact.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
why do we have unions?
because there is no balance of power in the workplace without them, and workers will be impoverished without that balance
this is not a theoretical assertion on my point, this is american history: the gilded age and robber barons, the birth of the labor movement because the working class was being fucking shafted
look at jobs without unions benefits, and they pay shit, with shit benefits. that's what you want?
unions indeed introduce a whole new spectrum of abuses, that is true
but i assert to you that whole spectrum of abuses is smaller than the bullshit the plutocrats got away with a hundred years ago, and want to get away with again, because morons like you believe "right to work" propaganda and lies in your ignorance of american history. you want us to learn the painful labor lessons all over again
i never understood conservatives who argue against unions and universal healthcare. unless you are a rich asshole. otherwise, you're basically arguing for your own impoverishment, and are too stupid to understand that. plutocrats call you "useful fools." they buy media channels to keep you adequately outraged over moronic half lies and red herring topics. fed bullshit, kept in the dark, unleashed on the voting booths, outraged over simpleton depictions of complex topics, voting happily for those who work hard to make you poorer so a few of their rich friends can make yet more than they deserve, weakening the american economy overall
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That parent post is marked troll (23.03.2015 0910cet) is a sign that there are a lots of idiots around. It should be marked funny at least if not insightful. It is for instance not uncommon to see grownup educated people having problems with basic application of counting to their small business. Yet they can count and know all the rules. Maybe this is just them or maybe some broader view at what the actual skills can be used for could help. The again there will always be pupils that would be terrible bored by this low level - story oriented approach as focused training on key subjects is much better at studying foundations of say nuclear physics or microbiology. Yet there is nothing stopping both methods being applied where they are best. Topic like approach to some and focused course for some other. TFA seems to depict the situation where only topics are used which I doubt is working for all areas of science and technology and for all pupils. OTOH we probably need much more communication and negotiation skilled people as we move from producing things into servicing things.
In my professional life I would actually enjoy more software specialists with social, planning and communication skills but instead I have either socially inept geniuses or morons that know nothing but know how to network themselves out of trouble and layoffs. I guess that is another story.
Math teachers are terrible at teaching math.
I think the biggest problem I've seen with math teachers is a lack of empathy and context. That is, by nature, math teachers are people who were probably pretty good at math, and found the subject interesting and fun. As such, they can't understand why other people don't find it as fascinating and intuitive as they do. Many people find math to be difficult, frustrating, and completely unnecessary to their lives, at least in the abstract form. In college, I had a professor teaching matrix math who had no idea that it was used in 3D graphics and robotics. He was perfectly fine teaching it in a completely abstract form, which likely left many students wondering "what the hell is this stuff even good for", and "why in the world am I learning this?"
So, the math teachers often explain the concepts in a purely abstract form, and the students are left to try to memorize the rules without understanding the context in which they're learning them. Learning anything without a proper context to frame it in, at least for me, made things 10x harder than it needed to be. It was only when I was long out of school and working in videogames that I finally felt like I found an actual use for trigonometry, geometry,and linear algebra.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
When an (American) football player wants to become stronger, he doesn't go practice football. He goes to a weight room and does one round of weight lifting for his pecs, one for his biceps, etc. It doesn't matter that the game of football never involves using just your biceps. You develop the muscles one by one, each one in its most effective way, and then you can use all of them as the need arises.
Similarly, in school, you develop skills in reading, arithmetic, critical thinking, and so on. Teaching them separately allows you to focus on each one by one, evaluate each one separately, and fix whatever lack of knowledge appears. A "cafeteria services" class which features a little math, a little writing, and a little communication, will not effectively identify when a student is weak in just one of those skills.
this "preparing for the workplace" mantra is the thing that ripped computing out of primary and secondary schools and replaced it with Microsoft Office training. The assorted coding in schools initiatives (Codeclub, the Barclays code playground, Rewired State Codecademy and so on) are the rest of the industry trying to put teaching back into schools. Even Microsoft know they went too far pushing training and want to get teaching of coding back into schools.
I have a suspicion that Finland will make this work (they have a good track record of making stuff work) but I think it is important to distinguish between training and teaching.
Am I right in thinking that in a discussion about a world event they'd shift between teaching literature, economics, math, geography, etc?
The whole concept baffles me.
The problem with this approach from what I would guess is that you're not going to get a functional foundation in the "skills" people go to school to learn.
I'm going to assume it isn't as stupid as it sounds... I wish them well.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Recently I was reading The Seven Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler on my day off. There's a chapter or so devoted to the Lumiar School he founded, which runs on a Mosaic curriculum—a curriculum which discards the traditional subject orientation for learning experiences. Here's an article written about it shortly after the school opened: Learn what you want.
What we need to change to go along with this (if we keep them) are the standardized tests (by subject). I think there need to be many questions offered, from which the student can choose, and the final score needs to be more like tower diving, where your score on what you attempt is presented alongside with the average difficulty rating. Brownose U. could prefer to admit students with a 100% score at the high-school senior difficulty level, while Speed College could prefer to admit students with an 80% score at the level of a third-year undergraduate (in their chosen major)—tailoring their environment appropriately. Survival of the fittest lacks vitality unless there's real diversity in the methods employed.
Once upon a time, the problem with taking this approach is that having some of your brightest students going deep into difficult sub-topics (such as a bright high school math student who takes a shine to number theory), was that too many students would get too far ahead of the teachers, because few high school math teachers (for example) would be able to ace the entire panoply of twenty offered questions.
With the technology of social networking, it's a solvable problem to hook bright students up with teachers with expertise in the subject area, no matter how deep and narrow. If there are ten high-school math prodigies in all of Brazil who take a shine to number theory, you just need one math teacher (available online) who is good at number theory to help shepherd their studies in a productive direction.
No matter what the child wants to learn, find the teacher who can teach it. In a system as large as Brazil (to continue with my Lumiar example) it can't be that hard to have a least one teacher who can keep up with a bright child no matter how unusual the learning passion (excepting all things Narnia, like astrology and phrenology and intelligent design).
We have far less excuse to funnel every child down the same subject-matter cattle chute than ever before.
I am not in a union, there isn't a union involved at all within the company I work for, and they have north of 350 employees.
We all negotiate our own pay scales, for which mine is above average because I am a valued worker and can negiotiate for myself, and we receive very good benefits (private health care, sports tickets, days away etc) for free.
Why do I need a union? I'm not impoverished, despite you saying I should be without a union...
But then again I'm in the UK.
What sucks in the US is the concept of "union shops" where you *have* to join the union, or at least pay union dues, regardless. You can't work there without paying the union their cut of your pay packet. That's bullshit right there. A union should not be able to stop either an employer or a employee from having a relationship which fully excludes the union. Being part of a union should be 100% voluntary.
Unions are the equivalent of dragging everyone down to the same common denominator - if you are a decent employee working for a decent employer, you lose more than you gain through being part of the union and unable to negotiate for yourself.
I think these socialist unions are the culprit of the teachers and our future. Next you know they are on the same level as e.g. Finland and actualy TEACH people things.
We must have consumers, not thinkers.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
LOL, another right-wing history crackpot...
Einstein lived one year as a toddler in Württemberg, he was educated in Munich and Switzerland (Aarau and Zürich). Later he worked at Zürich, Bern and Prague, and then for the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Prussian Academy of Sciences, before he emigrated to the US because of the nazis in 1933, where he spent the rest of his life mostly at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.
He loved your Eberhard's Württemberg so much, he even denounced his citizenship of Württemberg in 1896 in order to avoid military service!
What they have in the USofA are not really unions. At most they are guild. In Belgium, you can join any of several unions. Basically there are three to choose from and those then have sub-divisions per industry.
Some smaller are limited to only one (large) company.
In no way will you be forced to join one and in no way will it affect your chance of employment.
It will also not affect your rights as an emplyee.
The main difference between joining and not are (unless you are a representative of the union and work, than you DO have different rights) is that you get your unemplyemnet benefits much easier when you are entitled to them and they can give you legal advice. Also if you want to join a strike, they will pay you for the loss in pay.
I pay about 8EUR per month. My employers NEVER asked me or even shown interest if I was in a Union or not. When I was in a position where I lead people and hire them I was NEVER interested if they were union or not.
The talks that happen between companies and unions are in general pretty lame. They talk about having a bigger space to have lunch. They talk about the temperature of the offices and how vacation should be more (or less) flexible.
Once in a while they will ask for more money and that is what you read in the papers.
Some people say they have to much power, but also re,member where we came from: a situartion where the rich exploited the poor. Working illegal long hours and not paying for overtime. Getting away with paying less than what was legaly allowed and what not.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Not necessarily "tactically stupid". If Wikipedia" is trustworthy on this:
Finland worked to maintain good relations with the Western powers. The Finnish government stressed that Finland was fighting as a co-belligerent with Germany against the Soviet Union only to protect itself. Furthermore, Finland stressed that it was still the same democratic country as it had been in the Winter War. However, on 12 July 1941, the United Kingdom had signed an agreement of joint action with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, under German pressure, Finland had to close the British legation in Helsinki. As a result, diplomatic relations between Finland and the United Kingdom were broken on 1 August. On 28 November, Britain presented Finland an ultimatum, in which it demanded that Finland cease military operations by 3 December. Unofficially, Finland informed the Western powers that troops would halt their advance in the next few days. The reply did not satisfy the United Kingdom, which declared war on Finland on 6 December 1941. The Commonwealth member states of Canada, Australia, India, and New Zealand followed.
Relations between Finland and the United States were more complex; the American public was sympathetic to the "brave little democracy", and there were anti-communist feelings. At first, the United States empathised with the Finnish cause[citation needed]; however, the situation became problematic after Finnish troops crossed the 1939 border. Finnish and German troops were a threat to the Murmansk Railway and northern communication supply line between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. On 25 October 1941, the United States demanded that Finland cease all hostilities against the Soviet Union and withdraw behind the 1939 border. In public, President Ryti rejected the demands, but in private he wrote to Mannerheim on 5 November 1941 asking him to halt the offensive. Mannerheim agreed and secretly instructed General Hjalmar Siilasvuo to break off the assault against the Murmansk Railway.
>> Knowing the physics of trebuchets offers no further insight into history.
>False, you're now missing the entire point of topical subjects, the core of what the whole thing is about!
The premise is also confused. The physics of weaponry provides _massive_ insight into history, warfare, and economics. The range of a trebuchet, and its cost to make, and necessary manpower to use, affects military planning quite critically in ways that translate well to modern project planning and modern warfare.
I have no idea.
But someone who probably does know is Professor John Hattie of the University of Melbourne.
"His research interests include performance indicators and evaluation in education, as well as creativity measurement and models of teaching and learning. He is a proponent of evidence based quantitative research methodologies on the influences on student achievement. Prior to his move to the University of Melbourne, Hattie was a member of the independent advisory group reporting to the New Zealand's Minister of Education on the national standards in reading, writing and maths for all primary school children in New Zealand. Hattie undertook the largest ever meta-analysis of quantitative measures of the effect of different factors on educational outcomes. His book, Visible Learning, is the result of this study."
This link has a short extract from an interview from a 30minutes BBC interview, which I recommend listening to if it's accessible from your domicile.
"I am not in a union, there isn't a union involved at all within the company I work for, and they have north of 350 employees."
You should learn some history, your anecdote does not make up the aggregate workplace of this planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day
Oh, yay, unions had a place and that place was in the past. Your real point is what, exactly?
Today I don't have to join a union and I get treated fairly by the company I work for, and I can even engage in negotiations with that company without being fired. And I'm not forced to pay a union to treat me as a member of a herd rather than the individual I am.
So again, your point is what, exactly?
strong correlation between dismantling of unions and stagnant wages ? Workers get approximately 6 to 9 times as much work done as they did 40 years ago, but make less money. awesome.
Finland has some of the highest test scores in the world But don't let that stop your baseless rant.
Why do I need a union?
Unions lobby the government to make them pass laws that make your work life more enjoyable even if you don't belong to one. This is needed to counter balance the lobbying power of the employers. For example, if fire breaks out at the place where you work, most probably you'll find fire extinguishers and emergency exits, and this fact is not due to your employer's benevolence or your professionality: your employer would be compelled by market forces to make you work in a dangerous place, if there weren't laws in place preventing malevolent employers from competing with him.
I'm not impoverished, despite you saying I should be without a union...
You don't need to be a communist to actually believe in the role of unions: the IMF, certainly not a lair of leftists, found out that inequality and poverty rise when the power of unions falls.
As others have already mentioned, the summary is blatantly wrong. What's actually happening is that as of 2016, this sort of topic-based teaching will become mandatory for all elementary schools for at least once a year and the schools get the freedom to decide how long these projects will last. So yes, while this is a rather big change in a way, it's not like they're doing away with subjects altogether, not at all,
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Because you got it completely backward. Finland's education is one of the most egalitarian in the world.
Everyone gets the same educational opportunity in Finland and it is *all* state run. And in fact it is aimed very much at the working class, starting with free daycare starting at 8months. Finland's teachers are FULLY UNIONIZED.
Finland's education system is a system of LEVELLING UPWARD, and has lifted their entire nation. US education is screwed up,but it is NOT because the left got what they wanted.
--PM
Sounds a lot like the Montessori method. It's been around for a long time. http://www.montessori.edu/
Yes, because Card Checks are such a voluntary practice. Particularly when the union rep threatens your job unless you sign (essentially) a contract to always support the union.
The flip side is that if you can join a union shop without paying your dues, you're freeloading: the union's representing those interests of yours that coincide with their membership's for free. It's very much like getting government services without having to pay taxes.
when your adults want it.
when your hillbillies don't freak out from removing morning prayers, oaths, flag raising and such tomfoolery.
when your adults just want a decent education, equal education, for everyone, for their children and their neighbours children and the children on the east coast and the children in texas. when your adults want everyone to be taught science the same way, the same subjects, when you want religion to taught as a topic and not as history, when your adults will accept that their children deserve _better_ education than them.
Americans don't want it - it's not about the teachers union. from the headlines from USA it would seem it's anything BUT the teachers union that is resisting this. wholesome education you see would include things some parts of the large mass don't want to be taught, like that usa is just a country, that christianity(or the local sect version of it) is just a religion and that there is a vast number of other religions and countries(and that mostly indeed they don't even agree with the pope on what christianity has as it's beliefs so..).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
why do we have unions?
because there is no balance of power in the workplace without them, and workers will be impoverished without that balance
Labor unions aren't solely responsible for workers rights. The government is our primary tool for enabling worker's rights. The government enacted the 40 day work week, overtime laws, etc (with help from unions), and governments are the ones who enforce these laws today. Unions were a tool which was necessary because in the early 1900's the government simply did not take on the responsibility. That is not the case today.
There are plenty of times where drastic actions are necessary because the government is not doing its job well enough. The US Civil War is such an example. We needed a war to prevent secession, but we don't need perpetual war to stop it from occurring regularly. Just like we needed unions to set reasonable work standards after the industrial revolution, but we don't need them perpetually.
Long standing unions almost always become as big of a problem as the robber baron monopolies they were created to fight against. They drive up consumer costs of any service they have a hand in providing; that is if the industries they taint can't just move overseas. They are especially dangerous when they mix with public services, because tax payers are stuck with bills promised by politicians decades ago who knew they would be out of office long before the bills came due.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
strong correlation between dismantling of unions and stagnant wages ?
There is also a strong correlation between the time where a significant portion of the population became college educated and stagnant wages. Wages grew substantially when the average worker was becoming far more valuable economically then generations past. This was low hanging fruit solved by increased government funding of higher education and a shift in middle class mindsets that college was necessary for a middle class life. Once a tipping point of the number of college educated employees in the workforce, average wage growth started to stagnate again.
Workers get approximately 6 to 9 times as much work done as they did 40 years ago, but make less money. awesome.
Productivity gains which occurred 40-50 years ago were largely because of a more highly educated work force. Productivity gains today are largely because of increased use of capital. Computer systems, robotics, operational improvements, etc. are responsible for that increased productivity over the past few decades. And just like the 50's and 60's saw the rise of the middle class because of college participation, the 80's through today saw the rise of the upper middle class.
The upper middle class is now responsible for the productivity gains we see today so they are the ones who are reaping the benefits (along with the capital holders of course). When a middle class worker becomes more productive today, it is probably because of a CRM system or robotics assembly created by someone in the upper middle class. And the upper middle class wages have not been stagnant by a long shot over the past 20-30 years. The upper middle class hardly even existed before the 80's.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Everyone keeps forgetting that the government does not force unions in the work place - it is a voluntary agreement between two parties.
Government absolutely force unions in the work place. There are plenty of laws which protect union membership. I'm not arguing that those laws are a good or bad thing, just that to ignore the government's role in supporting unions is ridiculous.
Powerful unions are essentially monopolies that the government won't protect society from. If Ford cars become too expensive I can just buy a car from another company. If Ford was the only option, their only incentive to lower prices would be so people don't keep used cars for too long. That is obviously a horrible situation and the government would step in. If the UAW asks for too much money, however, Ford can't turn to another automotive union with more reasonable rates. And going with non-union workers in an industry dominated by a powerful union also has its problems.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
i never understood conservatives who argue against unions......unions indeed introduce a whole new spectrum of abuses, that is true
Well that's why. Think about your thoughts a little more.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We all negotiate our own pay scales, for which mine is above average because I am a valued worker and can negiotiate for myself, and we receive very good benefits (private health care, sports tickets, days away etc) for free.
Unions are generally most helpful for workers with little individual bargaining power. If you're a "professional" then generally you're not in that category and unions don't seem particularly useful. What I find fascinating is people that will go on and on about how evil unions are, but then turn around and say that trade associations (which are exactly the same thing from the business end) are just fine. Either grouping to increase bargaining power is good or it isn't, make up your mind.
With the exception of the seriously handicapped all students should receive an academic education suitable for admission to one of the better universities. Those who are not able should be diverted into groups taught to function in the lesser trades. The problem is that failing to offer academic education to every able student in a way labels and limits them for life. Expectations should not limit academics. For example some rural counties do not offer even an algebra class in high school as it is assumed that the graduates will work in the fields or slaughter houses. There is no way that that is fair to young people whose goal might be to get the heck out of areas like that.
Topic based will sure solve short term interests. But topics basically push a system into being trend based.
Last big industry I know that is trend based is Hollywood. There [in general,] are pop-actors (forumlated), discovered actors (savants), technical (by the book), and method actors (experience). That's not including the wannbes (your nightschool students?) and "wealthies" (buy their way into Hollywood, aka buy your degree).
Next thing you know, Finland's system will become similar to the above scenario, common in the Hollywood community of actors. Those would learn the old ABC's (method and technical) and those by topics (formualted and savants).
And we'll all be called talent instead of students by then... and need agents.
The article suggest that "Only far eastern countries such as Singapore and China outperform the Nordic nation in the influential Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings."
NOT true! This is based on the much older PISA study. According to the new one Lichtenstein and Switzerland are ranked before Finnland. Get your facts straight!
Europe these days is a bunch of socialist, maoist and otherwise collectivist cocksuckers whoe will sell our the compatriots to ANY alien person who wields a bunch of dollar bills combined with some sodomy.
Traitors who suck up to US UK occupiers while pretending to be somehow peaceloving collectivists. In reality they only crave for power and to shit into the corner of the nice loo created by great kings like Eberhard, the Duke of Wuerttemberg. He created the Tuebingen University and founded a world class education system. Daimler, Benz, Bosch, Einstein, Schiller all stand of the shoulder of Eberhard.
The perversity of MONEY and its totally corrosive influence on our culture can be seen by the collectivist scum denouncing Eberhard and worshipping some communist devil instead. Burn in flames, Sodom and Gomorrea !
tl:dr version: It's a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
We all negotiate our own pay scales, for which mine is above average because I am a valued worker and can negiotiate for myself
Ah yes, the perennial slashdot "I am a special snowflake and can command whatever salary I like because of my enormous...talent".
Here's a clue: a lot of people have jobs where if they asked for a pay rise (as an individual), they would simply be let go and replaced. One burger flipper is much like another.
And, no, not everyone can be a software billionaire by the age of 25.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't have to join a union and I get treated fairly by the company I work for
And what happens when they treat you unfairly? Or are all the employers in your happy world perfect?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They are a parasite on brand velocity.
So you're saying they generate a negatively-charged cloud of inform-ions with non-linear chaotic impactification on the hard won synergistic leverages utilised by match-fit holistic eco-political growth imagineering combining best-in-practice core competencies with agile red tiger team methodological output matrices?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Labor unions aren't solely responsible for workers rights. The government is our primary tool for enabling worker's rights. The government enacted the 40 day work week, overtime laws, etc (with help from unions), and governments are the ones who enforce these laws today. Unions were a tool which was necessary because in the early 1900's the government simply did not take on the responsibility. That is not the case today.
Wow, you elected a socialist government in the US and I didn't hear about it? You created a workers' paradise and overnight removed the power and wealth from the corporations?
Oh no, sorry, it's just that you're talking rubbish.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you're a uniquely brilliant student (like everyone on slashdot, apart from me) then spending a little time with slower students who might be good at different things (sports, poetry, jokes, whatever) is extremely good preparation for real life where you will not be the unique snowflake you were at school.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it