Year: 2020
Publisher: Books on Demand
Language: Swedish
Public education is
arguably the most crucial issue for Western society right now; not least for
Sweden. How is it possible that a 15-year-old can graduate primary school
without knowing the difference between the government and the parliament? Why
do we teach our children to question but not to analyse? How come the terms
fact and opinion have been conflated? Who benefits from education being biased
toward the mediocre rich at the expense of the brilliant poor?
Anybody who has spent
ten minutes discussing political issues on social media will have suffered the bastard monstrosity that is generated from the fusion between ignorance and misguided
fortitude. The right to question without a corresponding obligation to understand,
interbred with obtuseness and misbegotten loquacity is cute in a five-year-old,
embarrassing in a 25-year-old, and calamitous in thousands and thousands of grown-ups
in all spheres of our community. If you wish to see the failure of the
educational system for yourself, log in to Twitter and in seconds you will be
engulfed by it.
In my personal
analysis, which I have mentioned on earlier occasions but do not have enough
data to firmly support, society’s ongoing alienation from knowledge is at the
core of the matter. The gap between the accumulated knowledge as produced by
our science and research institutions on the one hand and the average Joe on
the other has expanded to unbridgeable proportions. In simple terms, people no
longer know how little they know. We are all capable to comprehend the complexity
of a car engine and we have a reasonable understanding of the ratio of our knowledge
to that of a trained mechanic. When it comes to social science, pharmacology,
evo-devo, geology, and many other scholarly disciplines, however, the rift
between what we know, what we think there is to know, and what humanity actually
knows, has widened to a virtual canyon. The segregation between those who know
and those who do not know is widening daily at the same pace as science makes
progress. And, not surprisingly, the asymmetric distribution of knowledge seems
to follow the ancient and essentially indelible boundaries of the distribution
of wealth, i.e. social class.
An increasing number
of observers in the Kingdom of Sweden argue that this problem is exacerbated by
the rapidly growing presence of publicly funded private schools. One of the
most vocal of these observers and one who has received a considerable amount of
attention in the last months is Linnéa Lindquist who, besides being a close
personal friend of mine, is a Swedish primary school principal, recognised
pundit, and tireless activist. In her recently published book, she calls the ballooning
educational segregation “a ticking bomb”, which is also the title.
From the vantage point
in her vast experience as a teacher and principal in socially disadvantaged areas
around Stockholm and Gothenburg, she has written a devastating testimony about
the Swedish school system. This short read of a mere 102 pages takes a few
hours to read but is rife with insights and observations from half a lifetime
in the service to education. The book covers all aspects of the reality of the
modern school such as financing, recruitments, language didactics, and free school
meals. Lindquist connects the dots which all lead to the centre-right
government’s 1992 decision to open the publicly funded school system up for
private entrepreneurs. A decision whose effects were exacerbated by the centre-left
government’s decision two years later to even out the funding per student for
all types of schools.
Much of the debate
from the left so far has been focused on the ethics of allowing private
investors to profit from a publicly funded welfare institution that furthermore
is mandatory for all residents until the age of 15. Lindquist, however, puts the
purpose of the school in the centre of her argument and pokes her finger in all
the wounds the current school system has inflicted on education: how instead of
students choosing their schools, the schools choose their students; how the high
turnover of students at municipal schools depresses the school’s funding and
increases its costs. There are many other examples.
One of the most
touching episodes is where Lindquist writes how provoking it is to her each
time a sports club or cultural association approaches her with proposals of
coming to her school in the suburbs to offer the students pro bono workshops in
dance or graffiti painting as if that is what youngsters in “da hood” (my term,
not the author’s) really crave, rather than proper Swedish language skills. “I
wonder if headmasters in Östermalm [a well-to-do borough of Stockholm, my remark] receive as
many propositions about graffiti and dancing for their pupils”, Lindquist
quips. My thoughts go to the community or writers and novelists. How often do
they avail themselves to schools to help nudge the youth in the general
direction of the written and spoken word.
I agree with what I
understand to be Lindquist’s argument that it is irrelevant who runs the
schools: be it the state, the municipalities, associations, congregations, or
private investors as long as the outcome of the schooling system as a
nationwide whole is not compromised. Hers is a holistic view and, despite frequently
citing examples from her own schools and students, is little concerned with
anecdotal evidence or local issues. “En tickande bomb” is not a critique of
individual schools, but of the system that allows or forces schools to act in
one way or another.
At present, the
reaction to the current market-driven school system in Sweden is snowballing and
even some of its architects are beginning to doubt the efficacy of
putting money ahead of children. “En tickande bomb” is one of those books that
are born from a movement but it is also powerful enough to help steer the
direction of the debate. No matter where you are on the political left-right
spectrum, this book will give you access to the wisdom of an education
professional. What you do with it and what your priorities are may depend on
your political persuasions, but I strongly suggest that we leave disregarding
reality to the incorrigibly asinine clodpates on Twitter
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