I’m getting seriously tired of old people telling everyone else how stuff has to be done. I was reading Sydsvenskan today and there was a particular letter sent in that caught my eye. Generally I just read the headlines to see if the letters interest me but I usually read the ones concerning school politics.
The writer of this letter started (as they usually do) by telling everyone how utterly worthless today’s schools are; the lack of dicipline, the poor grades and such. He also told us that this was because of the radical left movement that started in 1968 (although they’ve never had any real power) and insinuated that everything was much better in te good old days. Classic conservative opinions. This was followed by a list of ideas he thought should be implemented, such as suspension of studens and even expulsion. Most of these are already available, and some (expulsion for instance) are not allowed by law (everyone must complete the first 9 years of education in Sweden). He finished with another quite mornoic comment stating that disciplin would make everything better.
Now, I am seriously tired of this crap. First and foremost, old people (or in fact anyone except those dealing with education, i.e. students, teachers etc.) shouldn’t really rant about these things. Back in the 50’s when everything was perfect their model worked – today is different. We have new technology, new research in education, another culture. Old models are not applicable in this new modern environment.
Students (at least the ones i know) generally think the system we have right now is great. For instance, we have a fair system and even though there may be students that fail most actually perform really well (from what i can gather). Sure, there may be students that don’t care and disturb the class but that’s usually because they have some kind of a problem; dealing with that problem instead of suspending them from school is a much better solution. What the educational system really needs right now is more funds, enabling them to solve these problems and create an even better environment, not conservative decisions giving teachers immense power.
