The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether Sweden’s hyper-digitalised approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills.
I think the best thing for me was not having a tablet in school. Mine was the last generation in our district not to get iPads to use in schools. One big reason I got into IT was with old school computers with barely any safety measures which made it fun to find ways around. I had no idea what I was doing, but trying to get minecraft running on it helped me discover things like VMs and dual booting which sparked my interest in computers. With these school managed iPads there is nothing to break or to mess around with. For others with no computer at home that can be experimented with, I could see it being hard to find out about such things.
Not all experts are convinced Sweden’s back-to-basics push is exclusively about what’s best for students.
Criticising the effects of technology is “a popular move with conservative politicians”, Neil Selwyn, a professor of education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, said. “It’s a neat way of saying or signalling a commitment to traditional values.
“The Swedish government does have a valid point when saying that there is no evidence for technology improving learning, but I think that’s because there is no straightforward evidence of what works with technology,” Selwyn said. “Technology is just one part of a really complex network of factors in education.”
That seems very likely, especially considering how little control for other variables there seems to be. Obviously digital random materials from the internet can be worse than purpose made books but that is not about analog vs. digital.
Seriously, who gives a shit what alleged self-important experts say? The consensus in education shifts all the time and the studies corroborating preconceived notions are mostly hot garbage. It’s incredible how little tangible evidence there exists.
Let’s listen to some politicians then instead, who are having zero insight and are virtue signalling old=better. Sounds great, I’ll get my stick to beat the stupid out of these kids.
Of course old isn’t always better. Who said so? I said above that the most important aspect is that teachers care and no amount of money can compensate for a lack of motivated teachers.
I think both have their ups and downs. But especially for spelling. It’s really good if you’ve written by hand in the past. Because lets be honest, who gives a fuck about spelling when typing on a keyboard? The computer will tell you whether you made a typo anyway. And this goes especially for English speakers, as English spelling sucks. I keep saying “wetnessday” in my head every single time I wrote “wednesday”. On a tablet, you’re just gonna make this mistake so frequently that the device won’t bother and instantly correct your mistake. Though at least when it comes to spelling, this mostly goes for languages which either have stupid spelling systems (English) or languages whose orthography is just utterly complex and got many exceptions (German). Spanish spelling is so easy that I don’t know what you’re supposed to do wrong (given that you exactly know how a word is pronounced)
For spelling writing doesn’t matter nearly as much as reading a lot.
I’m not saying digitalisation of schools are good or bad, but the privatisation of schools and extremely low quality of teachers education is responsible for these bad results.
In the article there is nothing about that. Could you elaborate?
I work for a school in Sweden. The school receives a lump sum of tax money for each student they admit each year. This causes the school to admit way more students than they can handle. The teachers are instructed to give students high grades and many just play along with this (one school even told the teachers their salary would be dependent on their students grades). Instead of spending this money on education or the school, most go to the owners who buy houses, cars, boats and more schools. The furniture comes from other private schools that were forced to close when the owners ran them into the ground. When this school is eventually also forced to close, the owners will move on to their next victim. That is only a matter of time.
Interestingly many owners of these “free schools” are current or former politicians involved in privatising the system. The same parties responsible are currently in power (only this time they are backed by the Swedish nazi party).
Using digital teaching tools (or doing anything on a computer) is not part of the teachers education and they receive no training in them. Very few of them can even create a PowerPoint on their own. Most just use downloaded material or YouTube to show in the classroom.
The damage done to our schools 30 years ago is beginning to show in workplaces and society more and more every year.
I am 100% convinced that all the money in the world doesn’t matter when teachers don’t give a fuck and when students’ behaviour is beyond reproach. Took my kids out of a public school that was boasting about their certificates and digitalisation etc. and sent them to a private school (no, it wasn’t expensive and certainly more efficient than the bloated corpse of public administration) that made do with minuscule amounts of money, just offered old school care and attention.
Good on Swedish kids.
This is from 2018, but still up-to-date content you may be interested in, Did Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Other Tech Billionaire Parents Advocate Limiting Children’s Technology Use?
The most sought-after private school in Silicon Valley, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, bans technical devices for the under-11s and teaches the children of eBay, Apple, Uber and Google staff to make go-karts, knit and cook. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg wants his daughters to read Dr Seuss books and play outside rather than use Messenger Kids. Steve Jobs’s children had strict limits on how much technology they used at home.
TL;DR: long before all the studies and statistical analyses became vogue, our “captains of industry” were skeptical enough of the ubiquitous technology that their companies make, sell, enable, or otherwise profit from that they took steps to protect their own children from it.
That is, in fact, really interesting. Thank you.
