4 ms·

Finland’s education system is failing. Should we look to Asia?

13 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

eesmith 4y ago
"Failing" means "not doing as well on the PISA tests". Cry me a river. Educational systems which focus on easy-to-test subjects aligned with what PISA tests ("mathematics, science, and reading") are likely to do better than ones which include art, composition, history, music, ethics, and other harder-to-test subjects. This focus on PISA as some sort of important ground-truth for comparing educational systems is bunk.
- naveen99 4y ago
  Is anything really harder to test in the age of deep learning classifiers ? If Bert can write an essay, it can grade Bart’s essay, or Lisa’s musical performance too.
  - gipp 4y ago
    Sorry, but this is incredibly naive.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    Is your comment hand-waving optimism, or do you have evidence that 1) deep learning classifiers are better than teachers at evaluating student competency across a wide range of fields, and 2) that using those tests (vs, say, teacher-observed in-class participation) results in better alignment to the educational needs of the student? As https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-search-for-computerized-essay.html https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-search-for-c... points out, "no computer algorithm can, for instance, understand whether or not your supporting evidence provides good, er even accurate, support" for the thesis, which seems right to me. For example, https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/03/online-learning-algorithm https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/03/online-learning-a... has the story of student who answered the question "How did the location of Constantinople help it grow wealthy and prosperous?" with "It was between the Aegean and the Black seas, which made it a hub for boats of traders and passengers. It was also right between Europe and Asia Minor, which made it a huge hub for trade, and it was on many trade routes of the time. Profit Diversity Spain Gaul China India Africa" - and got a perfect score from the robograder. I'll switch to something that is more measurable - physical education. Why isn't physical education included in the PISA score? We can measure someone's speed, weight, height, jump distance, weight lifting ability, and a lot more. Do those give a good metric by which to judge someone's physical education grade? Or do we also need to include teamwork, improvement, and sportsmanship?
    - naveen99 4y ago
      Deep learning classifiers can handle essays almost as cheaply as multiple choice questions. Teachers are inconsistent and expensive as graders.
      - eesmith 4y ago
        Where is your evidence? As related counter-evidence, the leaderboard (to "automatically segment texts and classify argumentative and rhetorical elements in essays written by 6th-12th grade students") at https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/feedback-prize-2021/leaderboard https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/feedback-prize-2021/lead... shows the score for the best team entrant is 0.753. Why isn't that very close to 1.0?
  - ironmagma 4y ago
    We need somebody to yell at when things go wrong.
ThinkBeat 4y ago
I was just a few years ago when the Finish educational approach was touted as exceptional and that other countries needed to learn from them.
- cafard 4y ago
  I'd say a few months ago.
VictorPath 4y ago
Sahlgren (not Shalgren) is an ideologue with an axe to grind. Finland has gotten good PISA scores for a while and still gets them, he sits figures fir his purposes. Also Chinese PISA scores come from top schools in Beijing, whereas Finland tests more broadly, so the comparisons don't hold any how.
truth777 4y ago
- bergenty 4y ago
  The decline began in 2006, much before all those “stupid immigrants” could have ruined the system. Immediately jumping to your gut feel hypothesis definitely doesn’t make you a “scientist”.
  - linksnapzz 4y ago
    The immigrants may not be stupid; but they don't, as a rule, come to school knowing finnish. I'd be curious to know how the scores break down based on ancestry of the students.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      I find your curiosity curious in this case because it belies the first pass at solving problems involves blaming it on someone else without shame rather than analyzing the system itself.
      - linksnapzz 4y ago
        Try that sentence again; it doesn't scan.
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    >The decline began in 2006, much before all those “stupid immigrants” could have ruined the system. The Yugoslav Wars, the Kosovo War and the Second Chechen War were all in 1990s. Many ethnic Bosnians and Kosovarians relocated to Nordic countries during that time.
jokethrowaway 4y ago
Sure, if you want to optimise metrics adopt an authoritarian method. How does that metric correlate to creating successful citizens? Having one China is bad enough in this world, let's not create more.

13 points by barry-cotter 4y ago

"Failing" means "not doing as well on the PISA tests". Cry me a river. Educational systems which focus on easy-to-test subjects aligned with what PISA tests ("mathematics, science, and reading") are likely to do better than ones which include art, composition, history, music, ethics, and other harder-to-test subjects. This focus on PISA as some sort of important ground-truth for comparing educational systems is bunk.

naveen99 4y ago
Is anything really harder to test in the age of deep learning classifiers ? If Bert can write an essay, it can grade Bart’s essay, or Lisa’s musical performance too.
- gipp 4y ago
  Sorry, but this is incredibly naive.
- eesmith 4y ago
  Is your comment hand-waving optimism, or do you have evidence that 1) deep learning classifiers are better than teachers at evaluating student competency across a wide range of fields, and 2) that using those tests (vs, say, teacher-observed in-class participation) results in better alignment to the educational needs of the student? As https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-search-for-computerized-essay.html https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-search-for-c... points out, "no computer algorithm can, for instance, understand whether or not your supporting evidence provides good, er even accurate, support" for the thesis, which seems right to me. For example, https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/03/online-learning-algorithm https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/09/03/online-learning-a... has the story of student who answered the question "How did the location of Constantinople help it grow wealthy and prosperous?" with "It was between the Aegean and the Black seas, which made it a hub for boats of traders and passengers. It was also right between Europe and Asia Minor, which made it a huge hub for trade, and it was on many trade routes of the time. Profit Diversity Spain Gaul China India Africa" - and got a perfect score from the robograder. I'll switch to something that is more measurable - physical education. Why isn't physical education included in the PISA score? We can measure someone's speed, weight, height, jump distance, weight lifting ability, and a lot more. Do those give a good metric by which to judge someone's physical education grade? Or do we also need to include teamwork, improvement, and sportsmanship?
  - naveen99 4y ago
    Deep learning classifiers can handle essays almost as cheaply as multiple choice questions. Teachers are inconsistent and expensive as graders.
    - eesmith 4y ago
      Where is your evidence? As related counter-evidence, the leaderboard (to "automatically segment texts and classify argumentative and rhetorical elements in essays written by 6th-12th grade students") at https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/feedback-prize-2021/leaderboard https://www.kaggle.com/competitions/feedback-prize-2021/lead... shows the score for the best team entrant is 0.753. Why isn't that very close to 1.0?
- ironmagma 4y ago
  We need somebody to yell at when things go wrong.

ThinkBeat 4y ago

I was just a few years ago when the Finish educational approach was touted as exceptional and that other countries needed to learn from them.

cafard 4y ago
I'd say a few months ago.

VictorPath 4y ago

Sahlgren (not Shalgren) is an ideologue with an axe to grind. Finland has gotten good PISA scores for a while and still gets them, he sits figures fir his purposes. Also Chinese PISA scores come from top schools in Beijing, whereas Finland tests more broadly, so the comparisons don't hold any how.

truth777 4y ago

bergenty 4y ago
The decline began in 2006, much before all those “stupid immigrants” could have ruined the system. Immediately jumping to your gut feel hypothesis definitely doesn’t make you a “scientist”.
- linksnapzz 4y ago
  The immigrants may not be stupid; but they don't, as a rule, come to school knowing finnish. I'd be curious to know how the scores break down based on ancestry of the students.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    I find your curiosity curious in this case because it belies the first pass at solving problems involves blaming it on someone else without shame rather than analyzing the system itself.
    - linksnapzz 4y ago
      Try that sentence again; it doesn't scan.
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  >The decline began in 2006, much before all those “stupid immigrants” could have ruined the system. The Yugoslav Wars, the Kosovo War and the Second Chechen War were all in 1990s. Many ethnic Bosnians and Kosovarians relocated to Nordic countries during that time.

jokethrowaway 4y ago

Sure, if you want to optimise metrics adopt an authoritarian method. How does that metric correlate to creating successful citizens? Having one China is bad enough in this world, let's not create more.