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While that sounds admittedly ridiculous, there is international data that suggests the problem is widespread and its rise coincides with smartphones. As recent

by pavlov 3y ago

While that sounds admittedly ridiculous, there is international data that suggests the problem is widespread and its rise coincides with smartphones. As recently as 2006, Finland used to lead the PISA studies designed by the OECD to evaluate educational systems. The latest PISA results show kids in Finland have fallen substantially behind their Asian counterparts, and the trend is very clear since 2008. Finnish schools haven't had serious budget cuts, don't suffer very badly from parents' culture wars, and also remain largely single-language environments as they used to be. (While the number of immigrants has increased in 15 years, it's nowhere near as large to explain the PISA score drop.) The primary culprit seems to be students' phones and the poorly thought rollout of various digital gadgets into classrooms to replace books and chalkboards. While Finland's scores have dropped, neighboring Estonia has risen to the top of the rankings with its more old-school educational environment.

me_me_me 3y ago
There is another factor nobody will mention, countries in EU that accepted statistically significant number of immigrants from outside of EU are doing way worse on PISA scores. While countries like poland are not really that affected it seems. Also covid happened and online only schools might have an effect too
- pavlov 3y ago
  Nobody will mention? It’s mentioned in my comment that you’re replying to.
AlanYx 3y ago
Finland also leaned heavily into purely constructivist/inquiry-based teaching methods over the last 20 years. There is significant evidence going back to Project Follow-Through that these are not the best way to teach average and below-average students. The Finnish government announced earlier this year that they are doing a major revamp of the curriculum to reduce the emphasis on these instructional techniques.
lordnacho 3y ago
For this to be evidence, it requires that there are countries in the dataset where phones did not become widespread? Are the Asian countries better at controlling phone access?

by pavlov 3y ago

me_me_me 3y ago

There is another factor nobody will mention, countries in EU that accepted statistically significant number of immigrants from outside of EU are doing way worse on PISA scores. While countries like poland are not really that affected it seems. Also covid happened and online only schools might have an effect too

pavlov 3y ago
Nobody will mention? It’s mentioned in my comment that you’re replying to.

AlanYx 3y ago

Finland also leaned heavily into purely constructivist/inquiry-based teaching methods over the last 20 years. There is significant evidence going back to Project Follow-Through that these are not the best way to teach average and below-average students. The Finnish government announced earlier this year that they are doing a major revamp of the curriculum to reduce the emphasis on these instructional techniques.

lordnacho 3y ago

For this to be evidence, it requires that there are countries in the dataset where phones did not become widespread? Are the Asian countries better at controlling phone access?