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So apparently a bunch of danish kids can't read or do math when they finish the mandatory 8-9 years of school. Then the government got the idea that maybe they should just force all kids to study for a lot longer. Professors and teacher organizations as well as practical experience with this approach tells says that this does not work, you can't just cram more books down some kid's throat you need to think out of the box instead and engage them in unorthodox ways. They are even warning that it is likely that it will backfire for around 20-25% of all students because it will simply wear them out. In addition, this is pretty expensive and we're in sort of a recession.
Now the danish prime minister is on television. A journalist is confronting her with the fact that teachers and professors say that they have reason to believe that this is a bad idea. Now she is literally saying "I think we all have a feeling that it will work.". The journalist asks the very sensible question "But is a feeling good enough when professors and teachers say that it's unlikely to work based on prior experience with this approach?" and she literally repeats the exact same thing.
"I think we all have a feeling that it will work."
Fuck no, I have a feeling that this will go to shit because everybody who actually has any knowledge on this area tells me that that is what's likely to happen. God damn stupid amoral bint. When she got elected I tried so hard to like her but it's just impossible with shit like this. I hate it when a politician is asked a question, then he dodges it, then the journalist asks it again, and then the politician, with that straightest face possible just repeats the exact same useless answer again. You can just see that they have to bite their own lip not to immediately start doing the MC Hammer shuffle and going "U Can't Touch This".
This is not the mental image I want a politician to have of him or herself.
I just hate politicians for shit like this. It makes me so mad. There are so many politicians who get away with doing mind boggling shit like this. I remember a politician from one of the danish government parties who got away with saying that he didn't understand some research material so he just decided to interpret it according to his ideology (which turned out to be the wrong "interpretation"). "Woopsiedaisy". The guy is so full of himself that he thinks that his personal (and admittedly uneducated and biased) opinion is enough reason for Denmark to elect him to take part in running this country. I like Denmark, I actually love this country. I think we're all pretty cool guys. I just don't get how we can allow this shit when it's so blatantly wrong but on the other hand I think that politicians have a responsibility to the public beyond the responsibility to get reelected no matter what.
God dammit I hate politicians. I'd rather elect some celebrity who has no idea about politics than all these Master of Science in Political Science graduates because I think that my experience with them is that they're all amoral and they become politicians for idealogical (and/or partially microeconomical) reasons. I'd rather have an absoltue monarchy with the queen right now because at least she seems like an ethical and honest human being. I don't care that she has blue blood or whatever, completely irrelevant.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bP2Tw.jpg) I trust this man because he drinks whiskey, smokes cigars, and doesn't sleep. He also has a gun.
Winston Churchill said that the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with an average voter but screw that, that's just the second best argument against democracy. The best argument against democracy is a 1 minute interview with an average politician. The woman is literally ignoring research data that says that her shit will fail because she has decided that the entire country has a feeling that it wont. And she's not even flinching, she's totally lost her grasp on reality and how decision making works.
And it's not just Denmark, how in the world could Italy elect Berlusconi for so many years, or that nazi thing they've got going in Greece. Jesus christ, it's probably like this everywhere. This planet is doomed. Good riddance.
fuck
 
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That was an awesome rant. You should be French.
5 stars
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On December 03 2012 06:59 prplhz wrote:God dammit I hate politicians. I'd rather elect some celebrity who has no idea about politics than all these Master of Science in Political Science graduates because I think that my experience with them is that they're all amoral and they become politicians for idealogical (and/or partially microeconomical) reasons. I'd rather have an absoltue monarchy with the queen right now because at least she seems like an ethical and honest human being. I don't care that she has blue blood or whatever, completely irrelevant.
I'm surprised that even 20% of all members of parliament hold a cand.scient.pol. degree in Denmark I think that is pretty unique because I would estimate that number to be lower in most countries in fact most politicians in the West are lawyers.
It's funny that you think and criticize that politicians become politicians for ideological reasons because most of the time when people criticize politicians in a polemic manner they say exactly the opposite. They say politicians are turncoats who don't stand for what they say. Maybe you have a different definition of what ideological means. Probably you share a definition that marks ideology as something inherently bad and something you should generally avoid when trying to discuss a political subject. It's true that Ideology is a term often used to criticize certain sentiments. The problem about such criticism is that it is deceiving. It points at a statement and says "that is just ideology" but every sentiment can be described as ideology and it sure as hell is not something we can avoid.
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That really was an awesome rant! But don't feel too bad, I think there's still hope that a sizable majority of politicians aren't *that* dumb, and hopefully it won't be passed. But even if it does people will resist (hopefully), and this horrible idea will be remembered thusly: Don't make decisions unless they're based on sound research.
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Hate leads to... suffering... 
Replace your emotions with understanding. There is a reason everyone and everything is the way it is, the more you understand the reasons the less you judge. That's my random 2 sentence counter-rant.
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It is kinda obvious that you have to study more to get better at maths or to learn how to read properly. I really don't understand why you are upset if you want to get better you have to practice. I'm also always cautious when people talk about teaching in "unorthodox ways" since it remembers me of a crazy linear algebra teacher. Math was like witchcraft with her.
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Holy fuck great rant.
I have to agree with this. It's why I'm happy that my district voted in a rocket scientist who was a professor for about 10 years before running for Congress instead of a lawyer this year. The new guy might not know everything but at least he knows how his part of the world works and does it well.
My astronomy teacher was talking about this exact thing, how forcing things down kids' throats would be worse, not better, and would give them an innate fear of a subject the same way some people are naturally scared of things like snakes or heights.
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On December 03 2012 08:37 Boblion wrote:
It is kinda obvious that you have to study more to get better at maths or to learn how to read properly. I really don't understand why you are upset if you want to get better you have to practice. I'm also always cautious when people talk about teaching in "unorthodox ways" since it remembers me of a crazy linear algebra teacher. Math was like witchcraft with her.
It's not how long one should study, but how they should study in the first place. There are a lot of kids playing sc2 who can't get to gold, but boy do they sure put in a fuckton of "studying".
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Unfortunately, I agree with every word of your rant. It's depressing really, looking at the people you have to choose from come voting day. I honestly don't know what to blame more: the system, the politicians or the average idiotic joe.
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I wish we had statesmen and not politicians nowadays. They are just too focused on holding their job and not focused on making progress in the world.
Money is honestly ruining the world more than anything else nowadays.
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Not only is your reasoning fallacious, its pretty obvious you dont get what sets apart good politicians from bad ones. There are no easy answers in politics and even when politicians make bad choices you can bet that the other options just arent available. Politicians are usually very, very smart but the circumstances they are faced with make them have to comprimise. In this case your prime minister cannot engage students differently because there is no standarfd for that, that leads to ambiguities. Yes, her method will alienate close to 25% of the students, but it works for 3/4 of them. That is a great deal for a politician, every decision hurts some and helps others. Also, every move a politician makes has supporters and attackers, in this case some people in the field of education have said this wont work, but I bet she and whatever subcommittee is overseeing this change has asked much, much more important leaders in the field of Danish education on the matter. Dont think politicians are all stupid and dont think all politicians are good at their job. It is one of the hardest jobs in the world with the worst support in the world.
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On December 03 2012 12:19 docvoc wrote:
Not only is your reasoning fallacious, its pretty obvious you dont get what sets apart good politicians from bad ones. There are no easy answers in politics and even when politicians make bad choices you can bet that the other options just arent available. Politicians are usually very, very smart but the circumstances they are faced with make them have to comprimise. In this case your prime minister cannot engage students differently because there is no standarfd for that, that leads to ambiguities. Yes, her method will alienate close to 25% of the students, but it works for 3/4 of them. That is a great deal for a politician, every decision hurts some and helps others. Also, every move a politician makes has supporters and attackers, in this case some people in the field of education have said this wont work, but I bet she and whatever subcommittee is overseeing this change has asked much, much more important leaders in the field of Danish education on the matter. Dont think politicians are all stupid and dont think all politicians are good at their job. It is one of the hardest jobs in the world with the worst support in the world.
This entire post is dumb.
The people who said it wont work are a group of professors studying primary school education at Copenhagen University along with the head of the danish teacher's union. I believe that these people are the most important voices when it comes to this, not some politician whose head starts spinning when confronted with the scientific method and who'd much rather think "What would Karl Marx do?" than look at evidence. They have tried this approach before and evaluated it and it didn't work on a small scale so there's no reason to believe that it will work on a large scale. I don't see what makes you think that the danish prime minister has some hidden evidence that she apparently refuses to tell the public and I don't know where you are pulling this "subcommittee overseeing this change" from but it seems to me like you're naïve and you're theorizing wildly about things you have no conception about.
The unorthodox methods that they're proposing will help a lot more students while not costing much to implement. For example, they suggest that older students should read out loud to younger students. This is pretty simple and it's also very effective, both the older and the younger students get better at reading using this method. I don't know why and I don't think that's it's all that important that everybody knows why it is like this, we just know it works because it's been tried and tested. For math they had students use math outside the pure math world, like multiplying up recipes in home cooking and stuff like that. It caught a whole bunch of the students who usually have problems with math. Even if your personal thesis is that you can just cram more books down some kid's throat and eventually it should work, empirical evidence shows that that is not the case for most of the kids they're trying to target with this reform. They also have reason to believe that it will have a backlash in that it will wear kids out.
The thing I got out of your post was "politicians are probably smart so lets just blindly trust them" and I just cannot agree with that. Hope it works out for you though!
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Actually no, Churchill was right, it's not the politicians, it's the voters. All the campaigning is built to lead the sheep.
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Zurich15306 Posts
Can you give some more background on the education issue please? It's interesting to me because over here we have had a similar discussion going on pretty much since the first PISA study, but as a result total schooling time has been reduced here rather than lengthened.
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On December 03 2012 22:28 zatic wrote:
Can you give some more background on the education issue please? It's interesting to me because over here we have had a similar discussion going on pretty much since the first PISA study, but as a result total schooling time has been reduced here rather than lengthened.
The introduction of 8 year secondary school wasn't a result of the PISA study it was introduced because of the argument that German students should enter the job market earlier than they did with the 9 year secondary school.
When it comes to education there are no easy answers you can't make a general change to the education system and expect everyone to profit. I think most education systems have to become a lot more dynamic and need to allow individuals to develop in their own way.
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Zurich15306 Posts
There is nothing wrong with what I said. Education politics have been discussed intensively over here since the first PISA study. One of the results (among many) of those discussions was shortening of total time spent in school (A recent, not conclusive study seems to suggest it worked).
Whereas it seems in other countries they take it into another direction, and I like to hear more about it.
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I just wanted to point out that shortening the time spent in school is not something that was done to improve the education rather than for economic reasons.
The article you linked is very biased and doesn't really give a lot of conclusive information about the situation.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs4/1439296_o.gif)
