The ninth myth: Plans for the school are not necessary.
Just keep on working. The pupils will learn.
9 The plans for the schools are instruments
for the society to show where education must be heading and how the work must
be done. They are to be changed, whenever the schools have to adopt to changes
in the society. Minor changes in the work actually don´t cause any need for
changes in the plans, as the schools must all the time be changing their
methods, according to the results and evaluation of the students of their own
work.
The many
changes of the plans for the Swedish school is one side of the gigantic waste
of money. They are caused by a lot of different factors of the negative kind.
One is
obviously the whips of the political parties that don´t care for the
circumstances.
Sweden is the only Western country that let tax money aimed for
the school to be wasted outside the boarders of the country. No extreme right
government and no other left of that, approves such a waste. But in the Swedish
Parliament this insane is supported from left to right with very few
exceptions.
Another is
probably the price of Economy in the honour of Alfred Nobel. If you give away
such a big sum of money, there got to be something behind the ideas. But this
is only obvious in Sweden. We believe in the magic word competition. Soon we´ll
have Defence II fighting with troupes on the field with Defence I and the
winner takes it all (Defence money of next year)!
A third
reason is that we never help the schools to fulfil the changes of the new
plans. Turbulence and much work is at the schools, and after that everything is
the same. The changes that happen would have anyhow. Generation after
generation has stayed in the method of Plato and the disciples (myth 1). Please look at all the plans for
lectures on internet put up by the teachers!
A fourth
factor is of course that the government woke up late, so we all did, as the
society of information took over. But I then worked in a ground school, who
directly changed direction into work for the new society already 1980. Our work
was known all the way up in the government. Why didn´t the others come after
us?
It´s impossible to say that all decisions of the
school after the first personal computer 1981, were adoptions for the new
society. Actually it´s hard to see anything of them in that way. I more look at
it as here and there and down in the ditch. Now we are entering a new kind
society. Maybe we are to be perplexed 2021 in the same manner as we were 1981.
The society of
robot technic, where in some time all
the production and transport will be done by robots, where a mass unemployment
is a gigantic threat, if we don´t manage the redefine new tasks for the humans
and to stop a development that could start new world wars, must be controlled
by democracy.
Fascism to rule it, will in a very short time
reinstall poverty and slavery.
If we don´t
have plans for adoption to the robot technic society ready in time, we will get
gigantic problems.
Maybe there are every few fools, who openly admit that
they don´t care for the plans. But many more act to that principle and don´t change
anything, although they are supposed to along orders from above. The responsibility for the
help the teachers and to control that the changes are fulfilled in the
classrooms, is the local head of every school.
This text is almost not at all discussing the other side
of the gigantic waste of money in the Swedish educational sector, letting the
tax money aimed for the school to vanish abroad with private wins, instead of
letting the money work in the schools. This discussion is instead in the text The
tenth myth of Education Give the tax money to offshore financial centres (OFC).
In this text the context of the plans of education, the
goals of the society for the individuals and the real demands of the society in
work and private are not at all discussed. You find that in the text The
view and demand of the society working on the individual.
Much of the problems of the school are caused by an unserious
feeling that people know the reasons of problems, but with no intention to
check if they are right. I remember a disaster debate who very badly hurt the school.
It was about the best, or as they often said, the only possible method of
learning write and read.
Both sides had a lot of people who were very strongly
arguing, but had very little knowledge.
Reading was invented at the same time as writing, of
course. Ever since has small elite of people grown to almost all people of the
world mastering both things. We know for sure very little about all the
different methods being used during more than 5 000 years learning
billions of humans. But already in the 1960-ies we knew quite a lot of the
methods used in Sweden
Before Witting was adult, very few used the method of
Witting. We managed anyhow. The truth is that we can learn things in bad ways
and in better ways, and to that, concerning writing and reading, different
humans learn better with different methods. Please compare with the idea of
explaining something to me and fail, as I don´t understand. If you then are
smart, you try to explain it to me in another way.
Research of later years have given us total
explanation of how we learn writing and reading and the different ways we ought
to work according to these results. Actually, I don´t think there have been so
much change in the classrooms of our beginners all around the world. Their
teachers are still using the method Plato and the disciples (myth 1).
Now, I and other friends of order, believe in that the
work to support are beginners ought to follow the way their brains work.
Further, at least I think, that the school governments in all the different
countries all over the world must learn about the findings and start spreading
this knowledge to the schools and enforce changes. The learning is tough enough
for the children.
We know that the women survive given birth to the
children better, if they wash their hands in the hospitals. Then we ought to
work in that way. And that goes for learning write and read too.
The very hot discussions of the rating systems in
Sweden has in the same kind way been causing a lot of damage to the school and
education. Gigantic costs have been put to several large changes of systems for
ratings, without learning from other countries.
Once, many years ago, we had debate in Sweden about
keeping the traffic on the left side or change to what most neighbours had on
the right side of the road. A lot of persons, were convinced that they had
proof of the superior way in either of the direction. The truth was, and will
in such cases always be, that it doesn´t matter, which you take, as long as all
countries go for the same!
Some countries save the change to the future. If they
drop the bomb on us, then we haven´t wasted the money, they seem to think. Here
in India it doesn´t matter at all, as all the traffic goes in all directions,
no matter of the signs. They rarely come from above. Similarities with schools
are uncertain.
If all the countries had the same ratings, all would
be gained. Remember that, you members of the Swedish parliament, the next time
you manage to argue about shine problems!
Talking about the measure systems, the costs of the
change into the SI system is very low, compared to the yearly cost, with no
change of today.
Goa the 20th of February 2017 Lennart Warenius
