February 14, 2012
Published: 22 Oct 09 07:37 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/22802/20091022/
One in four Swedish nine-year-olds does not understand the relationship between the four basic arithmetic operations, a set of new national test results reveals.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
A Stockholm woman fed up with male passengers on public transport taking up the space of women sitting next to them, has started a blog snapping secret pics of straddle-legged commuters and posting them on the internet. READ (29 COMMENTS) »
A suburb of Mjällby, southern Sweden, known by locals as ‘Negro Village’ for forty years, will be changing its name after a storm of recent attention. READ (9 COMMENTS) »
A 27-year-old German man has been living at the Gothenburg Landvetter airport for two months having no wish to return to Germany and nowhere to go in Sweden. READ (12 COMMENTS) »
Every second Swede is at risk of developing dementia, according to a new study from Umeå University, which concentrated on the 85+ population in northern Sweden. READ »
After a 28-year-old woman was pulled off her bicycle and raped by an unidentified assailant in Malmö over the weekend, and police are fearing it could be the work of a budding serial rapist. READ (13 COMMENTS) »
Families of children in Sweden suffering from narcolepsy caused by vaccination for the swine flu can expect some form of compensation, Swedish health minister Göran Hägglund said on Sunday in response to new calls for help from parents. READ (1 COMMENT) »
The new leader of the Social Democrats Stefan Löfven has indicated he's ready to negotiate with the government over the future of nuclear power despite a previous party decision to phase out nuclear energy in Sweden. READ (2 COMMENTS) »
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As diverse as Sweden is, there are a few societal norms that are distinctly Swedish. Understanding a handful of them will hopefully prepare you culturally before you relocate. When you're invited home to a Swede, you better be on time and take your shoes off, writes expat Lola Akinmade-Åkerström. Read more »
Sweden is a country where almost everyone can speak English. So why bother to learn Swedish? Edina Varnagy from Hungary managed with English for a whole year but then found that Swedish could open doors – to a job, a social life and greater understanding. Read more »
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"The ice dripped in the winter sun. It was the first day when the light had been intense enough to cause dripping in the sunlight. To hear it was an extraordinary wakeup call. The cycle was happening again as it always does, always will (or so we think). I imagined that on my summer island, the bees..." READ »
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fin
adjective
Fin means anyhting from sweet to proper. When someone says, Du är så fin it's quite a compliment.
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Of course these children will grow in the future, become teacher, and perpetuate the chain of incompetence and idiocy.
Swedish students only play at school, but they don't learn anything cause this is the way it is here.
If you're the kind of teacher that wants the students to go further and be ambitious, this is not your country.
If you consider that education means play all day long and be a clown in the hands of the students, this is your place.
Is anyone a teacher who has commented on this article? I don't disagree/agree with any of the comments, as I don't have much knowledge about that level of education in Sweden, until university. Is this really the case that so many sod about and play up in class, rather than learn? Or is this just certain areas? Also compaired to other countries is it better or worse.
Good comments all!!
=)
We have lived in Sweden for three years. They started in a regular Swedish school within 3 weeks of our arrival. We had no knowledge of the Swedish language. The can now both speak,read and understand Swedish. This is thanks to dedicated, hard working teachers at the school. Tack Kilbo Skolan!
Lesson to be learned: don't put too much weight on what a child knows or doesn't know at eight or nine.
My friends kids who range from 6 to mid teens are all good at mathmatics. I am helping my friends teenager wiht calculus as she has went up a grade or two.
That sounds like a highly localised problem, most likely in a Lan or Kommune.
I think the author of this story should recheck the facts, in case this is a highly localised problem in part of Sweden, due to local adminisatration problems.
Now fast forwarding to a bunch of warped generations who've bought into that scheme of it's the governments responsibility to raise my kids and educate them, then this is what you have. Most won't remotely lift a finger anymore for there own kids, because government has taken away and drive and initiative it's citizens once had on there own in the beginning.
Whether you believe this or not is not my concern, but those of you who have children of school age know deep down they are not getting what they should for their age.
There are exceptions and if you're lucky enough to get your child in such a school you should make the most of it.
I myself have a child who is now in 2nd grade, (not the school I teach at myself I might add), and all he has done for the last 2 years is draw and play. I have had to educate him at home myself. His teacher told me at our last development talk, " your son can count to 20," he was 7½ at the time. The teacher couldn't understand why I wasn't impressed by this.
My son is lucky as I'm able to teach him at home and he has been able to read since he was 4yrs old and count to hundred since he was 5yrs old. This is not me bragging or saying my son is exceptional, he is the right level for his age.
As for the 3rd grade math national test, it is a joke. The whole thing is set around a story, (not connected to math), and the four basic math operations only come up in a few questions. Many teachers giving this test were as confused as the children.
You maybe should look for a job in Västmanlands lan. My son is 5 years old. He can count to 100 - most of the time, (in English and Swedish). He can read numbers to 99. He can recognise his own name in both long and short form and yet he is considered to need extra help because he is "coming after time". I agree, he is a little slow and needs a different method of "reaching / teaching" , but the point is... the standards you speak of, seem somewhat removed from my experience. It must be regional and I must be very fortunate to have found such a super school. Tack tack Kilbo Skolan!!!!
I think you should move to a different kommune.
Your child is being let down badly by that school. Your child deserves better.
There is also a lot of good schools in Sweden.
If you talk to other parents I think you will soon find a better school for your child.
At 7 a child should have no problem with masic mathmatics such as addition, substraction, multiplication and division. Counting he should have got past a long time ago.
That is a very bad teacher, who should not be teaching children.
Standards need to be pushed up, not dragged won to the lowest common denominator.