I agree with your sentiments, however some Finns who have travelled abroad equate their experience to living abroad and come back singing the glories of Finland for some reasons I don't understand. I expect your point of living in "normal social spectrum" will be wasted on them. Those I know who have lived abroad compare apples with apples and will readily be at home with your point.cors187 wrote:In all my years at home and abroad , i must say that , the system and language causes social strangeness on average compared with the rest of the world .Putting a child back a grade is not necessarily for academic reasons. It can be simply because the child is not mature enough socially ("the kids were awful" suggests to me that your child was having problems socializing with his peers).
Holding back a child for social retardness in itself a contributor.Retards leading retards, sorry if i upset someone but go and live in a "normal social spectrum" and then come back and tell me i am a harsh judge!
I'll also bet a good euro on the point that every child from abroad will not easily fit into the Finnish social system, though they should find more empathy in mainland Europe etc. Finnish school children e.g. often exhibit poor social skills despite almost forced institutional integration from cradle. They are readily and habitually engaging in repulsive habits including happily spitting in corridors, classrooms etc. at will. To a normally socialised child from most regions of the world, these environments must feel like entering a prison yard. A seven year old child or so, could start trembling with worry about how to maneuver the complicated disruptive classroom antiques that the teachers are unable to control and the playground he/she may be ill-equipped for as a consequence of a perhaps more cultured upbringing. The sublime irony is to want to hold back for a year the balanced and normal child from abroad, so as to facilitate the development of behaviour he/she has been rightly brought up to conceive as uncouthed.
But then, uncouthed behaviours including bumping into someone without apologising etc. is sadly usually explained off as "that is how we Finns are" and or stating that "yes, Finns are rude" as if justifying the behaviour. This inability to recognise these social deficiencies as global faux pas, will be making Finns into global pariahs but this will not be extended into this discussion to take away from the main thread.
My main position in this discussion is to stop this "we are intelligent Finns and you must do as we say" attack on persons in Finland who want to do thing that are normal virtually everywhere and are acceptable in every logical understanding of those things. Finns think others who come to Finland are as institutionalised as they are but if not are delinquent and need to be institutionalised into the one size fits all Finland. Their state of readiness to defend the indefensible in many cases without understanding the concepts and contexts of other systems than the bit-size information they may possess about them must be laid to rest. Jimi Hendrix and others have no formal training in music but are miles ahead of those with formal training. Madonna is used for case study at MBA strategy level though she hasn't had much formal training. The list is endless. It is very diabolocal to hear Finns rumble on unapologetically about their education while not displaying much intellect from this education. Where are the innovators, business strategist, engineers, philosophers, musicians etc. Finland is far from perfect, irrespective of the pointless reports that states it is the happiest/richest/most intelligent/most degree holders.... "whatever" country in the world. Anyone with a grain of intelligence and has done even rudimentary studies in statistics understands statistics uses a formula amongst many to justify what you want to portray. Finns take these "questionaire" reports to heart and are misguided in believing it, with ramifications of envy of others/peers, neighbours, families etc and become lonely, grumpy, unsatisfied, antisocial, wifebeating, familial genocidal and suicidal to unpresedented degrees matching mainly those countries with similar dubious titles.
To further touch lightly on my previous comment, a parent is perfectly able to teach a child to read, spell and count whether they have a degree or not. Anyone who thinks this is an impossibility is obviously like a person who achieves an automotive engineering degree and thinks we all need such qualification to change a wheel of a car, a few spark plugs or perform a service (the fact that a mechanic/technician is a better repair-person than an engineer who never actually repairs cars but only designs). Myself and others I know have no such qualification or mechanic training but I can service and repair modern vehicles competently and I understand the vehicle fault codes to a level that will embarass trained technicians. And there are many other things I can do well. It's all about motivation, which drives us to perform and achieve well. Same will apply with parents as well.
Findland is not a basket case but it is very far from being perfect. It has numerous flaws that are noteworthy. However "cultural nazism" seem to rule the place and particularly the internet forums, where extreme sentiments are usually expressed in anonimity. However, Freedom and choosing is all the certainty we have as humans. My assertion is that parents who seek out home-schooling may have compelling reasons to do so and should be supported as necessary and sympathetically. These parents would have empathy with their children and find ways to impart knowledge in a manner many may not be able to. These parents should not be at the receiving end of ranting individuals with match-sized world views but who are oblivious to this fact. These parents are free to choose what is best for their child like home-schooling, moving to another country etc. They have choices and in liberal democracies (if Finland can be called such a thing) the state or other people have no right to bash your simple right of humanity! Wake up Finland we are all free to choose! Existentialism! Helloooo!!! It is rather overdue but Finland needs to introduce existentialism into its educational system. This will spare us all wasting valuable human resources in dealing with banal basic arguments regarding fundamental rights like choosing home-schooling; in a supposedly liberal democracy.
Finns not agreeing with a parent's freedom to choose to homeschool for whatever reason would be more useful by supporting parents to achieve what is best for their child than the silly childish sentiment that we must obey who has the most qualification. We all make choices about our lives, which work or not due to the many variables that come into our path. Intelligent Finns should be supporting temporal, longer staying or permanent residents by easing the burdens in their paths rather than you are stupid because you cannot fit into out box, which even drives some Finns nuts with the tragedies from loneliness to high suicides rates. Civilisation entails what liberal democracies try to achieve and it is called "diversity" and what many Finns expect in their lives, where ever they may be. Support parents who need to make other choices!
