Writer Emilia after a group discussion together with Annina and Christina
Are there any quick fixes?
What’s up with the big groups of children in day care and school. The fact is that it doesn´t work. It´s not a good idea to keep day care and school as places where you can storage the pupils during the day. And these “storages” places need good teachers and adults that know what they are doing. Research shows that it´s an awesome idea to invest in children. They (the children) will pay you (society) back by getting an (higher) education for an example. And maybe these children that had a good and competent teacher will not end up in an IP class. We are not saying that an IP class is a bad solution, but what is really going on in these classes?
If we want everybody in the society to have the same opportunity and chances in life, then it’s not a good idea to have groups, classes, places like IP. Okay, we get it, it’s not easy to know at the age of 15 what you will become when you are an adult, and of course it´s even harder to figure it out if your grades are not that good and you cannot apply to a senior high school to continue your studies before collage. But if you need help with the academic work then you should get it, because we do want to think that everybody has the same changes in life, no matter what your social economic back ground is.
The problem is that if you gather pupils, that have bad grades, teenagers with no interest what so ever in the academic world, youngsters from families with working class or lower middle-class backgrounds, into IP classes then you are not going to get great results. The adults working with these teenagers, most of the times, do not have a degree in teaching and they do not have the right skills and will power to get these pupils to fight harder for better grades for an example. And the society also have an attitude against these pupils, that unfortunately is not that positive, most of the times.
We are not saying that good grades are everything, but pupils in IP classes mostly do not have that.
Because middle-class and rich people have the change the fill in the lacks that need to be filled in so that their kids gets into higher education. These by getting them private teaching if the kid suck in math and the teacher at school is not good enough, buying and reading books for them, have the knowledge that you as a parent should read homework together with your children etc. So, it’s not high middle-class kids that are in these IP classes. So here we go again, cleaners’ kids become cleaners and doctor’s kids become doctors.
So, to get some changes in the society we could for an example try some of these things:
-Rise the salary for teachers, teaching is not just a call from the above. Teachers do not live in the school buildings for free. They do have a private life also and bills to pay.
-Maybe the primary school should be for pupils until they turn 18? Sorry, but unfortunately you do not have a clue as a 15 years old teenagers what you are going to become as an adult. Having your own YouTube channel want get you an exam.
-Because of the globalization the pupil can have a different home language than the school language. So, it´s so important that all the different languages get approved and the pupils feel that he or she is accepted no matter what the mother tongue is. These is also so imported concerning the kids’ self-esteem. To get your teaching degree you have to study at least one semester abroad. So that you have an idea that it’s normal to speak more than one language (at least that you hear and get to know a different language), and that there is a culture connected to a language. Good self-esteem helps the pupils to get better results in school.
-The society should not have different sandboxes for the different classes. Everybody plays with everybody, at least sometimes. The discussions between parents at these sandboxes can get ugly, and parents gets there “Me, myself and I”-thoughts started. Fruit salad with just one kind of fruit is boring. It is tasteless, not so colourful and it could be dangerous. Because what happens if you are super allergic to oranges for an example?