25.9.2017 Kyllikki Kosunen
Groupdiscussion with Lotta Laurikainen, Petra Nurmi and Hiroe Ryosho
Social class and social justice
Common opinion is, that generally there´s all well in Finland. Of course our society works better than those in many other countries, but things are slowly going to worse direction in many ways. We hold on traditional way to think, that we have deep equality in Finland and for example children have quite same possibilities to grow and educate, but that is not the whole truth. Of course our society functions better than those in many other countries, but things are slowly going to worse direction in many ways. There are already a lot of worthy research information, which point, that current politic increases inequality, which causes before long many serious social problems, as there are examples all over the world. We discussed, why the powers that be don´t take it seriously? Or if some do, why the others go to the opposite direction with unconcern for facts. The saddest thing is the influence to children, who´s supposed to built their future and life with elements, society gives them. We also mentioned, that discussion about social problems in Finland includes usually comparison to problems in other countries, where grievance are absolutely worse than those, we have. Of course, if you compare for example the situation with poor people in Finland to the same in USA, which doesn´t have similar social security as we have, you finally come to the conclution, that actually poor people are doing quite well in Finland. But that takes the point aside, that we should do something (and we can!) in order to make our society more equal.
When we discussed about Rothstein´s article, we were surprised the fact, how even speaking and used words effects on children´s vocabulary. So we joked, that now, when one gets children, spoken words are count every day to make sure, that there are enough speaking with certain style, which makes one´s child brilliant and succesfull. Luckily I have raised my child without knowing that, what a pressure it would have been….However, whether I used developmental words or not without knowing, my daughter became quite good citizen. So, just relax.
About article of Dovemark and Beach we brought up the issue of forcing. Where is the limit, you should or could force child to study? If one has learning problems, the way to operate is necessary support and help. But if it´s question of will, the problem is more complicated. Social debate about education, argues whether children should just have fun at shool in other to prosper there or should teachers also demand some work. The big question is, what do we want from the kid? Can we just leave the future to child´s own hand? However, the fact is, that without inconvenience, which working for something might cause, one achieves nothing in life. If we adults don´t give that message to child enough seriously, it´s the same as we don´t simply care.