Immigration and Early Education
I’m going to do a bunch of posts about Finland over the course of this trip that won’t necessarily be conclusion-driven. The basic spirit is that (a) it’ll be content, (b) it’ll be a useful exercise for me to just try to summarize things I’m learning, (c) someone might find it interesting, and (d) there’ll be time to reach meaningful conclusions later.
Yesterday’s visits in Finland were focused on their early education system. One important new challenge to that system, as to many dimensions of European social policy, relates to dealing with immigrants. Finland’s immigrant population is still relatively small, but in the city of Helsinki it’s pretty big, and immigrants are disproportionately fecund so it’s a big deal for the education system especially in the city.
The early education system is, in principle, a huge opportunity in terms of hopes of building a successful system of integration and assimilation. Kids come in to Finnish early education at very young ages — sometimes just one or two years old — at a time when their linguistic capabilities are developing rapidly and at a point where foreign language acquisition is relatively easy. Thus, this is a great opportunity to teach Finnish to foreign-born children or to the children of foreign-born (most often Russian or Somali) parents. One interesting element to this is that Finnish center-based early childhood services are universally available but by no means mandatory. Many children are taken care of at home or by relatives. And since unemployment is higher among immigrant communities and immigrants also tend to come from families with more traditional gender/family ideas the objective need for child care services in the immigrant community isn’t necessarily enormous.
In the United States, many if not most local governments would take a look at the reduced budgetary costs associated with immigrant families choosing to keep their kids at home and conclude that it’s all good. But the Finns regret the missed opportunity to ensure that immigrant kids learn Finnish and are able to hit the ground running once “real” school starts at age seven. So they make special efforts to try to do outreach and encourage immigrant families to send their kids to early childhood education centers even if they’re unemployed and capable of taking care of them at home. It’s an interesting peek at the difference between social services that are grudgingly provided (as is typical in the US) and a mentality that looks upon them more positively as things that are being offered because it would be good for them to be used.
A related aspect of this is, of course, that it’s easier for immigrant children to learn Finnish if their playmates in school are predominantly Finnish. And this is a point where educators observed that the success of their mission winds up depending on policies made by totally different branches of government. In particular, for the schools to be integrated enough to do language education with maximal success, you need housing policy to put an adequate mix of units of different types and affordability levels in different neighborhoods. The Helsinki authorities reportedly do accomplish this to some extent, with public housing scattered somewhat around the city rather than in a concentrated ghetto. But there seem to be some real limits to the scope of this policy — one school we visited was a bit over 50 percent immigrant, which makes their task difficult.
On a related note, a teacher at that school observed that since that school — with a relatively high number of immigrants, a high number of low-income families (both native and foreign born) and a high number of kids from single-parent families — had a relatively more challenging task than other preschools in Helsinki, it really ought to get more funding on a per capita basis. That seems correct to me — the flat distribution of funds they have in Finland isn’t really appropriate. On the other hand, it’s about a million times more appropriate than the American system which generally allocates the least funding to the communities most in need.
59 Responses to “Immigration and Early Education”
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December 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
With that 1st paragraph, cue snarky comments in 3,2,…
December 9th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Cool. I look forward to your future posts from Finland. Might I suggest that you look at Pasi Sahlberg’s [World Bank] work on the Finnish education model. It might help you make sense of what you’re seeing in Helsinki, and it might point to some areas in which that model could be translated into the American experience.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Matt of Finland?
http://archive.salon.com/health/sex/urge/2000/04/08/tom_finland/index.html (for those who don’t get the reference)
December 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
“It’s an interesting peek at the difference between social services that are grudgingly provided (as is typical in the US)”
We don’t really need to say it – but the reason why it’s grudgingly provided is that, in America, we believe the only people who use social services are those awful n*****s.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Matt of Finland?
Rule One of Yglesias-blog Commenting: One must never, ever, explain one’s references.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
So, is Matt going to write about all the special features of Finnish multiculturalism?
1) Past sterilization of children that didn’t do well in school, mostly minorities of course; this went on until fairly recently.
2) Almost complete segregation of badly performing minorities (whether or not you like it we used to do it – when I went to school in the 1990s all gypsies were put on the retard track, separate from normal classes). At first most immigrants from certain regions were dealt with similarily, but the special tracks have now been overwhelmed.
3) The recent election victories by people who make the Steve Sailer crowd look like flaming uberliberals, usually by landslide votes in those immigrant-heavy suburbs.
4) The massive flight from those multicultural regions, especially by families with children? The utter refusal of the authorities to do anything about the collapsing school standards there? We didn’t have over 50 % immigrant schools a few years ago. That we have those now is entirely due to white flight. This is the hottest political topic in Helsinki *right now* (there was *just* a city council election). Anything on it?
December 9th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
One obvious issue is that Finnish is pretty difficult *and* totally useless outside of Finland…so you don’t learn it unless you have to, and/or you are determined to stay in Finland. I’m curious about the intentions of, say, Somalis in Finland: are they happy enough to be in a well-off country (that treats the well) to give up any hopes to be elsewhere?
December 9th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
“a bunch of posts about Finland over the course of this trip that won’t necessarily be conclusion-driven”
stuff and nonsense!
conclusions first; evidence afterwards!
December 9th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
That residential/school connection thing is interesting.
It is freaking impossible to approach school and residential desegregation at the same time in the US. The courts don’t seem to think they are related, when it is actually school segregation that drives residential segregation. The SC has closed off many, many remidies that would work (inter district involuntary school assignments, solutions that in any way use race, changing district lines every so often). Using the Constitution to screw over minorities is pretty sad.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I don’t understand why you would study Finland as a model. It has about 5.2 million people, a small sample compared to the US, and only 2.5% are foreigners. If you want a model that could be applied to the broader US look at Massachusetts. They have 6.4 million people, and while whiter than the rest of the US, still has about 13.4% foreigners.
Also MA schools are very successful when it comes to Math and Science – what our country needs if we are to be successful in the 21st century. If you look at the TIMSS 2007 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) that came out today you can see that Massachusetts did better than every country besides Singapore, granted Finland was too pussy to participate.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Rule One of Yglesias-blog Commenting
Hey, I’ve been commenting on Yglesias-blogs since’02–other than Al, I’m his most loyal commentor!
December 9th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Finland has lots of Russian and Somali immigrants? Oookay, so how many Somali pirates were “educated” (I’d say trained) in Finland? Should we distinguish between pirates and those who harbor and train them? I say no.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
JimboSlice, your data is outdated, the number of foreigners is higher. Finnish citizenship is also much easier to get than most, so the numbers hide a lot.
By first language Helsinki is 9 % foreign, 85 % Finnish (the others are older minorities). The proportion in schools is *much* higher.
But then, I wouldn’t understand why you’d use multicultural Finnish schools as a model for anything, since they’re a *very* recent development here and their mere existence is proof of their complete failure (we wouldn’t have any 50 % minority schools if there wasn’t massive white flight).
December 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Question: my understanding (possibly incorrect) was that for a long time, a large percentage of Finns learned Swedish in school (a legacy of Swedish colonialism). Is this still the case?
December 9th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Oookay, so how many Somali pirates were “educated” (I’d say trained) in Finland?
I don’t know about the pirates, but several Somali Islamist fighters have been trained in Finland. Since military service is obligatory here, it’s even literally true.
Should we distinguish between pirates and those who harbor and train them? I say no.
Please don’t! There will be flowers and virgins for anyone who liberates us from multiculturalism!
December 9th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
infirm, it’s false and true. It’s true that Finns have to learn Swedish. It’s not true that it’s a colonial legacy. It’s a rather recent development, part of the liberal multicultural agenda. It has nothing to do with Sweden and everything to do with minority boosterism. We also have affirmative action for the Swedish minority and so on.
…OK, switching to less ranting mode…
It’s also due to parliamentary democracy: the Swedes faithfully vote for their own party whose only agenda is boosting the Swedish minority. In a parliamentary democracy a small party with a narrow agenda will always get its way by allying with anyone in exchange for supporting their narrow agenda.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Hey, I’ve been commenting on Yglesias-blogs since’02–other than Al, I’m his most loyal commentor!
Whoops! Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I don’t really know what you mean my #’s are “outdated” …
On Dec 31, 2007 there were 132,632 Foreign Citizens living in Finland.
The total population of Finlad was 5,300,484.
132,632 / 5,300,484 = 2.502%.
Please inform me how Dec 31, 2007 is “outdated” has there been a mass migration to Finland that only began this year? Or are you like Lord Yglesias and George Bush and you don’t believe in facts, you believe in your gut, and your gut tells you that Finland has more immigrants.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
JS, that’s the number of registered foreigners. If you know how many illegals we have, please tell me (and everyone else).
Please inform me how Dec 31, 2007 is “outdated” has there been a mass migration to Finland that only began this year?
YES! The government changed in 2007 and Finland went from one of the strictest countries on immigration to perhaps the laxest. Several other countries, most notably Sweden, have tightened immigration laws while Finland is making them more liberal. There has been a real explosion in asylum seeker numbers this year.
There is also an increase in illegals after the strict enforcement was dropped. Nobody seems to know just how many we have, but the difference is dramatically obvious on the street.
And as I said, Finnish citizenship is easy to get, so the comparison of *foreign citizens* makes Finland look less in foreign origin than it really is.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Great! It’s good to know that “liberals” like MattY have a brilliant solution to the problems they’ve caused back here in the U.S. I suggest staying in Finland and doing research first, maybe five or ten years. Make sure and invite all your friends over too.
Meanwhile, here are about a dozen questions for MattY. Back when he was taking “requests” he answered one of the easy ones. Perhaps he could consider answering one of the tough ones next, since they involve these issues. He should feel free to get help from his Finnish buddies, because he’ll need all the help he can get.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I’ve always felt a bit like touting the successes of the Scandinavian governments in creating an egalitarian social and economic model was maybe a little bit undeserved. In a homogeneous society (linguistically, culturally, nationally, socially) it’s a lot easier to achieve social justice. Not surprisingly, you throw a couple of ethnic minorities in the mix and now there’s someone to marginalize!
These demographic changes (if they are allowed to persist) could really test the limits of Finland’s social democracy.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The Finns tried some things that really worked. But our commenters say “la la la la, I can’t hear you. Minorities. Small population. Homogeneous la la la la la” They just don’t want to hear about anything that goes against the dominant paradigm that minorities can’t/won’t learn and it’s all the parents’ fault.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
No, the point is that you can’t extrapolate what worked in Finland b/c the with demographics is so much different than the US. No one is saying that minorities can’t/won’t learn, its just that obvious inequalities exist with minority education in the US and you can’t take what worked for a country without those challenges and apply it to the USA. You should look at cities/counties/states in the US where education works, and see how to apply that to the broader US.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Finland has lots of Russian and Somali immigrants? Oookay, so how many Somali pirates were “educated” (I’d say trained) in Finland?
Dunno, but one of their leaders used to run a gas station in Canada.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
The active attempts to pull people into social services sounds a lot like Geoffrey Canada.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Hey, how bout’ we hear what Finland has done before we say it can’t work here.
December 9th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
harold, there’s a very easy test for whether homogeneity is relevant: let’s look at the schools in Finland that have lots of immigrants and see if our recipes work there.
The answer is: the multicultural schools are the bad schools and the only bad schools we have besides special schools for criminal youth. Not because we stuck certain minorities in the bad schools but because those schools turned bad after certain minorities arrived.
The only minority-heavy schools that work are the Swedish language schools. Big surprise.
Another test case is Sweden which *used to* score as well as Finland in all these comparisons. Sweden didn’t use to have ghetto schools that get burned down every once in a while; now they do. What changed? If we compare the Swedish schools in the still very homogeneous countryside, the big difference between Finland and Sweden vanishes.
Mique: social democracy is dying and immigration is a big part of it (but not the whole story). The right of the rich is happy to use immigration to smash the working class and the left is going along with it because it has been hijacked by liberal snobs who cheer the screwing of the working class and call poor people evil when they start voting for the only remaining parties that care (ie what some people call the far right).
December 9th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Perhaps he could consider–
Fuck off, spammer.
December 9th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
So, the bottom line is that Finland had a successful formula of high social services and low immigration, but then in 2007 the government decided to fix something that wasn’t broken, and now the schools are headed toward being broken like everywhere else’s schools.
December 9th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Have you ever noticed how the pursuit of “diversity” winds up making every place homogeneous?
December 9th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
No. Fuck off, Popeye.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
# harold Says:
December 9th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The Finns tried some things that really worked. But our commenters say “la la la la, I can’t hear you. Minorities. Small population. Homogeneous la la la la la” They just don’t want to hear about anything that goes against the dominant paradigm that minorities can’t/won’t learn and it’s all the parents’ fault.
————-
Speaking on my own behalf only, I reject completely the “dominant paradigm” (as you suggest).
I believe strongly in social democracy, and a government’s responsibility to regulate the injustices of capitalism in the form of social spending. Education (pre-K, higher, in any form) is an excellent way to do just that, and level the playing field.
However, though a population is likely to support government spending and higher taxes for social services that they see as working for “me”, when the “other” (in this case immigrants from Somalia and Russia) receives what is perceived as special access to these services, the majority will be less obliged to support these types of government programs.
There’s no strange cultural phenomenon in Finland, Denmark, Norway, etc. that suggests the people are more eager to share their income with others. It’s a simple question of the government’s efficiency in providing services accessible to ALL Finns that the private sector could not adequately provide. Unfortunately, as public perception shifts (along with demographics), the privileged majority will tend to reject the welfare state.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Re: It’s true that Finns have to learn Swedish. It’s not true that it’s a colonial legacy.
Finland was under Swedish rule from early times until 1815, when it was given to Russia (Sweden got Norway to compensate). During the period a lot of Swedes settled in Finland. I wouldn’t call this colonialism as such, but the prevalence of Swedish in Finland is not just a case of modern multiculturalism.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Re: Have you ever noticed how the pursuit of “diversity” winds up making every place homogeneous?
Steve Sailer,
You’re perfectly correct. Fashionable buzzwords like “Diversity”, “tolerance” and “multiculturalism’ are threatening to corrode national identity all the world over.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
JonF, Finns did not *have to* learn Swedish during Swedish rule, Russian rule or during early days of independence. Today everyone *has to* learn Swedish at school. The rule started only in the 1970s, over 150 years after Swedish rule ended. *That* is a clear case of modern multiculturalism.
And if we’re being really anal, I can point out that not even the presence of Swedish in Finland is a colonial legacy since the Germanic language existed in Finland long before it developed into “Swedish” and long before Sweden existed. Swedish developed in Finland as much as it did in Sweden.
Plus your date and facts are wrong: Sweden lost Finland in 1809 and it wasn’t “given” in any sort of a trade, the Russians took it all in a simple, fair conquest.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Fashionable buzzwords like “Diversity”, “tolerance” and “multiculturalism’ are threatening to corrode national identity all the world over.
Keep prancing around in your cardboard platemail, pretend crusader boy. You’re a delusional fucking hater, Hector.
December 9th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
“You’re a delusional fucking hater”
Have you ever noticed how progressives who are always denouncing other people as “haters” and “full of hate” are actually the ones who seem full of rage and hate?
December 9th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Re: I can point out that not even the presence of Swedish in Finland is a colonial legacy since the Germanic language existed in Finland long before it developed into “Swedish” and long before Sweden existed.
I’m not sure about “long before”. Swedish developed very, very gradually out of Old Norse. The early history of Finland before Christianization is pretty obscure. You can probably find competing claims as to who got there first: the Norse or the Uralic peoples? Some Old English chronicles mention the “Finnas”, though exactly where they dwelt is not specified. I’ll grant you the possibility that the Gulf of Finland may have heard Norse before it heard Finnish. (Northern Finland however does appear to have been Uralic in speech, at least Saami, for a very long time).
Re: Sweden lost Finland in 1809 and it wasn’t “given” in any sort of a trade, the Russians took it all in a simple, fair conquest.
The Russians may have taken it in 1809, but they only kept it because the Congress of Vienna allowed them to, as payback for Russian assistance against Napoleon. The actual outline of the deal had been negotiated in 1812 with Napoleon’s exiled nemesis, Mme. de Stael, serving as the emissary from Tsar Alexander to the Regent Bernadotte (originally one of Napoleon’s marshalls, who had basically taken control of the country since the last Vasa king was a very gay playboy who had no interest in ruling).
December 9th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
No.
December 9th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
You can probably find competing claims as to who got there first: the Norse or the Uralic peoples?
Obviously the Uralic peoples, as we got here long before “Norse” peoples existed. Finnish and Saami languages are full of proto-Germanic loans that more distant Finnic languages do not have: the Germanic contact predates even the development of Norse peoples.
The Russians may have taken it in 1809, but they only kept it because the Congress of Vienna allowed them to, as payback for Russian assistance against Napoleon.
Uh, irrelevant. The Grand Duchy of Finland was set up in 1809, Finns swore allegiance to the Tsar in 1809 and after 1809 Stockholm has had no formal power whatsoever in Finland.
And there’s absolutely no way the Russians could’ve lost Finland after 1809. Who could’ve taken it from them? Sweden? The only way they could’ve given it up is if they would’ve sold it in a deal, which is what the Congress of Vienna was all about: settling the new deal in Europe after the Napoleonic chaos. To state that Russia only got Finland because the Congress of Vienna allowed it is like stating that Russia only holds Chechnya because the UN allows it. What are they going to do if they stop allowing Russia to hold it – send them an angry letter?
December 10th, 2008 at 12:06 am
JonF,
Is the Swedish House of Bernadotte any relation to the Count Bernadotte who rescued European Jews during the Holocaust?
December 10th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Oh, Popeye, you really do have the David Duke off-with-their-hoods thing down pat. Let’s just say I’m not full of love for you and your Extreme Makeover: Racial Determinism Edition schtick, you fucking bullshit artist.
As for Hector, he’s just a silly child with an advanced Renaissance Faire complex, who longs for a time of noble Christian warriors… that never actually fucking existed. He really ought to stop masturbating to cheap Dante Gabriel Rosetti prints.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:32 am
“Have you ever noticed how progressives who are always denouncing other people as “haters” and “full of hate” are actually the ones who seem full of rage and hate?”
(Steve Sailor)
Absolutely! And the worst of the real haters seem to be the ones who describe themselves as “anti-racists.” I’m generally “on the left” for most issues so I’ve been noticing these people for years. The “anti-racist” is very much like the right ring homophobe. Just as RW homophobes have “uncomfortable” feelings relating to homosexuality, the “anti-racist” has similar feelings relating to race. To combat these feelings, the “anti-racist” overcompensates by screaming at or even using violence against people they consider as: “haters.”
Another possibility for the “anti-racist” is just the desire to improve self esteem. The “anti-racist” crusades against “racists” becuase the “racists” or “haters” make convenient scapegoats. Almost nothing is worse than racism in America today, so feeling superior over “haters” is easy for the low self-esteemed “anti-racist.”
Whatever the reason, “anti-racists” are troubled people. Most people do frown upon discrimination, but yelling at or attacking people is evidence of poor self image. These people also have the most totalitarian of impulses, as they most often support limiting free speech.
December 10th, 2008 at 6:59 am
I got this address of supposed Finnish multicultural education via a friend in United States. Usually I write only Finnish.
There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings here, and I don’t understand who is this Jaakkeli who seem to add the confusion to some extent.
I do not live in Helsinki, but in Vaasa, which is 23-25% Swedish speaking city, surrounded by country side with almost 90% Swedish speaking population. If we start from that now.
It is not known when the Swedish speaking people moved here. There is linguistic evidence that it might’ve happened around Viking-movement as some of the local variations of Swedish are very much alike Islandish, that is for instance in case of community of Närpiö (Närpes in Swedish.
So Swedish speaking people have most likely lived here before the Swedish colonialisation, that happened after 1055, with the plight of Christianity.
This is history.
This Jaakkeli-character also claimed that Swedish was not obligatory subject at schools until 1970. That’s just simply not true. Swedish was the main language to study ever since the first schools were founded, around 1300-1400-hundreds in Turku (Åbo)-region. The teaching of course happened in Latin, but the students were Swedish speaking and so were the teachers. The majority of peasants were Finns, though, like was the whole population of this Eastern province of Sweden.
When Finland ended up being the Grand Duchy of Russian Tzar in 1809, started the rights of Finnish majority for the first time. Also the rule of the basic schooling of people were granted then, I believe around 1865 during the reign of Alexander II, and the same time we got our own money, and the country was an autonomic part of Russia, although still Grand Duchy (the Tzar being the duke.) It took a long time before higher education was allowed in majority language and it happened only after Finnish independence in 1917.
The Swedish minority managed to get the official language status for the language, which now has about 350 000 speakers. For that reason everybody has to learn Swedish at school, but the Finns has it as the second language and Swedish speakers have Finnish as the second language.
The Swedish question clear?
And when it comes for child day care centers, they indeed have a duty to give basic education for everyone. The pre-school starts at the age of six, when starts the soft landing to school. But the day-care is not obligatory.
It is true that immigrants can if they want to, send without any or very little cost the children to communal day cares and language skills would be learned that way. But even children at the age of six would be able to switch language fast.
But, as someone already stated, the family don’t have a duty to send children to day care. Indeed, many don’t want to, because home care would provide the children some command of the native language, which is the best possible start of any learning.
If the children end up in one-lingual environment at the age of 1, when the speaking is only developing, it might disturb learning the home language. Language researchers are not unanimous about this one.
Vaasa (Vasa) having so many Swedish speakers is an ideal place to research the language development and we have a system here in day care centers called “language bath”, where Swedish speakers are brought time to time to Finnish day care centers and other way around.
Of the minorities the Russian speaking people are the biggest one, and now there is a question if we need a fourth minority language in the country. The other ones aside Swedish are Romani (gipsy language) and Saame (Sabme).
Needless to say, the official statuses demand a lot of resources and situations tend to become bureaucratic. Claustrophobic, one might add.
Finland surely is not very eager to take any refugees, and for instance learning of Finnish for a Somali youngster is not maybe the first in the list.
Nevertheless, Finland has won twice Pisa-research first place in learning abilities in schools. Maybe it is the many languages, that has something to do with it.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am
This Jaakkeli-character also claimed that Swedish was not obligatory subject at schools until 1970.
Swedish was not an obligatory subject in all schools in 1960. It was an obligatory subject in all schools in 1980. That’s all I’m talking about: the obligatory Swedish is not some oppressive “colonial remnant” as someone claimed (that’s the usual Finnish nationalist propaganda line). The Swedish became a necessary subject because Kekkonen and Virolainen needed the Swedish minority party’s support for their other policies when the school reform was being debated in the 1960s.
That’s just simply not true. Swedish was the main language to study ever since the first schools were founded, around 1300-1400-hundreds in Turku (Åbo)-region.
Uh, HELLO?! In the 1300s, it was a privilege to even go to school. There was no obligatory Swedish back then – there weren’t even obligatory schools!
Again, the Swedish in schools is no colonial remnant. For most of history, most Finns did not study Swedish. The better educated certainly did, but most Finns did not. All Finns have studied Swedish for a few decades. That’s it.
because home care would provide the children some command of the native language, which is the best possible start of any learning.
Yup, that’s the multicultist line and exactly what destroyed the multicultural schools in Helsinki. When the kids enter school, the new multicultural schools are full of 7-year-olds that do not speak a word of any other language than Somali/Kurdish/Arabic/whatever… BECAUSE we believe that “the best possible ground for further learning is their native language” and therefore we not only make no effort to encourage the teaching of Finnish, we pour resources to helping kids not learn any Finnish!
Finland surely is not very eager to take any refugees,
Bzzt. The Finnish refugee quota is the second highest in Europe per capita, only barely behind Sweden. If the new law debated right now passes, and it probably will, we’ll be admitting more refugees than any other country in the world.
This is all a part of the big bluff the government is playing: since the number of foreigners is relatively small right now, they’re counting on people to not realize that the *rate of foreigner importation* is extremely high – not until it’s too late.
December 10th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Swedish speakers make up something like 6 percent of the population of Finland. Swedish speakers used to dominate the upper class of Finland. Two great Finnish heroes of the first half of the 20th Century, Sibelius, who put Finland’s culture on the European map, and Gen. Mannerheim, were Swedish speakers.
The Swedish speakers lived along the coast and were part the Continent, while Finnish-speakers were largely backwoodsmen isolated by distance and language from the main currents of Europe. The progress made by Finnish-speakers over the last century is quite remarkable.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Turku trivium and quadrivium schools were already in existence by 1300-hundreds. For the Swedish colonial rule there was a need to get at least some interpreters, officials, militia etc.
Of course it was a privileged! I said that the basic schooling of Finns started by the time of Grand Duke Alexander II.
I wish that no wrong information is given on a site which is mainly an American one, Americans have a lot to do with their own school system and learning yet.
Steve Sailer’s information is about correct.
It could be added that without the collection of ancient spoken and sung poetry printed and edited by Alias Lönnrot we might have no Finnish literature, science, education – nothing. Not even independence.
This idea is not mine, but expressed by an Oregonian poet called Gary Snyder in one of his essay books.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
“The early education system is, in principle, a huge opportunity in terms of hopes of building a successful system of integration and assimilation.”
Great writing. Tell me more about this education stuff.
December 10th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
In this time of high unemployment– and overpopulation– it is essential to start shutting down immigration. Both legal and illegal immigration should be reduced to zero.
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