A little over 20 years ago, Finland was the toast of the educational world, consistently topping the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) testing, where the proficiencies of 15 year olds are calculated and compared globally. However, Finland now sits in 12th overall and 17th for reading skills, marking a consistent downward trend where skills have fallen away at an alarming rate.
Although bells ring, nothing gets done.
But another metric speaks to the cause of the decline and more so, the likely cause of many issues facing young people (and those of all ages) today. It is summed up in answers to a question where Finnish kids scored the lowest score.
Only 41 percent of Finnish pupils now say they try harder when a task feels difficult.
Perseverance means continuing in a course of action or trying to achieve a goal despite difficulty, delay, or opposition.
There is a Finnish word "Sisu" that encapsulates a mix of resilience, perseverance. After decades and generations relying on it, it is rarely even talked about now, after being diluted through a lack of evoking behaviour, and common usage. Lifestyles today no longer generate the conditions required for resilience to be practiced and when something isn't practiced, when muscles aren't trained, they atrophy.
The other interesting thing that came up in the PISA study is that the biggest decline in academic performance is in children from the wealthier families. This used to be quite the reverse and they attributed it to more stable families providing a better base for students, but I suspect it is more about how there was less worry in the richer kids, less competing forces. That is likely still the case, but now the competition for their attention isn't hardship, it is entertainment. It is more likely that richer kids globally can afford to be entertained passively more often and in more ways.
I am someone who is a firm believer that we should be developing our brain growth from a young age, and we require the fundamentals first to start the structure. But, with all the competing tools that can do so much for us and how we are sitting kids in front of them encouraging them to passively consume, they aren't developing the mental resources for foundational thinking. They aren't developing problem-solving skills either. Nor are they developing resilience, perseverance, and the ability to overcome.
They give up fast.
But hey, what does it matter? After all, what they are learning and the human skills they are developing, are going to be next to worthless in the grand scheme of their lives, because the tools we are developing will make anything they can offer, redundant. Whether they get good grades at school or not, even if they top their class, by the time they are ready to break out into the world and make their mark - none of their mental faculty skills will be required. And no, even the physical jobs are going to be largely taken eventually, because they are largely process and repetition also.
The journey, not destination.
Unfortunately though, because of our love affair with profit, we no longer value the journey and only care about the outcome. The faster and cheaper we can get to an outcome, the better. Yet, we do not factor in the cost of missing the journey, which is our own growth and development potential. We are limiting ourselves, even as we keep getting the answers to the questions right.
Human devolution.
It is pretty much the only way this path can take, because the more we rely on the tools, the weaker we get. Our bodies, minds, and relationships are atrophying, but we don't care because the outcomes we get are good enough to make us feel that we are doing something. But we aren't. The more we use the tools, the less opportunity we have to advance ourselves.
The tools might make us better at our jobs, but they don't make us better.
Better at our jobs. Like that is the goal in life. Slaves creating ways to grow and pick cotton faster and for longer, so the slave masters can generate more wealth for less. We are slaves, and the more reliant we become on the tools, the more embedded into slavery we become, because we are less capable to get out of the system, to leave the race, to make our own decisions and extract ourselves. But hey, watch another interesting video on YouTube, an exciting series on Netflix, and prompt an AI to think a thought for you.
The journey continues.
Or does it?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Be part of the Hive discussion.
And you may be rewarded.
