>I'm glad my east Asian mother put me through Saturday school for natives during my school years in Sweden.
I’m curious, could you share your Saturday school‘s system? I’m very interested in knowing what a day of class was like, the general approach, etc.
Thanks for the reply!
You mentioned that these classes were good enough that they made swedish classes a breeze in comparison. What differences in teaching made Saturday school so much more effective?
You did mention class size, and the sense of community, which were probably important, but is there anything else related to the teaching style that you thought helped? Or conversely, something that was missing in the regular school days that made them worse?
>What differences in teaching made Saturday school so much more effective?
I do think the smaller class and feeling more "close" to the teacher helped a lot. But also that the teachers were passionate. It's a community so I still (20 years later) do meet some of the teachers, through community events.
I can't recall all the details, to be honest, but I do think a lot repetition of math exercises and actually going through them step by step helped a lot to solidify how to think. I feel like the Japanese math books also went straight to the point, but still made the book colorful in a way. Swedish math books felt bland. (something I noticed in college too, but understandable in college ofc)
In the Swedish school, it felt like repetition was up to homework. You go through a concept, maybe one example, on the whiteboard and then move on. Unless you have active parents, it's hard to get timely feedback on homeworks (crucial for learning) so people fell behind.
Also probably that curriculum was handed to the student early. You knew what chapters you were going through at what week, and what exercises were important. I can't recall getting that (or that teachers followed it properly) early in the term at Swedish school.
They also focused on different thing. For example the multiplication table, in Japan you're explicitly taught to memorize it and are tested on recall speed. (7 * 8? You have 2 seconds) in Swedish schools, they despised memorization so told us not to. The result is "how to think about this problem" is answered with a "mental model" in Japanese education and "figure it out yourself" in the Swedish one. Some figured it out in a suboptimal way.
But later in the curriculum it obviously help to be able to calculate fast to keep up, so those small things compounded, i think.
> Swedish (pretending to be neutral)
Okay, you gotta spill - what's some stuff Sweden was pretending to be neutral on?
(As a poorly informed US dude) I'm aware of Japan's aversion to the worse events of the war, but haven't really heard anything at all about bad stuff in Sweden
I'm a Brit who speaks Swedish, and recently watched the Swedish TV company SVT's documentary "Sweden in the war" (sverige i kriget). I can maybe add some info here just out of personal curiosity on the same subject.
There were basically right wing elements in every European country. Sympathisers. This included Sweden. So that's what OP was getting at in part. Germany was somewhat revered at the time, as an impressive economic and cultural force. There was a lot of cultural overlap, and conversely the Germans respected the heritage and culture of Scandinavia and also of England, which it saw as a Germanic cousin.
The documentary did a good job of balancing the fact that Sweden let the German army and economy use its railways and iron ore for far longer than it should have, right up until it became finally too intolerable to support them in any way (discovery of the reality of the camps). Neutrality therefore is somewhat subjective in that respect.
They had precedent for neutrality, from previous conflicts where no side was favoured, so imo they weren't implicitly supporting the nazi movement, despite plenty of home support. It's a solid strategy from a game theory perspective. No mass bombings, few casualties, wait it out, be the adult in the room. Except they didn't know how bad it would get.
In their favour they allowed thousands of Norwegian resistance fighters to organise safely in Sweden. They offered safe harbour to thousands of Jewish refugees from all neighbouring occupied countries. They protected and supplied Finns too. British operatives somehow managed to work without hindrance on missions to take out German supplies moving through Sweden. It became a neutral safe space for diplomats, refugees and resistance fighters. And this was before they found out the worst of what was going on.
Later they took a stand, blocked German access and were among the first to move in and liberate the camps/offer red cross style support.
Imo it's a very nuanced situation and I'm probably more likely to give the benefit of the doubt at this point. But many Danes and Norwegians were displeased with the neutral stance as they battled to avoid occupation and deportations.
As for Japan, I'd just add that I read recently on the BBC that some 40% or more of the victims of the bombings were Koreans. As second class citizens they had to clean up the bodies and stayed among the radioactive materials far longer than native residents, who could move out to the country with their families. They live on now with intergenerational medical and social issues with barely a nod of recognition.
To think it takes the best part of 100 years for all of this to be public knowledge is testament to how much every participant wants to save face. But at what cost? The legacy of war lives on for centuries, it would seem.
And who were the teachers? Did it cost money, how much? How long ago? I guess the students were motivated and disciplined? Who were the other students? Natives, you mean swedes?
Sorry, by natives I meant Japanese Natives; A school for japanese kids (kids of japanese parents). Although I read that in Canada they recently removed that restriction, since there's now 3rd and 4th generation Canadian that teaches Japanese to the kids.
The teachers was often Japanese teachers. Usually they did teaching locally (in Sweden) or had other jobs, but most of them with a teaching license (in Japan). My Mother also did teaching there for a short time, and told me that the salary was very very low (like 300$ or something, per month) and people mostly did it for passion or part of the community thing.
I did a quick googling and right now the price seems 100$ for entering the school, and around 850$ per year. Not sure about the teachers salary now or what back then.
Other students were either: Half-Swedish/Japanese, settled in Sweden. Immigrants with both parent Japanese, settled in Sweden. Expats kids (usually in Sweden for a short time, 1-2 years, for work) both parent Japanese. The former two spoke both language, the latter only spoke Japanese.
Ok :-) Thanks for explaining. Sounds like a good school
Sure! as far as I know, it's somewhat standardized and the east asian countries all have it (Korea, China, Japan). I know this because the Chinese Saturday School was close by. It's usually sponsored by the embassy & in the capital cities, or places with many Japanese families. (London, Germany, Canada afaik)
Because it's only once a week, it was from 09:00 - 14:00 or similar. The slots was: Language (Japanese), Social Studies (History, Geography, Social systems) and then Math. They usually gave homework, which was a little up to the parent to enforce. Classes was quite small: elementary school the most, but no more than 10. Middle school was always single digit (5 for my class). Depends on place and economy: When the comapnies Ericsson (Sweden) and Sony (Japan) had a joint division Sony-Ericsson, many classes doubled.
Class didn't differ so much from the normal school in Asia. Less strict. But the school organized a lot of events such as Undoukai (Sports Day), Theater play, and new years/setsubun festival and other things common in Japanese schools. It served as a place for many asian parents to meet each other too, so it became a bit of a community.
Because lack of students the one I went to only had from 1th to 9th grade. In London and bigger cities I heard they have up until high-school. But in Japan, Some colleges have 帰国子女枠 (returnee entrance system) so I know one alumni that went to Tokyo Uni after highschool.
Personally, I liked it. I hated having to go one extra day to school, but being able to have classmate to share part of your culture (before internet was wide-spread) by sharing games, books, toys you brought home from holiday in Japan was very valuable.
Related to the "critical thinking" part of the original article: It was also interesting to read two history books. Especially modern history. The Swedish (pretending to be neutral) one and the Japanese one (pretending they didn't do anything bad) as an example, for WW2 and aftermath. Being exposed to two rhetoric, both technically not a lie (but by omission), definitely piqued my curiosity as a kid.