The Brave New World of Swedish Education
18th April 2022
“Don’t teach kids what to think, teach them how to think.” There is some truth to this. Any decent teacher knows that if a student arrives at an answer by themselves, instead of simply being given it, there is a better chance they’ll remember it. Students have the right to develop their own opinions, and should be offered tools to aid critical thinking.
But is this warm, cuddly mantra as profound as it appears? In their new book Dumbing Down, economist Magnus Henrekson and political scientist Johan Wennström assess the decline of Swedish education in the context of its starry-eyed departure from classical knowledge to the realms of “post-truth” schooling.