Is not the expression ”school of knowledge” comparable to words like head cap or foot shoe? Well, if you acquaint yourself with some of the recent findings continually being churned out by the pedagogical departments at the universities, such a linguistic puritanism is easily put to shame. For then it becomes obvious that our elementary and secondary schools do not necessarily have anything to do with ”knowledge”. At least not for those in Sweden who have been assigned the task of instructing teachers and principals.

One example is the professor in pedagogy at Örebro university, Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta, who objects to the fact that teachers giving marks in a subject such as Swedish primarily attach importance to ”the ability of pupils to read and write” and that the teachers have ”emphasized grammar and that the pupils are able to account for our literary canon”. She further thinks that the school ought to pay more attention ...