Pasi Sahlberg–the great scholar and expert on Finnish education– has been named a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, starting in January 2014. This is great news for Harvard but even greater news for the U.S. because it means more people will have a chance to hear him and learn from him.
I heard Pasi speak at the National Superintendents Roundtable in Washington, D.C., over this past weekend. He was outstanding. If you have a chance to invite him to a state or national conference, do so.
If you want to learn about Finland and how it transformed its educational system over a period of about 30 years, read Pasi’s Finnish Lessons. In his book, Pasi coined the term “Global Educational Reform Movement,” meaning testing, accountability, choice, and competition. He calls it GERM for short. Pasi is a GERM disinfectant.
I was inspired when I met Pasi in 2010 and made plans to visit Finland in the fall of 2011, with him as my guide.
Here is what I learned about Finland:
The goal of education is to make every student a healthy, happy, creative, responsible person. Finnish students take no standardized tests until the end of high school, when they take a test to qualify for higher education. Finnish schools place a high value on play and the arts. Finnish children do not begin school until age 7. Finnish teachers do not assign homework in the early grades. The teachers and principals do not want children to feel anxious and stressed because of school.
There are no charter schools or voucher schools in Finland. The national goal was to make every school a good school.
Nothing about Finnish education is standardized other than teacher education. There are only eight institutions of higher education that prepare teachers. Admission to them is highly selective. Students apply at the end of high school. Only one in ten is accepted. The teaching profession is highly respected, as much as any other profession. Young people must complete a course of five years of study before they can become teachers. All higher education is tuition-free.
Almost every teacher and principal in Finland belongs to the same union. There is no “Teach for Finland.” Although there is a national curriculum, it is not prescriptive. Teachers have wide latitude over what to teach and how to teach.
Finland has very little poverty, by choice and design. It does not have the extremes of wealth and poverty that are so common in the United States.
When I saw Pasi speak last weekend in Washington, I wrote down a few of his lines (he is a great speaker with a wonderful Powerpoint presentation).
Here are a few of his pithiest:
“Standardization is the enemy of creativity.”
“We do not experiment on our children, as you are experimenting with your Common Core.”
“Accountability is what is left when responsibility is taken away from teachers.”
“Excellence comes with equity, not choice.”
To those who say that Finland’s exceptional performance on international tests is solely the result of its well-prepared teachers, Pasi demurs. He offered a thought experiment. He said, suppose we exchange all the teachers in Finland with all the teachers in Indiana, which is about the same size. He believes the results would not differ. The Finnish teachers would be overwhelmed by the large numbers of children in poverty in Indiana. The Indiana teachers would be overjoyed by the conditions of teaching and learning in Finland.
His conclusion: Aim for equity, and you will get excellence. Prepare teachers to be professionals and trust them to act responsibly as professionals. Recognize that good education for all is not possible in a society where inequality is pervasive and deep.
I cannot do justice to his brilliant presentation. I hope you have a chance to meet this charismatic educator while he is living in Cambridge and traveling America with a message of hope for genuine change from the current status quo of GERM for all.
Finland has a unionization rate of about 64% while the US rate has fallen to 11.3%. There is no war on unions in Finland, Finland does not have right to work provinces or regions. In the US, we have right to work (for less) states which make it almost impossible to form unions.There is no equivalent of a Taft-Hartley Act in Finland. Finland has universal health care and other social programs that we can only dream about and a child poverty rate between 3% to 5%.
A humble thought: once Pasi Sahlberg arrives, I hope that we see a few guest postings by him on this blog.
Let those who studiously ignore, distort and tout the “lessons of Finland”—often all at the same time a la Secretary of Education Arne Duncan re his ‘something for everyone’ positions on high-stakes standardized testing—have to discuss with him, in an open and democratic format, how GERM and $tudent $ucce$$ is the cure-all for what ails public education.
There is a better than 98% chance of “satisfactory” certainty [thank you, Bill Gates!] that they have such little confidence in the power of their ideas that they will refuse to engage him—as they have refused to engage others like Diane Ravitch—in direct and constructive dialogue. But even their silence will be instructive to the general public.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
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P.S. Congratulations to the owner of this blog for passing seven million views!
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Ironic how Finland is one of the countries the deformers always compare our kids to. Yet they don’t want to emulate them. I like the idea of not starting kids in school until they are seven. Gives the little boys time to catch up and learn to sit for a while.
I agree!
“Accountability is what is left when responsibility is taken away from teachers.”
Love that.
“Aim for equity, and you will get excellence.”
Tell that to the Randians, free-marketeers and oligarchs in this country.
We have managed to instill some of the worse excesses of monarchies past in this supposed democracry with laws and policies based on false readings of what “liberty” can/should mean.
Your post illustrates why we need to emphasize history and humanities perhaps even more than STEM subjects.
Come now Duane, you know you can’t tell them anything, they know it all, just ask them. Only the worthy will get an education, and that will be done through their own effort, any help is, as Rand might say, not in the best interests of the worthy. They should remember that when the police and others refuse to save them. The oligarchs might not be worth the risk, their protectors may decide to act in their best interests.
In Finland, education is not a political circus … how refreshing.
You can find Pasi Sahlberg’s presentation at the National Superintendents Roundtable on New York University’s John Brademas Center at the link below. There’s quite a bit of “dead air time” at the beginning of some of these presentations. NYU will edit the footage to take care of that problem and make it available on Youtube at some point.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nyu-brademas-center-events
And here’s a link to the PowerPoint presentation Pasi Sahlberg used:
Click to access Sahlberg.pdf
The Finnish teachers union demanded class size reduction in all grades in return for an end to tracking and there are equitable & small classes for all; many including the former Education Minister believe that this is the one of the main reasons for their success.
Life in general there is much more “socialistic”. Yet they are also some of the happiest people on Earth, paying a lot in taxes. Too many people in our country are adamantly against that type of government and life style. Capitalism will never let that in.
BEAUTIFUL!!!! I live in Indiana where we suffered – still do – from a former Superintendent of Public Education who tired to put himself in the national spotlight and to do so he changed the methodology of grading his charter schools so that they would look good. Our present governor is trying very hard to perpetuate that ignorant mind set. Our present state Supt., Glenda Ritz feels that they are trying to sideline her efforts, perhaps with great justification. As Dr. Ravitch has so cogently pointed out, teachers everywhere are – to say the least – disgruntled. So VERY sad when it does not have to be this way.
I wish he could take Arne’s place.
If he decides to visit a NYC kindergarten class during bubble testing, be sure he has a defibrillator with him.
You may be interested in reading blog post King Solomon on Intellectual Fools as an added perspective to teaching curriculum in regards to this article.
http://rudymartinka.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=722&action=edit&message=1.
Regards and good will blogging.
View of Finnish teachers versus view of Pasi Sahlberg
Oxford- Prof. Jennifer Chung ( AN INVESTIGATION OF REASONS FOR FINLAND’S SUCCESS IN PISA (University of Oxford 2008).
“Many of the teachers mentioned the converse of the great strength of Finnish education (= de grote aandacht voor kinderen met leerproblemen) as the great weakness. Jukka S. (BM) believes that school does not provide enough challenges for intelligent students: “I think my only concern is that we give lots of support to those pupils who are underachievers, and we don’t give that much to the brightest pupils. I find it a problem, since I think, for the future of a whole nation, those pupils who are really the stars should be supported, given some more challenges, given some more difficulty in their exercises and so on. To not just spend their time here but to make some effort and have the idea to become something, no matter what field you are choosing, you must not only be talented like they are, but work hard. That is needed. “
Pia (EL) feels that the schools do not motivate very intelligent students to work. She thinks the schools should provide more challenges for the academically talented students. In fact, she thinks the current school system in Finland does not provide well for its students. Mixed-ability classrooms, she feels, are worse than the previous selective system: “ I think this school is for nobody. That is my private opinion. Actually I think so, because when you have all these people at mixed levels in your class, then you have to concentrate on the ones who need the most help, of course. Those who are really good, they get lazy. “
Pia believes these students become bored and lazy, and float through school with no study skills. Jonny (EM) describes how comprehensive education places the academically gifted at a disadvantage: “We have lost a great possibility when we don’t have the segregated levels of math and natural sciences… That should be once again taken back and started with. The good talents are now torturing themselves with not very interesting education and teaching in classes that aren’t for their best.
Pia (EL) finds the PISA frenzy about Finland amusing, since she believes the schools have declined in recent years: “I think [the attention] is quite funny because school isn’t as good as it used to be … I used to be proud of being a teacher and proud of this school, but I can’t say I ’m proud any more.”
Aino (BS) states that the evenness and equality of the education system has a “dark side.” Teaching to the “middle student” in a class of heterogeneous ability bores the gifted students, who commonly do not perform well in school. Maarit (DMS) finds teaching heterogeneous classrooms very difficult. She admits that dividing the students into ability levels would make the teaching easier, but worries that it may affect the self-esteem of the weaker worse than a more egalitarian system Similarly, Terttu (FMS) thinks that the class size is a detriment to the students’ learning. Even though Finnish schools have relatively small class sizes, she thinks that a group of twenty is too large, since she does not have time for all of the students: “You don’t have enough time for everyone … All children have to be in the same class. That is not so nice. You have the better pupils. I can’t give them as much as I want. You have to go so slowly in the classroom.” Curiously, Jukka E. (DL) thinks that the special education students need more support and the education system needs to improve in that area.
Miikka (FL) describes how he will give extra work to students who want to have more academic challenges, but admits that “they can get quite good grades, excellent grades, by doing nothing actually, or very little.” Miikka (FL) describes discussion in educational circles about creating schools and universities for academically talented students: 3 Everyone has the same chances…One problem is that it can be too easy for talented students. There has been now discussion in Finland if there should be schools and universities for talented students… I think it will happen, but I don’t know if it is good, but it will happen, I think so. I am also afraid there will be private schools again in Finland in the future … [There] will be more rich people and more poor people, and then will come so [many] problems in comprehensive schools that some day quite soon … parents will demand that we should have private schools again, and that is quite sad.
Linda (AL), however, feels the love of reading has declined in the younger generation, as they tend to gravitate more to video games and television. Miikka (FL), also a teacher of mother tongue, also cites a decline in reading interest and an increase of video game and computer play. Saij a (BL) agrees. As a teacher of Finnish, she feels that she has difficulty motivating her students to learn: “I think my subject is not the … easiest one to teach. They don’t read so much, newspapers or novels.” Her students, especially the boys, do not like their assignments in Finnish language. She also thinks the respect for teachers has declined in this past generation. Miikka (FL) also thinks his students do not respect their teachers: “They don’t respect the teachers. They respect them very little … I think it has changed a lot in recent years. In Helsinki, it was actually earlier. When I came here six years ago, I thought this was heaven. I thought it was incredible, how the children were like that after Helsinki, but now I think it is the same.
Linda (AL) notes deficiency in the amount of time available for subjects. With more time, she would implement more creative activities, such as speech and drama, into her lessons. Saij a (BL) also thinks that her students need more arts subjects like drama and art. She worries that they consider mathematics as the only important subject. Shefeels countries such as Sweden, Norway, and England have better arts programs than in Finnish schools. Arts subjects, according to Saij a, help the students get to know themselves. Maarit (DMS), a Finnish-speaker, thinks that schools need to spend more time cultivating social skills.