Pasi Sahlberg, the great Finnish educator, was in Birmingham, Alabama, last night, where he patiently explained how to make schools great. There is a summary of his advice here.
Thursday night (tomorrow), he will speak at Wellesley College at Alumnae Hall at 7:30 pm.
He will be introduced by Howard Gardner.
I will be there too because I endowed the lecture series to make sure there was one great campus that sought out the best minds in education and presented them each year in a public event. The series is called the Diane Silvers Ravitch 1960 Lecture on Education and the Common Good.
Come early, as parking will be limited. Chelsea Clinton is conducting a rally for her mother (class of 1969) from 3-5. I wish she would stay to hear Pasi’s lecture. She would learn a lot.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wish Mr. Sahlberg would speak here in NYC.
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I will post a link to his lecture at Wellesley as soon as it is available.
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Thank you!! I will make sure it goes far and wide.
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“‘Sahlberg favors a Finnish-style system where principals ‘have a little pocket money’ and discretion to reward teachers for their overall work with students.”
As previously said, I stake no claim to being an educator. However, years ago I advocated a standard budget line item for modest discretionary spending by teachers. The idea being, in part, if you want trust, you must be willing to trust. Since rewards generally undermine trust, and destroy intrinsic motivation – see, for example, the story Deming tells about the little boy who helped his mother do the dishes for the sheer pleasure of doing it but after the mother rewarded the child with a nickel, the boy never helped with the dishes again – I would love a conversation with Sahlberg on the idea of principals having a little pocket money with which to reward teachers, for any reason.
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Case in point, with thanks to Alfie Kohn…
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Thank you, Ed.
Love Kohn’s book: Punished by Rewards. And I too deplore competition. Don’t think in the end, competition brings out the best in people.
And thank you Diane.
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Thanks for the video, Ed.
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Hi C L, 2 things about this email: 1) It is Diane Ravitch’s blog–one of the best places to get what is going on in education across the country 2) The speaker mentioned is from Finland which has one of the best school systems in the world
Sent from my iPhone
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What a breath of fresh air to hear about education policy that is based in what is known to be effective, what teachers, students and parents need. What was odd about the presentation in Birmingham was that it was sponsored by and the discussions were led by groups antithetical to what Pasi Sahlberg presented. The registration for the event was also exclusive. Education Foundation and the Woodlawn Innovation Network, while doing some good things in the schools, are advocates of Teach for America and charter schools.
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Yes, it was ironic that Pasi’s speech in Alabama was sponsored by organizations that do not share his philosophy. Hopefully they learned something.
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“The registration for the event was also exclusive.”
I didn’t know that he was gonna talk in Birmingham. Otherwise, I would have gone. Though it seems, not everybody could attend…
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The flyer advertisement said to register one needed to email a certain person. A friend of mine tried to register but never got a reply. It should have been widely advertised in advanced and simply open to the public.
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From the link “Lesson Three gleaned from decades of international research: “Children must play. It breaks my heart that so many kids today in America have no recess during the school day.” “
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