Pasi Sahlberg is a noted Finnish educator whose book Finnish Lessons awakened Americans to the realization that good schools can flourish without standardized testing. He has focused in his work on the importance of creativity and play for children and the dangers of standardization and the free market.
In this essay, he compares the different experiences of students in Australia (where he currently lives) and in Finland (his native land) and tries to figure out what educators have learned because of the pandemic. One glaring fact is inequality. Will there be a will to address that basic and damaging fact of life after the pandemic?
He draws the following lessons:
- Address inequalities early. Preventive health care and high-quality early childhood education can go a long way in avoiding gaps early.
- Trust teachers as professionals. They know what their students need.
- Build self-directedness among students, teachers, and schools. Too many comply with mandates and are lost when it is time to be thoughtful and make decisions on your own.
Sahlberg is resolute that an excellent and equitable education go hand-in-hand.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Diane, for sharing with your readers the work of your friend, this beautiful, compassionate, brilliant man.
Pasi Sahlberg can always be counted on to give education a dose of common sense. Finland intends to deliver equity, but Australia and the US only talk about it. Without intention, inequity will develop because politicians respond to those with money. Though Sahlberg does not mention the US specifically, the US education policy is much closer to Australia than Finland’s. During the pandemic countries with systemic inequities have been less effective in responding to the impact of the virus.
When a nation ignores inequality, its educational system will reflect it. Both Australia and the US have pursued inequitable privatization. As Sahlberg points out in Australia the poorest students remain in under funded “government schools.” This all sounds too familiar to us. If we want to improve education for all students, we need the government to commit to providing all students with access, excellence and equity. The private sector is not going to do it as we have seen with our failed privatization experiments. In order to achieve equity, we need a government policy that commits to making it a priority including funding it and supporting its professional teachers.
End the micromanagement of U.S. K-12 education. End the standardized testing. Can the state and national standards bullet lists. Create, instead, a national wiki of COMPETING resources and suggested curriculum outlines from which teachers can, of their own accord, choose freely, one contributed to by researchers, subject-matter experts, and classroom practitioners. Return autonomy to teachers and department chairs. And beef up those teacher education programs. https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/04/09/what-should-be-taught-in-an-english-teacher-preparation-program/
Money in schools does make a huge difference. I can compare the International School of Kuala Lumpur, where the tuition is at least $10,000 per year for grades 1-5 and more for middle school and high school students.
The art program had tons of materials, the gym had a pool and equipment for all types of games. The music program was given the time to have rehearsals and each classroom had a full set of Orff Schulwerk instruments, text books and rhythm instruments. Foreign languages were taught in Mandarin and Spanish. There was a separate computer lab for younger kids and older grade school students. The normal size of classes were 16. Eighteen was considered an overload. Early childhood rooms only allowed 10 children and there was always an aide.
Now that the school has moved to the new campus, the differences are even more glaring. [I’ve only seen the campus online.] There is a huge auditorium for the elementary school kids and their library is huge and filled with books.
Money makes a difference and from what I’ve seen, public schools in the U.S. are not a priority. Politicians talk the talk but do nothing.
The US is severely handicapped in addressing inequities in public schools and those problems are exacerbated by moves like this latest one from a Republican legislator in Florida, already engaged in privatizing education. Here is the latest move:
Republican state senator Joe Gruters says he plans to introduce legislation to grant “Face Freedom” private school vouchers to Florida parents who don’t want their children to wear masks in school.
I have the awful feeling that “Face Freedom” will become a slogan in every state pressing for private school vouchers, to say nothing of the many adults who seem to believe it is their right to be free from any intrusions on their own and others health and welfare. My guess is that many also refuse to use seatbelts while driving or helmets if riding a motorcycle.
At this point, the future of policies for education, from preschool to college, are really unknown, given that Trump and Republicans are determined to undermine the principles and practices for a smooth transition of power.
I have not recently visited Australia but they seem to have a habit of borrowing bad ideas about elementary and secondary education from the UK and USA.
a telling summation: big money school reform making its huge profits, spreading like a virus
Damn, Mr Jefferson, why didn’t we think of “Face Freedom”? Say that again, Ben, you’re spinning too fast for me to hear you. Are you still worrying that we forgot “nostril autonomy” from second hand cigar smoke.?
The November 2020 Costco Connection has a piece “Raising readers” that I found interesting and worth sharing.
Here is one pull quote from that piece: “In Germany, in all of the Scandinavian countries, they don’t begin reading instruction until kids are 7 or 8 years old, because that’s when kids’ brains are all basically there. And what’s interesting when you look at those European countries, they all have higher literacy rates than we do, so clearly they’re doing something right.”
https://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/202011/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1634526#articleId1634526
In Illinois, State Senator Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) wants the mandatory Kindergarten age lowered from 6 to 5. 😐
Lloyd, that Costco article makes sense. I agree. 😁