This article by Finnish educator Pasi Sahlberg tells the story of how he became an “education warrior.”
Pasi is one of the best-known education gurus in the world. He is an articulate advocate of a “whole child, child-centered” view of education. He believes in the power of teachers. He has stood strongly against standardized testing, incentives, punishments, and markets throughout his career.
He is one of my personal heroes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Getting turned down by strict entry requirements to education school is a concept difficult for me to process.
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Roy,
Teachers colleges in Finland have very high standards. Teaching is an honored and well-paid profession.
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They would have made me study organic chemistry or something.
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And you are one of mine (personal heroes/heroines). Thanks for this. Larry ToenjesClear Lake Shores, Texas (not far from Mike Miles’ terrain)
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Thank you, Larry.
Be sure to attend the NPE conference in Houston (Conroe) the last weekend in September.
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Sahlberg maintains that education for young children must remain true to the nature of the child. Every child deserves “dignity, trust, play, and opportunity.” It is, therefore, the mission of the public school to provide children with an environment that will promote these necessities. In this country we used to aim for equity. Instead, today teachers have been largely removed from the discussion on how students learn. The US has allowed its young people to represent little more than “money in the bank” for privatizers, and equity is a “dirty” word in Trumplandia.
In a country that considers most things a competition, we are on losing streak by turning over some much of the responsibility for learning to machines. In a society where cash is king, our children are for sale so there is little public interest in dignity, trust, play or opportunity.
We are also a huge country that is divided into states with differing ideological leanings. Mass privatization promotes a distinctly uneven playing field, and the public schools that contributed so much to our development and growth as a nation are being ignored by the leadership in many states, and public school budgets are targets of private contractors under our unfair system of privatization. Teachers have largely been ignored, and in many cases silenced. Most of the people in public discussions about education are economists or politicians, not career educators. More testing will not address these problems.
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Thank you. I needed reading that. War is hell, and global education-industrial complex reform is war. There are casualties. Sometimes, right now times, I need to be reminded that when working in education under the United States’ $$$ version of the Global Education Reform Movement and taking risks to maintain a moral stance from day to day, minute to minute, things can and will go sideways, and that just means finding new ways to maintain a moral stance and be the best teacher possible for the rest of my time here, no matter what.
I look at the bright side of corporate education: I have sparked inquisitiveness and influenced young minds for decades and buttressed democracy in some small yet meaningful way, and I make more in a year than a meddling billionaire makes in a minute.
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GERM is a toxic group that intends to make schools and teachers heel like a trained dog once again with another BS round of test and punish. They aspire to further damage public education because public schools are still standing and still trying to do their best for students in a hostile environment.
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