tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post8816929899267536318..comments2024-03-29T02:41:52.718-07:00Comments on Seattle Schools Community Forum: Finnish Education Leader Offers Some Observations on Ed ReformMelissa Westbrookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17179994245880629080noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-10318191662156001172013-05-16T17:55:35.594-07:002013-05-16T17:55:35.594-07:00"We're not Finland, but Finland took a po..."We're not Finland, but Finland took a post war dysfunctional school culture and built a new one centered on promoting human flourishing. <br /><br /> Take care of that, and the test scores take care of themselves. "<br /><br />Amen, brother.Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12588239576000641336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-37497588097060810802013-05-16T17:12:16.139-07:002013-05-16T17:12:16.139-07:00I think the challenge to get real reform, i.e., sc...I think the challenge to get real reform, i.e., school reform that will in fact produce better outcomes for students, lies on two levels. The more obvious one is defensive, to make sure that the people developing policy don't have economic incentives that become their own ends. And the only way to insure that is to push back against the massive effort underway to privatize public education.<br /><br />But the larger, and perhaps more important challenge, lies on the level of imagination. We need to play defense, but we also have to play offense, and ultimately it's about reshaping the American culture of education around a vision based in clear ideas about what we understand to be human flourishing. We're not Finland, but Finland took a post war dysfunctional school culture and built a new one centered on promoting human flourishing. That's the most important thing to understand about what Findland did and accomplished. Take care of that, and the test scores take care of themselves. <br /><br />For us it's not about slavishly imitating Finland, although we can certainly learn from what it did and adapt their best practices to our own circumstances. The task is to undertake, as Finland undertook it, a cultural transformation of our schools. Let's face it, such a transformation is what the corporate reformers are trying to effect, and alas, they are largely succeeding, but it fails because of the problem identified in the first paragraph above. That's what we have to defend against.<br /><br />Going on offense starts with imagining what a schools culture whose end is human flourishing would look like. And then beginning the long-term process of getting policymakers to buy into it. Keep your eyes on Maryland, California, and Texas. There are key actors there that are way ahead of the curve on this compared to anybody I know of in Washington. <br /><br />The DFER/LEV/Varner/Crosscut vision for education is just so eighties and nineties. Wasn't the last decade a repudiation of all that neoliberal nonsense? And yet they want everyone to think that people who oppose them are the reactionaries! It would be laughable if we didn't have to suffer through our own version the eighties they are foisting on us. <br /><br />This seems to be our inevitable fate because their thinking reflects elite thinking in all its pathetic, nerdy, earnest, predictable, business-friendly, flat-souled, Washington second-rateness. And that thinking controls the active agenda when it comes to education policy in this state because nobody of any stature here has emerged to propose something different. <br /><br />But it is what it is, and we are who we are--a state in which Bill Gates is our most prominent thought leader.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10943001045762085288noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-78433371156412178972013-05-16T15:21:17.593-07:002013-05-16T15:21:17.593-07:00DW, simple. They will say Norway isn't the U....DW, simple. They will say Norway isn't the U.S. and leave it at that. (They are right but that really is not the issue.)Melissa Westbrookhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12588239576000641336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-9335574264998381732013-05-16T14:03:04.855-07:002013-05-16T14:03:04.855-07:00Thank you Pasi Sahlberg! This article should be a...Thank you Pasi Sahlberg! This article should be a handy link to post on any and all Ed Reform columns where comments are allowed.<br /><br />I especially liked this: <i>There is no Teach for Finland or other alternative pathways into teaching that wouldn’t include thoroughly studying theories of pedagogy and undergo clinical practice.</i><br /><br />But really, people should read the article in its entirety. I wonder how TfA handlers are going to attempt to trivialize this sage advice from a respected "reformer" (no caps).dwnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28765366.post-36559718253631979182013-05-16T10:12:46.861-07:002013-05-16T10:12:46.861-07:00Yes, and yes. And I have Pre-traumatic Stress Syn...Yes, and yes. And I have Pre-traumatic Stress Syndrome over the eventual non-adoption of any of these ideas in Seattle or the United States.<br /><br />- TiredAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com