Published on CNN 8 October 2014 Millions of American parents spend countless hours trying to figure out how to help their children get better grades, better teachers or better schools. They may want to take a page from Finland, which is considered to have one of the leading education systems in the world. Finnish students consistently score near the top in the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, for reading,…
read moreCimo on suomalaisille tuttu virasto, jolla on keskeinen rooli koulutuksen kansainvälistäjänä. Meneillään olevan keskushallinnon uudistuksen yhteydessä on ehdotettu, että Cimosta ja Opetushallituksesta tehtäisiin uusi opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön ohjaukseen kuuluva keskusvirasto. Tavoitteena on palveluiden laadun ja vaikuttavuuden parantaminen. Cimon ja Opetushallituksen perustalle ehdotetun uuden organisaation tarkoituksena…
read moreFrankfurtin kirjamessujen avajaisissa pideety puhe 7.10.2014 Alvar Aalto, tunnetuin suomalainen arkkitehti ja muotoilija sanoi viisaasti, että ”meidän tulee tehdä yksinkertaisia, hyviä, pelkistettyjä asioita, jotka ovat sopusoinnussa ihmisen kanssa ja sopivat tavallisille ihmisille”. Samalla tavalla voi sanoa, että suomalaiset opettajat suosivat tavallista, luotettavaa ja rauhallista opettamista elokuvista tuttujen sankariopettajien…
read moreInvited address at the opining of the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair on 7 October 2014 Alvar Aalto, Finland’s most renowned architect and designer, made the wise statement that “we should work for simple, good, undecorated things, but things which are in harmony with the human being and organically suited to the little man in the street.” Similarly, one might say that Finnish teachers prefer traditional, reliable, calm teaching…
read moreKoulutus kaipaa tehottomien osauudistusten sijaan kokonaisvaltaista kehitystyötä. Opetusministeriö vie julkisesta vastustuksesta ja asiantuntijoiden varoituksista piittaamatta lakiesitystä oppivelvollisuusiän nostamisesta eteenpäin. Kiista esityksen talousvaikutuksista on jättänyt itse epäkohdan – koulutuksen varhaisen keskeyttämisen – todelliset syyt vähemmälle huomiolle. Tilastokeskuksen mukaan perusopetuksen…
read morewith John Graham - Published in Professional Voice, 10(1), pp. 46-53, summer 2014 JG Finland is seen to have one of the best schooling systems in the world. What elements of the Finnish system do you think make the difference and elevate the performance of its students above those in many other countries? PS Finland may be seen as having the best school system in the world by foreign media and some others but certainly…
read moreYou have written a thought-provoking piece, noting that the United States may produce promising ideas in education but lags in the implementation of those ideas—except perhaps the proliferation of standardized, high stake testing. A few comments: 1. In the US, experimentation has too often occurred in so-called "junk works", which are separate from the funding source. The most dramatic example is Xerox PARC—a research setting…
read moreOriginally published in Washington Post, 24 July 2014 An intriguing question whether innovation in education can be measured has an answer now. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in its recent report “Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective, Educational Research and Innovation” measures Innovation in Education in 22 countries and 6 jurisdictions, among them the U.S. states Indiana, Massachusetts…
read moreby Pasi Sahlberg and Dennis Shirley Originally published in the Drum on 19 June 2014 Australia doesn't need to import education reform ideas from the US or elsewhere - its own Gonski reforms would remove the inequality which is holding its schools back, write Pasi Sahlberg and Dennis Shirley. One riddle of education debate today concerns the strange disconnect that occurs between how schools actually perform and how they are perceived.…
read moreOne thing that is common to successful education systems is that teaching and learning are guided or steered by system-level expectations that all schools must follow. But there are significant differences in how these expectations are technically employed. Many Canadian provinces, for example, set specific learning targets for most of the school subjects that all teachers and schools must respect. East Asian countries also set…
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