Finnish Lessons

I’m reading another fascinating book, Finnish Lessons by Pasi Sahlberg. He tries to answer questions we have about what makes Finnish schools so successful on international tests. The words that stick out for me are:
Trust
Professionalism
Shared Responsibility.

Especially trust–as parents and students trust teachers, and vice versa. Educators are esteemed. It’s a wonderful profession there. For me–as I write about and work in our special education system, which is, alas, built on distrust–that word rings huge.

If you’re not into reading the entire book, Mr. Sahlberg was featured recently in two articles, one in the New York Times and one in The Atlantic.

Happy reading.

About Miriam

Miriam Kurtzig Freedman, JD, MA—an expert in public education, focused on special education law— is a lawyer, author, speaker, consultant, and reformer. For more than 35 years, Miriam worked with educators, parents, policy makers, and citizens to translate complex legalese into plain English and focus on good practices for children. Now, she focuses her passion on reforming special education, with her new book, Special Education 2.0—Breaking Taboos to Build a NEW Education Law. Presentations include those at the AASA Conference, Orange County (CA), Boston College (MA), CADRE (OR), and the Fordham Institute (DC). Her writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, Education Next, Hoover Digest, The University of Chicago Law Review on line, DianeRavitch.net, and The Atlantic Monthly on line.

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