Pasi Paradox: Finding Our Own Finland

February 20, 2016

Last week, on a frigid but beautiful day in Duluth, MN, I was fortunate enough to spend the morning with Finnish education expert, Pasi Sahlberg. He was in Duluth to give the keynote address at the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs (MAAP) conference, and I was there to interview him.

But I couldn’t. I sat and listened to Pasi give his keynote speech, and I listened to him give a more casual, hour-long group session about the state of education policy today, in Finland and elsewhere. I also sat with him at lunch, and chatted with him after the plates of pasta had been cleared away.

Pasi is a vegetarian, like me, and says he is on his way to becoming vegan, due to his concerns over climate change. Honestly, I would rather interview him about that then take another painful plunge down the “this is what Finland did to make their education system one of the world’s best” path. 

Finnish Education Framework

It is painful because there is so much Finland has done that the United States seems to have no interest in doing, even though, as I have heard Pasi say before, many of Finland’s great ideas (and practices) about education reform have come from research done in the United States, generally, and from Minnesota, specifically.

That’s why I couldn’t really interview Pasi. His ideas have been mined extensively, and rightfully so. He’s funny, warm, smart and right on, when it comes to how to actually create a vibrant, successful, equitable education system. That is why, like many others who follow education, I have done pretty much everything I could to soak up Sahlberg’s lessons, except move to Finland (which, I will admit, I have considered). But emulation is not enough. We have to move past him, frankly, and find our own Finland. 

And, no, such a thing–our own Finland–won’t be started with a grant from the Walton Foundation. Finland’s education revolution started with a commitment, which is and must be ongoing, to eradicating poverty and inequality, so that it isn’t just some people’s kids who get access to such current luxuries as play-based learning and critical thinking.

In the United States, such a commitment would have to be paired with a concrete plan to share power with historically marginalized (or, historically looted, some would say) communities, to avoid the colonization and exploitation patterns so often repeated in today’s market-driven education reform efforts. How should we do that? Let’s start with asking the most marginalized what they think. 

The Finnish education system redesign was also built around an equity framework that, in essence, provides an individualized learning plan for each child–and not just the kids who get special ed services, or the kids whose parents can pay for tutors. And all Finnish kids eat lunch at school. They have health care, dental care, and their parents are given parental leave. This is love, and that is where change-making education reform begins.

Could we create that here? And will it last in Finland? Like most European countries, Finland is currently experiencing a values-testing “migrant crisis.” In 2015, it took on more than 30,000 people seeking refuge; most years, they get less than 800. What will Finland do now? Will the “world’s best” education system also be provided to these newcomers?

While we wait and watch, we should get busy building our own Finland.

…rich parents want creativity and flexibility and diverse curricula. They want individualized discipline (if they want discipline at all). They’d have very little patience for chanting in classes and being told what to do with their children at home. But, you know, “those people,” they’re not “like us.”

Ira David Socol

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2 thoughts on “Pasi Paradox: Finding Our Own Finland

  1. On the image with “Two Global Strategies” what does “GERM” at the bottom of the red circle mean?

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