Books by Pasi Sahlberg
Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?
The first edition of Finnish Lessons won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education in 2013. It was featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The Guardian, CNN, Education Week, The Huffington Post, and Dan Rather Reports and has been translated into 16 languages.
Now, with Finnish Lessons 2.0, Pasi Sahlberg has thoroughly updated his groundbreaking account of how Finland built a world-class education system during the past four decades. In this international bestseller, Sahlberg traces the evolution of Finnish education policies and highlights how they differ from the United States and much of the rest of the world. Featuring substantial additions throughout the text, Finnish Lessons 2.0 demonstrates how systematically focusing on teacher and leader professionalism, building trust between the society and its schools, and investing in educational equity rather than competition, choice, and other market-based reforms make Finnish schools an international model of success. This second edition details the complexity of meaningful change by examining Finland’s educational performance in light of the most recent international assessment data and domestic changes. In the midst of continuous local reforms and global changes, Finnish Lessons 2.0 encourages educators, students, and policymakers to look beyond their own borders as they seek successful solutions for their education systems, districts, and schools.
International Acclaim for the first edition of Finnish Lessons:
“Sahlberg speaks directly to the sense of crisis about educational achievement in the United States and many other nations.”
Diane Ravitch in The New York Review of Books, March 8, 2012
“This book will give hope, vision, and strategies to anyone who is sincere in bringing a great education to every child. Pick it up and read it.”
John Wilson in Education Week, May 9, 2012
“Sahlberg’s book contains important insights for a broad range of academics, educators, politicians, and the public.”
Henrik Saalbach in Science, Vol. 336, June 2012
“ Finnish Lessons is an important book and educators need to read it.”
Gaea Leinhardt in Educational Researcher, 41(7), 271-273, September 2012
“Every educator and every parent in America should read Pasi Sahlberg’s book, Finnish Lessons.”
Howard Gardner in The Huffington Post, September 30, 2012
“Kills 99.9% of GERMs”
Niall MacKinnon in Times Education Supplement, November 11, 2011
“Simply put the one must read to begin to understand how Finland has built perhaps the world’s most successful educational system over the past few decades.”
Kenneth Bernstein in Daily Kos, December 29, 2011
“His new book, Finnish Lessons, tells the story of educational reform and change in Finland over the past fifty years and as he tells the story, it becomes less miraculous and more obviously the outline of a purposeful, thoughtful, and coherent strategy for school improvement.”
Jon McGill in Baltimore Curriculum Project, March 7, 2012
“ Finnish Lessons provides insight into the historical context which underlies Finland’s educational success. It sounds too good to be true, and for countries that lack the same degree of social capital, it may well be. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that all nations could benefit from taking some pages from Finland’s play book.”
National Council of Teacher Quality, March 30, 2012
“Pasi Sahlberg, in his landmark book Finnish Lessons, makes the point that Finland’s development of extensive student achievement standards proved to be a very important landmark on the trajectory of Finland’s rise to world class status in the education arena.”
Marc Tucker in Education Week, May 29,2012
“ Finnish Lessons provides valuable evidence that investing in teachers and instruction--rather than in tests and inspections--can bring about admirable, even excellent, results.”
Connie Goddard in Teachers College Record, January 26, 2012
“If we can adapt any part of these Finnish lessons b
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Hard Questions on Global Educational Change: Policies, Practices, and the Future of Education
by Pasi Sahlberg, Jonathan Hasak, Vanessa Rodriguez
This new book, from internationally renowned education scholar Pasi Sahlberg and his colleagues, focuses on some of the most controversial issues in contemporary education reform around the world. The authors devote a chapter to each of these “hard questions”: Does parental choice improve education systems? Is there a future for teacher unions? What is the right answer to the standardized testing question? Can schools prepare children for the 21st-century workplace? Will technology save schools? Can anyone be a teacher? Should higher education be for the public good? What knowledge and skills should an educator have?
Each educational change question sheds much-needed light on today’s large-scale education policies and related reforms around the world. The authors focus on what makes each question globally significant, what we know from international research, and what can be inferred from benchmark evidence. The final chapter offers a model for policymakers with implications for teaching, learning, and schooling overall.
Book Features: An in-depth look at the most contentious areas of contemporary education reform. Concrete examples from across the globe. Commentary from key experts, authorities, and organizations. A consistent, accessible organization that will appeal to faculty and students. Lessons learned that illuminate a good way forward to improve the educational experience of all students.
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In Teachers We Trust: The Finnish Way to World-Class Schools
by Pasi Sahlberg, Timothy D. Walker
Seven key principles from Finland for building a culture of trust in schools around the world.
In the spring of 2018, thousands of teachers across the United States―in states like Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona―walked off their jobs while calling for higher wages and better working conditions. Ultimately, these American educators trumpeted a simple request: treat us like professionals. Teachers in many other countries feel the same way as their US counterparts.
In Teachers We Trust presents a compelling vision, offering practical ideas for educators and school leaders wishing to develop teacher-powered education systems. It reveals why teachers in Finland hold high status, and shows what the country’s trust- based school system looks like in action.
Pasi Sahlberg and Timothy D. Walker suggest seven key principles for building a culture of trust in schools, from offering clinical training for future teachers to encouraging student agency to fostering a collaborative professionalism among educators. In Teachers We Trust is essential reading for all teachers, administrators, and parents who entrust their children to American schools.
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Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive
by William Doyle, Pasi Sahlberg
Play is how children explore, discover, fail, succeed, socialize, and flourish. It is a fundamental element of the human condition. It's the key to giving schoolchildren skills they need to succeed--skills like creativity, innovation, teamwork, focus, resilience, expressiveness, empathy, concentration, and executive function. Expert organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Centers for Disease Control agree that play and physical activity are critical foundations of childhood, academics, and future skills--yet politicians are destroying play in childhood education and replacing it with standardization, stress, and forcible physical restraint, which are damaging to learning and corrosive to society.
But this is not the case for hundreds of thousands of lucky children who are enjoying the power of play in schools in China, Texas, Oklahoma, Long Island, Scotland, and in the entire nation of Finland. In Let the Children Play, Pasi Sahlberg, Finnish educator and scholar, and Fulbright Scholar William Doyle make the case for helping schools and children thrive by unleashing the power of play and giving more physical and intellectual play to all schoolchildren.
In the course of writing this book, Sahlberg and Doyle traveled worldwide, reviewed over 700 research studies, and conducted interviews with over 50 of the world's leading authorities on education. Most intriguingly, Let the Children Play provides a glimpse into the play-based experiments ongoing now all over the world, from rural China, Singapore, and Scotland to North Texas and Oklahoma, as well as the promising results of these bold new approaches. Readers will find the book to be both a call for change and a guide for making that change happen in their own communities.
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