[Edling] What Easter Island’s colossal stone statues teach about the dangers of modern school reform

[Francis Hult]

Washington Post



What Easter Island’s colossal stone statues teach about the dangers of modern school reform



Today’s education reform movement in many parts of the world resembles the Easter Islanders’ race to erect stone statues in many ways. The Finnish education scholar and author of “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn From Educational Change in Finland?” Pasi Sahlberg (2011) has termed the movement the GERM, or Global Education Reform Movement. Those infected with the GERM or countries engaged in this reform movement have embarked on a race to produce students with excellent test scores in the belief that scores in a limited number of subjects on standardized tests accurately represent the quality of education a school provides, the performance of a teacher, and students’ ability to succeed in the future, not unlike the chiefs and priests on Easter Island who believed that the statues represented the health and power of their clans, the performance of their members, and promise for a more prosperous future.



Full story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/01/10/what-easter-islands-colossal-stone-statues-teach-about-the-dangers-of-modern-school-reform/
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