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the government has set standards high for elementary and high school teachers, ensuring that only the very best candidates ever reach the classroom.

"Finland has one of the most competitive teacher-education systems in the world, and the teacher training program is more difficult to get into than the schools of law or medicine," Sahlberg said. "Many young people in Finland go on to study law because they cannot get into the primary school education program."

We want to put our money not into administration, but into supporting those people who need it."

What students are really motivated by are opportunities to be social — to interact around challenging concepts in powerful conversations with their peers. They are motivated by issues connected to fairness and justice. They are motivated by the important people in their lives, by the opportunity to wrestle with the big ideas rolling around in their minds, and by the often-troubling changes they see happening in the world around them. Technology’s role in today’s classroom, then, isn’t to motivate. It’s to give students opportunities to efficiently and effectively participate in motivating activities built around the individuals and ideas that matter to them.

Basically what I’m arguing is that finding ways to motivate students in our classrooms shouldn’t start with conversations about technology. Instead, it should start with conversations about our kids. What are they deeply moved by? What are they most interested in? What would surprise them? Challenge them? Leave them wondering? Once you have the answers to these questions — only after you have the answers to these questions — are you ready to make choices about the kinds of digital tools that are worth embracing.

"It's always been the case that whatever young people are doing now and whatever is the fashion now, there will be crusty and unfortunately ignorant people who think that somehow it has less weight, less heft, less intellectual respectability, less connection with our cultural identity, less seriousness," he said. "It's nearly always nonsense."