Author: Dawn Kasal-Finley

Out of Town in Town

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Today, I leave for a conference. The hotel  is exactly 4.6 miles away from my house.  I had to pack a bag for the next 3 days.  To stay in my own city–less than 10 minutes from my house.  Try explaining that to your 4-year-old.  She kept asking me what city I was going to.  They are used to me traveling, but have a hard time comprehending that I will be at a hotel near our house.

It is my organization’s Annual Conference and we all need to be onsite until Saturday.  Which I totally understand, it’s just so strange to have to miss putting my kids to bed, because I am in a hotel, in town.  At least if I forgot to pack anything, Bill can drive it over.

These next weeks are super busy and there isn’t a week until the 22nd that we are both in town.  I am gone (in town) 3 nights this week.  Bill is gone 4 days next week and I am gone 3 days the following week.  October is shaping up to be my least favorite month.  We do at least have a fun filled family vacation (whole family—mom, brothers, dad, bonus mom and us) at the end of these hard 3 weeks–3 days in the Bahamas at Atlantis.  I can’t wait.  But til then, it’s a lot of missing my husband and family.

GOOOOOOOOAL

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Okay, so maybe that might be a little melodramatic.  But as a former soccer player, I have to admit it was awesome watching Noah score his first goal.  It was a proud parent moment.

I sadly don’t have a picture or video of it–well maybe not sadly, as the memory of the goal can live on big and glorious with the reality of the ball trickling through the goalies legs and over the line.  It was a bit like slow motion.  But when you are 6 and playing soccer for the first time–it might have well have been a shot from outside of the 18 that find the top right corner.  It feels the same, when it’s your first–AMAZING.

The look on Noah’s face was one of pure shock and amazement.  It was his teams first goal in two games.  He is playing in an instructional league which is great–as he is learning a great deal and they really focus on skills.  Their games are short quarter-field games with only 5 players per team on the field.  It has been good for him and each time he plays and practices (they have a 1 and 1/2 hour practice 1x per week and then a 1hr game on Friday nights–under the lights).

My brother was able to come to the game and he was an pretty awesome soccer star in his day and Noah was so excited.  He ran by the side line early on in the game and smiled huge and waved at his uncle.  It was cute.  It takes me back to the days I played–on the very same fields my son currently plays on.  The high and lows–the amazing victories and the crushing losses.

I try not to get my hopes up that soccer will be the sport he loves.  The sport he can’t imagine not playing.  The sport the lives in his blood and dreams.  But for now, I will watch from the sidelines, cheering for him.  It warms my heart to know exactly how it feels to be out on the pitch.

I love that he loves sports.  I think sports are the most important thing our kids do.  Not because they are all going to be amazing athletes–but there is something about being part of a team.  About being part of something that is bigger than just you.  Team sports give a kid (and adults) and opportunity to build character in a way that other activities don’t.  It brings out their grit and perseverance.  It teaches them hard and important lessons about failure.

For Noah–his team lost, but he scored a goal.  He both lost and won.  Just like we all do so many times in our own lives.  It’s a great lesson to learn.

This I Need To Remember

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Yesterday was the day Noah has been waiting for since school started in August.

Drum roll please…..HOMEWORK!!!  Yep.  He and the rest of his first grade class were all equally excited yesterday to get their first homework.

I know, cute isn’t it?

I watched him walk to the car, homework folder in hand with a huge smile on his face.  A smile that said “I have made it.  I am a big kid now.”  Homework serves as his first right of passage, as it should be.  Homework should be special and should focus on building the skills that are taught at school.  It should be relevant.

I want to give a big shout out to the kids school for giving homework that is relevant and makes them think.

As soon as he got into the car, he started talking about his homework and questioning where he was going to do it.

I suggested the dining room table.  You would have thought I suggested doing it on the roof of a moving car.

“NO. Mom it has to be somewhere quiet and it should be my own desk.”

Well, we have been dragging our feet on getting a new desk for our den where the kids can do homework.  So, Noah convinced us to bring up his desk from the basement.

So, we moved it upstairs and cleaned it off and he was so excited.  We got “real” pencils out–“yellow ones like I have at school.”

He did two word problems: Draw a picture or write a number equation to solve each problem.  1) An avocado has 1 seed.  I used 4 avocados to make guacamole.  How many seeds do I have?   2) This week I ate 2 plums and 3 peaches.  How many seeds did I end up with this week?

What is great about those two problems is that they have spent the last 5 weeks exploring seeds and learning about fruits and vegetables.

He worked on his homework for about 20 minutes and completed most of it–they get it on Monday and it is due on Friday.  I can already tell that science and math will be what he enjoys more than writing.  One of his homework pages is brainstorm a list of “15 things I can write about”–for writers workshop.  He struggled a bit with grasping the idea of topics for writing as opposed to specific events–but the writing teacher in me was in HEAVEN.  He has one page left–a sheet with pictures of fruit–cut so that you can see the insides and he is suppose to write what he notices.

I know that this LOVE of homework will be short lived and so I want to document this moment, so when he’s in 2nd or 3rd grade, I can remind him how excited he was to have homework.

At What Cost

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My days are spent entrenched in the world of education.  It has been the world I have worked in for the past 10 years.  And with kids who are school-aged, education is something that consumes much of my thoughts.

I think one of the things that is missing in the current conversation regarding education is one about learning.  We are focused so singularly on test scores and whether or not students can read or do math at grade level.  This has caused to to lose sight of whether or not students can think and apply what they have learned.

This really became apparent to me during a conversation I was having with someone regarding a high performing charter high school network that takes students in 9th grade (who are several grade levels behind) and gets them up to reading at grade level before they graduate.  Now don’t get me wrong, I think that this is great and admirable.  It is important that students get the basic skills, but I have to ask “At what cost?”

At what cost is this happening?  When we focus so intently on getting kids to score proficient on a test or be reading at the appropriate lexile level, we have to be cutting corners somewhere else.  I think this is apparent that much of what is getting cut is what so often happens in private schools and high performing affluent districts–the actual exploration and application of learning.

Another clear cost is that early childhood and kindergarten education have become less about play and more about “test” prep.  Kids spend more time sitting in desks, receiving direct instruction in academic subjects at younger and younger ages, as opposed to learning through exploration, play and collaboration.

I know that we are at a time in our country where we have throngs of students who are starting their school years behind. I also know that as we look at achievement data and control for factors of low-income, that our schools are doing fairly well.  Yet we as a country are failing those who are poor and it is these same poor kids and families who continue to be undereducated.  Instead of engaging in meaningful conversations (that would expose them to more vocabulary then they might get at home), they sit in isolation and complete worksheets labeled with “test prep” on them.

All of this is to say that we need to focus on what students should be getting from school and what they should be getting is an education.  They should learn social skills, problem solving, and collaboration.  They need to learn character, conflict resolution and confidence.  These can’t be taught through direct instruction or worksheets.  This is also not to say that students don’t need their basic skills–but those can be (and should be) taught in a way that engages students completely.

School should be fun and engaging.  School needs to be more about the students and what they need and how they best learn based on their age and developmental level.  We need to re-think how we educate and testing isn’t educating.

 

 

 

Pitfalls of Private School #2543

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 9 Comments

Tooth Fairy Generosity (aka–insanity)

So, Noah has his first loose tooth.  He has been waiting, not-so-patiently I might add, for this day.  The look on his face when he came and told me he thought his tooth was loose we priceless.  Most of the girls in his class have already lost lots of teeth.  They have one boy in their class who is on the older side (that’s a nice way of saying it right?) who has lost like 7 or 8 teeth, but none of the other boys Noah’s age have.  So, it’s very exciting.

The tooth is just wiggly–and probably 3 or so weeks away from being ready to really fall out–but this didn’t stop conversations about the tooth fairy.  I am in no real way stingy.  So when we were all talking on family vacation about the Tooth Fairy and what she brings, I thought $3 for your first tooth and $1 for each tooth after.  That seemed reasonable, right?  Okay, so now I know that it isn’t.

The day after vacation I got the following text from my brother informing me that the going rate for a tooth is $3.00.

So, I thought $3 isn’t so bad.  It seems a bit crazy, but you certainly can’t buy anything with a $1 like you used to.  I still remember penny candy and going to the local Ben Franklin and being able to get a bag of candy for $1 and it was a lot–now?  Not so much.

I resigned myself that I’d be shelling out about $60 over the next few years for teeth that have fallen out of my son’s mouth.

At dinner the other night, Noah happily declared, “I know how much the tooth fairy leaves!!”

“How much?”

“TEN DOLLARS”

Oh pardon me as I spit out my wine all over the table.  “What?”

“Ten Dollars, Mom.  The tooth fairy brings TEN DOLLARS.”

Are you kidding me?  These aren’t the first kids in the world to lose teeth.  Ten bucks for a tooth.  So, now.  I have to leave Ten Dollars for my kids first tooth.  Then who the hell knows.  I am still flabbergasted that $10 is actually what the going rate seems to be in the world of private school.  I know I shouldn’t be surprised.  For one of Noah’s classmates birthday’s-the parents of said child had an ice cream truck come to school.

So, what does the tooth fairy leave in your house?