Author: Dawn Kasal-Finley

It Is Not The Test’s Fault

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I was reading something yesterday that really struck me.  Education has become just as polarizing as birth control, abortion, and every other partisan issue in this country.  This perplexes me.  Education should be the least divisive issue in our country.  Who could possible be against educating kids?  Kids, you say? In case we have all forgotten, education is about KIDS.  Not adults, not corporations,  not bottom lines, not test scores.  IT IS ABOUT KIDS.

I am also tired of us blaming NCLB (which I think is wrong and doesn’t work) and the test.  The test doesn’t come into our classrooms and dictate what is taught.  The test doesn’t determine what type of curriculum the administration buys for its students.  The test measures what the student knows and in theory has been taught by their teacher(s).  The test does not dictate what is taught.  People do.  People, not the test, make these decisions.  I am just really tired of the test being blamed.  So, often it is the decisions made by administrators and teachers that dictate a students performance on the test.  I am tired of the test being the scape goat.  When I was teaching high school (at the implementation of NCLB), I was responsible for what my students learned.  I was responsible for their learning.  Were there some students who made the decision to not learn?  Yes.  Was I ever tempted to let that be an excuse to make my job easier?  Yes.  Did I?  No.  I was on them constantly.  Ethically it was my job to teach EVERY SINGLE KID IN MY CLASS.  Every. Kids.

If those kids didn’t do well on the test, it was my fault to some degree.  If they didn’t master some skills.  I was accountable.

We also have to remember that many of the teachers who teach the students who need the best teachers are new and inexperienced teachers–TFA or traditionally trained teachers.  I will say from my personal experience  teaching TFA corps members during their first year, that their toolbox of strategies is not nearly as full as it should be or as full as teachers who have gone through the traditional channels.  But most teachers in their first years are only marginally as effective as they could be.  Teaching to the test is much easier if you are a new teacher–as it’s a road map for what to teach and most schools don’t have a good mentoring program in place to help new teachers into the profession.  There is also (most times) not an effective evaluation and feedback protocol in place to help new teachers and support them to develop the skills they need.

I have found that the class I teach for first year TFA corps members becomes a mentoring class where we talk about how to differentiate and how to plan lessons and how to try different ways to teach material and to talk about why we teach certain things and how important they are.  These are the conversations that new teachers need.  It takes approximately 3-5 years for a teacher to become a fully functioning effective teacher (and if they aren’t by the 5 year mark–then maybe they should be encouraged to find a new profession–our kids deserve the best).  The problem education has is that 50% of teachers leave before they hit the 5 year mark.

So we perpetuate low performance with the high amount of new teachers we have to bring in to the profession, especially in our urban schools, and then they leave when they are the cusp of becoming effective teachers, often citing lack of support as one of the reasons for leaving.

Our system is broken on may levels and to say it’s about a test is simplistic.  To say it’s the teacher’s fault is also simplistic.  To say it’s the students fault–is just wrong.  To blame it on poverty or social status is just an excuse to not work twice as hard.

We need to stop making excuses.  We need to come together and realize it’s about the kids.  We don’t have more time to waste with rhetoric.  It’s time for action.

Urban Schools And Slavery

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Who knew they had many of the same racial ideals embedded in their systemic structure–keeping people in their appropriate place.

Now before you start getting mad at me, education and urban education are my passion and my daily work.  All of my teaching has happened in urban schools with a majority black population.  My kids are black.  But Jada Williams has said what I have been saying, so honestly, that it breaks my heart to be right.  I cried as I heard her speak of how “teachers actions speak volumes”

I am tired of the achievement gap being about the students.  I am tired of teachers who don’t teach kids.  I am tired of administrators who don’t know what teachers are doing in their classrooms.  I will always be a teacher at heart.  I believe teaching is the most noble and most important profession. I also know it is one of the hardest (it comes in a close second to parenting toddles and teenagers). I am disheartened when I hear the first year teachers I teach (TFA teachers) talk about how students can’t do x or y or z.  I ask “What gives you the right or authority to decide what a student can and cannot do?”

I am not looking to bash teachers.  I love and respect teachers.  I am tired of teachers (some not all–but too many) so clearly not doing their jobs (especially in urban schools). I am tired of administrators who allow teachers to not do their jobs.  Jada’s teacher was offended by her essay and made it impossible for Jada to stay at her school and at her next school. You can read the rest of the story here and here.  Go Read It (then come back…also, just a note–I do not share the same political views that the Frederick Douglass Foundation of NY does–but they have the story).

This story makes me sick. This story epitomizes everything that is wrong with our educational system and our society.  It also highlights that the issues are systemic.  Jada should be applauded for her voice and apologized to for 8 years of being failed by the adults in her schools.  She and every student in America deserves better.  Every. Student. Yes even the poor and minority ones.  EVERY. STUDENT.

It is the little things that we do that send the loudest messages. Messages our students internalize about us and themselves.   Jada (and generations of other minority students) has taken in the rhetoric that she and all black students are deemed “unteachable.”  That just floors me. That makes me sad.  Skin color has no link to IQ or academic potential. Kids are smart and intuitive.  Just listen to Jada read her essay–how can you argue that she can’t learn or is unteachable?  Kids who are called unteachable are usually called that by teachers who can’t and don’t teach.

Students will internalize whatever message gets sent.

Teachers who show movies every day send the message “I don’t think you deserve an education or my time.”  Administrators who allow students to slack off send the message “I don’t think you will amount to anything.”  Student who misbehave in class are sending the message “Your lessons are boring and you aren’t teaching or engaging me.”

Students want to learn.  Students want to be successful.  But students know when teachers don’t want them to be or even worse, don’t care if they are successful.  If you are a teacher–what message do you send to your students?  All of your students.  Think about it.  A teacher is the most important indicator of student success.  So, do everyone a favor–TEACH or get out.  Because Jada and every (especially minority) child in this country, mine included, deserve more.  They deserve everything.

 

Thanks For Not Making Me A Liar

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It was a conversation that I had at the beginning of the summer with another mom from my kids school.  Our youngests are in class together and our oldests are one year apart (her daughter is one year older than Noah).  We were having an honest conversation about our expectations for our kiddos and the school and results.  She has fully expected that her oldest child would be reading when she left kindergarten.  She wasn’t and she was a bit disappointed and being honest she was also a bit disappointed that she wasn’t reading before kindergarten. I said then, that I was certain Noah would be reading by the time kindergarten was over, but that I wouldn’t  be totally shocked if he wasn’t as his interest was not as high as I would like it.

I wanted to so badly for Noah to be reading before kindergarten–not in that competitive mom way, but in that “I love to read and it will crush me if my kids don’t” mom kind of way.  I was an early reader and reading is a huge part of my life.  I was a bit sad that Noah didn’t really show much interest in reading in pre-school.  Intellectually, I know that there is huge developmental span and that there was really no reason to be worried until he was getting close to the end of 1st grade to be worried about either his interest in reading and/or his emerging literacy.  But I wanted him to read.  I wanted him to unlock that world of words and stories for himself.

Well we are just starting the 3rd trimester of kindergarten and last night Noah was able to read Dr. Seuss’ Hop on Pop pretty much independently.  He needed some help sounding out some new words, but his list of sight words is growing and he was so proud of himself.

While this is just a first step–we have teacher conferences tomorrow and will get a more detailed reading assessment.  But he is progressing and with 3 months of school left–I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to call him a reader by the time school is out.

 

The Circus

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One of the seemingly endless awesome and totally unconventional things about my kids school is that one of the classes offered in middle school is Circus Skills.  Yesterday, the middle school circus class performed for the younger kids and I have to say Noah and Zoë were impressed.  Even more so than they are by the traditional type circus performances.  They were amazed that kids they knew could balance something on their chin, juggle and walk on a ball at the same time.  Or hula hoop and walk on a ball.  Or ride a bike with one wheel while juggling, etc.  They start learning these skills in Drama starting in preschool and they are built upon until middle school.

They were even more amazed when I told them that they too could be in the Circus at school. I am not preparing my children to be clowns–which is what some people would think.  One of the reasons we chose this school is because of its diverse curriculum and the effect that curriculum has on kids.  My kids go to a school where anything is possible.  Where kids are encouraged to take risks and to learn that they are capable of far more than they even believed they were.  My kids will learn Circus skills.  They will also learn to rock climb, rappel and belay.  They will learn that they can spend a night in the woods by themselves.

These are skills that kids needs to be the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Blake Mycoskie.  Or any other person who started something from nothing more than a dream.  While I can say all of this because my kids are privileged and I know that the academic offering of their school offer the same challenges and require the same risks, I can also say that every student in every schools need to be believed in and believe in themselves.

I love that my kids go to a school where the impossible is made possible.  What if all schools offered that?

Comfort

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

At my age, 40, I should be comfortable in my own skin.  I’m not.  I can change that.  I am working to change that.

I have PCOS.  I cannot change that.  I can learn to manage it.

I cannot do it alone.

I have tried and I have failed.

I can’t change why I am not comfortable.  I can’t change growing up and never feeling good enough.  I can’t change that I haven’t been supported by the one person who should always been in my corner…No. Matter. What.

Toxic relationships can wreak havoc.  I have to separate myself from those relationships–as much as it kills me to.  As much as I wish it could be another way.  Family should support each other and love each other.  Not criticize at every turn.

I have sought out a health coach to work with me on this journey to conquer my PCOS and other obstacles in my way to being healthy.  Part of my not being successful is based in a foolish rebellion.  Once I hit puberty, there was a almost singular focus on my weight by many important people close to me.  I resented it for several reasons…reasons I can’t talk about here, yet.  Every time I eat something not good for me, it’s like turning my nose up at those voices that haunted me as a child, teen and even an adult.

But, it’s time for me to grow up.  Say screw you to those voices and find peace and comfort in my own skin and life.  I can’t eliminate the voices, as they are a part of my life, but I can ignore them.

Working with my health coach is going to be great.  PCOS is a bitch of a syndrome and controls your life in many ways.  I know it make it sound dramatic–it isn’t cancer or lupus or something that could kill me, but it is something that hinders my ability to live the life I was meant to live and feel the happiness that I deserve.  It will require a lot of changes in my life–the way I eat, the way I spend my time, the choices I make.  I know that I will find support from those who truly want me to be happy and understand what it means to be supportive.  I also know that I will get ridicule and judgement from those who don’t know what it means to be supportive.

This battle for PCOS is one that only someone else with PCOS can understand.  It’s like being an alcoholic–only another recovering alcoholic can understand what it feels like.  Talking to my health coach this past week, opened up a damn of emotions that I didn’t have the confidence to unleash, because it is so much more complicated that others see.  I am tired of people just saying eat less and you’ll be healthy or lose the weight you want.  For me it’s not about being skinny.  For me it’s about being healthy.  For me it’s about being me.  For me it’s about being happy.  For me it’s about being the best wife and mother I can.  My husband and kids deserve me at my best.

My husband couldn’t be more supportive and I couldn’t do what I have done these past 16 years if it wasn’t for him.  He has encouraged me and supported me every step of the way and sacrificed what he wanted so that I could do what I needed/wanted.  He encouraged me through my Bachelor’s degree.  He supported me through my master’s degree and through my PhD.  He is amazing and it kills me that people in my family can’t see that.  Don’t see that.  He is an amazing father and it makes me angry that there are people close to me who refuse to see that.  They only see what they want to see.

This journey starts now and the choices will be hard and I won’t be perfect.  But I am not making excuses for myself or for those close to me anymore.  I am not going to apologize for doing what is best for me and my family.