Societial Issues

What Work/Life Balance, Not Allowed?

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

This op-ed in the NY Times caused quite a bit of stir last week.  I was surprised to not read/hear more about it in my own internet circles, but I didn’t.  Part of that might be that I work in Academia and work is already pretty flexible–much more so than for those in traditional occupations.  Several mothers I know are doctors and many of them work part-time while their children are young.  I was listening to yesterday’s Tell Me More on NPR and there was a segment with the doctor who wrote the article and other medial mothers.  One of the things that shocked me, even in this glorified SAHM vs Working mom argument that has grown tiresome, was that it appears that it is no longer okay for women (or men) to make the decision that works for their family.

This quote from Siebert, the op-ed author rubbed me the wrong way:

The current discussion really is, you take women in that 35 to 44-year-old age group who ought to really be shooting for the moon in terms of what they want to do with their lives as physicians and that’s the highest group that are part-time. Men that are working part-time tend to do it as – again, a broad generalization – later in their careers, perhaps when they have health problems or are cutting back. But in those prime years, when you should be doing the work that you love to do and you want to do for the rest of your life, that’s where we’re seeing the predominance of women.

I don’t like the implication or assumption that at a certain age we should be dedicating our entire life to our career as though it is our only chance.  There isn’t just one path.  Hell I am going to be 40 and I am still in school and have only been working full-time for 8 months after taking time off to raise my kids.  I also took a job that is like part-time because it is flexible and allows me to work and still be able to take and pick my kids up from camp, go on field trips, work from home if the kids are sick.

Our world is changing and our expectations should be of others as well.  Just because a women can work doesn’t mean she has to sacrifice family life for work life.  We have expected for too long that work should come first and that everything else should come second.  I don’t agree with that.  I agree we should all have the choice, but that we can’t and shouldn’t fault women or men for making choices that we don’t or wouldn’t.  Many women work part-time while their kids are young–if they are able too and don’t get me started on how we should make that more women and men can have the work/life balance they want and their families need–and then they return to work full-time when their children are older and they can devote more time to their chosen profession.

Why do we spend our energy blaming women for the choices they make.  Shouldn’t we all be supporting each other and our choices?

Stealing Their Hope, Damning Their Future

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 3 Comments

Last night, I was riveted by Dan Rather’s lastest HDNet show episode “A National Disgrace.”  It’s an expose on the Detroit public schools.  I only caught the last hour on TV last night but will watch the rest of it today on iTunes.  As an educator, this show made me cry.  The one student that they chronicle (that you will see in the clip) is representative of generation after generation of students whose future has been stolen.  Whose hope has been thrown away.  Whose dreams have been smothered.  I know this sounds harsh, but it is time that we are honest about the schools who serve our urban poor.  This is a population with no voice and no power.  This is a population that continues to grow and who we continue to ignore.

Deana (in the above clip) was lucky.  The camera men and production staff were heartbroken for her–she wanted to learn; she wanted to succeed.  They secured tutors for her and helped her with her college applications and explained her financial options (Rather remarks that it is nothing more than a guidance counselor would do) and she got into a four-year college–the first in her family.  This is quite a feat for someone who went to a district where teachers routinely don’t show up and kids can sit in classes without teachers for weeks and weeks and where only ~25% of students graduate high school.

As I was watching this,  I realized this report isn’t just about Detroit Public Schools.  This report is about every urban district and every school that we allow to steal our children’s future.  These are our children.  As a society, we cannot allow this to continue.  We can’t operate from the mindset that “my kids aren’t in those schools, so it doesn’t effect me.”   Because it does effect us.  It affects our countries ability to compete globally.  As our minority populations grow and our white population decreases, our educated class dwindles.  We can’t ignore the education that our poor and minority students aren’t getting.  No longer can we sit by and see these populations as something that can be thrown away.  No longer can we say–“pass them and let the world fail them.”  It is criminal what happens in our urban schools.  I know this first hand.  I taught in urban schools and I supervise student teachers in my own urban district.  I can tell you that what Rather exposes here is reality.  We can’t turn a blind eye.  We are letting generation after generation be damned to a life they don’t deserve.

I have seen teachers who show movies every day of the school year so they can sleep. I have seen teachers do nothing but assign worksheets so they could not teach.  I have seen teachers give up on students because it was too much trouble to care.  We can’t sit by and let this happen.  My kids are in private school and I have said before how lucky we are that it’s a choice and that we sacrifice a great deal to spend that money.  There are more families than not who don’t have that choice.  I shouldn’t have to make that choice for my kids.  If I didn’t live in the city, then I would have different choices.  But I choose to work in urban schools to make a difference.  Every child deserves a quality education.  Every child deserves to reach their potential and to know what their potential is.  Every child deserves adults who nurture them and want to teach them.  It makes me cringe.  It makes me sad.

So often it is our urban schools who get all the attention, but our rural schools face the same problems.  While I argue that a huge piece of this unequal education system we have is tied to race, the other huge piece of it is tied to socioeconomic status.  The poor also have no voice and by poor, I mean people who live in under-developed countrysides who might have great personal resources but as a community they have no status or leverage.

Education in our country is political and about power and it shouldn’t be (just like Healthcare shouldn’t be–that’s another post).  These are kids lives that are being played with and that isn’t fair.  Education needs to put children first and so many of our policies and choices have nothing to do with children and everything to do with the adults.  We can’t wait.  Everyday that goes by that we don’t face head on and fix this problem in the best interest of kids, another generation is doomed to fail and another piece of our economy disappears forever.  The time to act is now.

http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#gahRgreZWgI

Washington Could Learn Something From The College School

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

It is no secret that my kids go to private school and that we love their school.  It is also no secret that I myself am a liberal–I freely admit it.  I don’t think life is about amassing personal wealth and I don’t think that the goal of a society should be to protect individual wealth.  Who the hell does that help?  Individuals and I know that those of you who are wealthy might have a different take, but I don’t think so.

I hate that I live in a country that has cities like mine—I love my city, but hate that if I want my child to have a GREAT education then I have to send my kid to private school.  I am lucky that we have the means to do it.  I’m lucky I have a spouse willing to sacrifice nearly everything fun in life to pay for private school.  But we are even luckier to be part of the community and family that is The College School.  We wouldn’t be able to send our kids without a little financial aid–we just couldn’t afford full tuition– we have too much debt and student loans.  Education is expensive and anyone who says that good education isn’t–is not being completely honest.  It takes a lot to education children well–you have to pay more for great teachers and great materials and experiences.

The schools biggest fundraiser each year is an auction–silent and live.  It is a really nice night–dinner, drinks, and socializing.  I went last year and it was really great and the feeling and sense of community in the room was amazing.  But it didn’t hit me last year like it did this year.  The beauty of this community.  The highlight is usually the donations to the unrestricted endowment–money that last year was used to buy a secondary campus and to renovate the little gym into the theater.  Money that keeps the school amazing and allows for my children to get a one of a kind education.

The auctioneer starts with asking someone to donate $10,000.  He asked last year on a bit of a lark and someone did–so that is where he started this year and another family did.  then he asked for $5000 and 6 families donated, then $2500 and more families, then $1000 and more families, etc.  $80,000 later everyone in the room who could donate something did to the endowment.  What is nice is that the $50 gifts were met with the same applause as the $10,000.  If it wasn’t for people who paid more, then people like us couldn’t pay less.  If I had more, I would pay full tuition so that someone else could get our financial aid, but I am glad that the aid is available for us.

I don’t understand why those in power–okay I’ll say it REPUBLICANS–I don’t understand how they can’t see that.  We are all people wanting the best in life for our families and children.  I am not getting something for free-we still pay a lot for our kids to go to school but not as much as others.  It really is about shared sacrifice and I think that is what makes me the most mad about this nation is that we have lost our sense of community.  It has become the top 1% versus the bottom 50% and that just isn’t right.  Over the last 10 years the average salary of the bottom 50% has grown by less than $1.00 but the income for the top 1% has grown by 400%.  That just doesn’t seem fair or just or right.

I am proud to be sending my kids to a school where everyone is treated the same regardless of what they pay.  That no matter how much or how little one gives or even at all, everyone is valued the same.

Why can’t Washington see that?

Rich Kids Get Taught, Poor Kids Get Tested

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 3 Comments

This idea has been rumbling around my head for years.  As I continue the preliminary work on my dissertation, mentor urban high school teachers and work with charter schools, I find this to be more and more true.  Testing has become the new “reform” movement in urban education.  And not just annual testing–but every 6 week testing.  As a researcher, I can appreciate the need/desire for data.  As a teacher, I appreciate the need for data.  It is the means by which we gauge how our students are doing.  But it has to be contextualized.  When we test just to test there is no context for the student and without context and prior knowledge, the test and its questions are meaningless.

Tests and assessments of where students are and how they are doing, should be formative and not standardized.  This isn’t to say that standardized tests don’t have a place at the table, but they should be the only guests invited.  Too often they are the only guests in urban schools, leaving our poor and too often minority kids being tested instead of taught.  This focus on testing also limits the type of education they are exposed to and leads to a curriculum that is grounded in test prep benchmarks and not grounded in what is good for kids.  There are so many reasons why this irritates me and one of them is that it prevents me from sending my kids to public schools in the city where I live.  There are no options available, charter or traditional, that do not have a central focus on testing and measuring, that I can send my kids to.  This isn’t to say that some of these schools whose central standard of evaluation is testing, do not offer a decent education for kids, but the level of education is dictated and restricted by the testing and doesn’t fit with my kids needs or my philosophy of education.

I hate that there aren’t public school options that mirror my own educational philosophy in my city.  The suburban schools are better on so many levels–because the tests are just part of what happens and most only use the state standardized test and that test doesn’t dictate content or experience.  I also am irritated that almost every new school that opens follows this testing model as though it is the only urban reform that works. It is the easiest urban reform, but not the only one.  I long for a new public school to open that actually thinks about how kids learn and not how to best test kids. If there was a public school option that actually put kids learning first and testing at the end of the line, I would stop paying $14k a year per kid for private school.

Now don’t get me wrong, I believe that students need to be assessed.  We must know where our students are strong and where they are weak, but there are many other ways to assess a student beyond a nationally normed standardized test.  My son is assessed regularly and both of his teachers can tell me at any time where he is excelling and where he is struggling and his school does not use standardized tests and doesn’t have textbooks–aside from Math starting in 5th grade.  The school produces National Merit Scholars (5 this year).  Yes the school is made up of middle-class and upper-middle class families.  But I argue that I want the exact same things for my kids that all parents want for their kids–a great education.  I want the same thing for my kids that I believe every kids deserves.

The education I have chosen for my kids is not for every child.  I think that is why choice is so important.  Sure as new schools open, they are giving parents a choice but not the level of choice that parents needs.  Some kids need more hands on learning, some kids need more freedom, some kids need strict structure.  We have to have choices, but choice for choice sake isn’t enough.  We need real choices.  We need philosophical choices.  We need pedagogical choices.  We need to work with parents to allow them to pick the best environment for their children.

We need a revolution in education lead by educators and parents.  Not by master marketers,  businessmen and politicians.  Choice must be part of it, but it has to be real choice that offers something different.  Something better.  Something that puts kids first.  We can argue that the good models are the restrictive, extended day charter schools that focus on testing.  But where is the something different to compare them too?  One size does not fit all and if this is the only road we are going to explore, we will end up exactly where we are now, wondering what the answer is and how we fix our educational system.

Crap–I’m going to have to start my own flippin school.

“Reason Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of listening to Leonard Pitts, Jr speak today (the title of this post are his words and this post is inspired by the talk he gave today).  I might have been living under a rock when the Tyler Clementi suicide happened.  I did post some thought on cyberbullying and bullying in general, but this takes the case and is really just one example of how the Internet (which I love) has become a way for hate and ignorance to be spewed without any thought that there are real people involved in these events.

Clint McCance, a school board member of a district in Arkansas, wrote the following on his facebook page on “Spirit Day” when people were encouraged to wear purple to show their support of LGBT folks.

Seriously, they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We aer honoring the fact that they sinned and killed themselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.

He responded to a comment on his page with this,

I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.

The Internet, while totally awesome, has gotten out of control in so many ways.  It’s not that McCance and others (just read the comments to news articles in your hometown newspaper) haven’t always been hateful and judgmental people, it’s just that they wouldn’t have said these things to someone, especially if they didn’t know them.  But now…many people don’t think twice about saying something outlandish about someone they don’t even know.  It’s just insane.  I would never think to “flame” someone in a comments section for their opinion–no matter how much I disagree.  I might disagree respectfully with some facts, but I wouldn’t just call them names.  That’s just uncivilized.

According to the “right” Wikipedia is biased to the left and therefore, they created Conservapedia with the tag line “the trustworthy encyclopedia” (Trying not to judge–but really).  I had never heard of Conservapedia before today.  I love that they call themselves “trustworthy” I again am using the example used my Mr. Leonard Pitts, Jr.  Conservapedia says the following as its definition of Liberal

A liberal (also leftist) is someone who rejects logical and biblical standards, often for self-centered reasons. There are no coherent liberal standards; often a liberal is merely someone who craves attention, and who uses many words to say nothing.[1] Liberalism began as a movement for individual liberties, but today is increasingly statist and, as in Europe, socialistic.

Wikipedia says the following of Conservative

Conservatism (Latin: conservare, “to preserve”)[1] is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism and seek a return to the way things were.[2][3] The first established use of the term in a political context was by François-René de Chateaubriand in 1819, following the French Revolution.[4] The term has since been used to describe a wide range of views.

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty clear to me where the bias is.  These examples (thanks again Mr. Pitts, Jr) are prime examples of what is wrong in our world and sadly, I see no real change in sight.  The internet has opened a forum for people to speak anonymously (relatively speaking–I don’t have to worry about someone hitting me if I offend them).  I’m not sure where we go from here as a society but we have to teach our children about this new modality of communication and the implications it has and that while we are now communicating with a screen that there are real people on the other end and they are people who feel and love and care.