Accept and Appreciate

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

It’s really easy in this world of excess to want it all and to envy those who seemingly have it all or at least who have more than you do.  I’m working hard at accepting where I am and appreciating what I have regardless if it is where I want to be or what I want to have.  It’s hard to do but for me and my husband and our kids it is super important that we start really looking at and talking about what is important and what really matters.

I really started thinking about it this week as the kids began their barrage of wants for Christmas and I looked at the laundry pile (it would shock you–I’m not kidding) and all the clothes left in drawers.  I am an over-consumer.  I might single-handedly be keeping the economy in my little town for tanking completely.  It’s really time to live more simply.  It’s going to be hard.  I admit it.  But Noah is getting to the age where he is beginning to expect a certain life-style and it is time to change it before it is harder to turn back.

We’ll see how it goes.  But I am beginning to accept and appreciate more.  That’s a step.

Who Decides Value?

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

I have to say that for the most part, on a societal level, that the popular media drives our values.  During the CBS evening news there was a story/tribute to Dino De Laurentiis. I feel for his family and their loss, but really–I don’t care.  Why do we put people up on a pedestal.  It’s not like he cured cancer or invented the car.  He made movies.  How has that become so important to warrant a 3 minute segment on the National news?  This is certainly not the only instance of this, but it is really starting to get to me as my children get older and more aware.  It just seems backwards to me that we revere people who play sports, sing, act/make movies.  What about revering the real heros?  Doctors, Public Defenders, Firemen, Policemen, Teachers, Nurses, and Veterans are just a few of the true heroes on our worlds.  They are the ones who should be honored on the evening news and who we should strive to be like.

Part of this says a lot about what our society values and explains why our educational system is as bad as it is.  Every job in our society that is seen as “great” requires little to no education.  Sorry, but it’s true.  Not that our professional athletes don’t get educations at college (as these days most get them) but they aren’t famous or paid millions because they got a college degree and you don’t see many of them out there telling kids how important education is.  Now, I know that we as parents have our role in teaching our children what is important and I’ll make sure that my kids have the values that I do and that education is the most important thing one gets in life.  But what about all those kids whose parents don’t have the time–because they are working.  Or the kids whose parents didn’t get and education and don’t understand the importance?  When we put people up on a pedestal and value what they do, it should be for the right reason.  Is the guy who produces a movie any more important in our world than the guy who runs the line at the facility making school bus engines?  We don’t celebrate that guy–we turn our nose up at that guy because his job isn’t glamorous.

Is someone who acts in a movie or sings for a living more important than the man who runs into a burning building to save a stranger or the lady who stops the guy from breaking into your house while you sleep?  But who do we want to be?  Who do we give more coverage and time too?  Is the guy who scores the winning touchdown more important than the teacher who helps someone learn how to inquire?

Who do you value and why?  It’s time we start valuing what is real and worthy.  Who has the greatest impact on our world?  The actress making 10 million dollars for  3 months of work or the ER doctor who saves your life who makes 70k a year?  I know how I’d answer that, how would you?

A Brief Look At The Birthday Girl

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I’m tired and feeling a bit under the weather.  Sorry for the cheater post.  Promise to tackle much more tomorrow.

The “T” Word

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

I see an alphabet theme starting to emerge.  Steph so graciously asked for my thoughts on tenure and unions.  I’ll be writing about tenure today–after this short PSA.  There is a new report just released by the Council for Great City Schools examining the achievement of black males in America’s public educational system and calls the findings a “National Catastrophe.”  This is not new.  The gap between black males and everyone else has been staggering for sometime.  We keep looking for a quick fix as if there is one factor at work in the achievement gap.  I haven’t read the report yet (too much other stuff to read just now) but I’ll certainly write about it once I do.  (I realize more and more this is becoming an education blog–can’t help myself as an educator and a parent).

Ah Tenure.  It is what teachers and professors strive for.  Who wouldn’t want job security for “life” (in most instances)?  I know most people would totally want that.  There is such a divide in teaching.  I’m going to leave universities alone for the moment as they are a different being than public schools–there is some security for those on the tenure track as opposed to non-tenured public school teachers.  There is also a lot of propaganda surrounding tenure as well and I hope to clear some of those up–at least for my state of Missouri.  I just want to say upfront that I am not a fan of tenure.  As a teacher, I would happily trade tenure for performance base pay.  Tenure is antiquated and to be honest it really isn’t that easy to fire someone–even someone who isn’t doing their job.  Laws are in place to protect teachers, even those who don’t have tenure are guaranteed due-process.

Tenure is archaic.  Tenure was developed to protect academic faculty from wealthy donors to elite universities in the early 1900’s.  It allowed faculty to pursue research agenda’s that might conflict with the university without penalty or job loss.  This idea of tenure is good as without it, I wonder how many discoveries might have been lost or how many ideas would have gone unexplored without tenure.  But tenure for high school teachers?  What academic freedom is being protected there?  I can’t explain why a public school teacher needs tenure. They are bound to due process.  Can school boards decide to fire a teacher?  Yes.  Do they need to prove cause?  Yes.

I can’t speak to the history of tenure in public-schools and I won’t pretend to.  But I can talk about how I think tenure cripples education.  I believe that tenure takes away incentive for teachers to continue learning and growing.  Teachers need to keep learning and perfecting their teaching style.  Tenure lulls teachers into a sense of comfort that somehow allows them to stop working and learning.  This is certainly not the case in all instances.  There are wonderful teachers with tenure and tenure itself isn’t the enemy, but I often have to ask the question “if we are doing our job and doing it well, then what difference does tenure make?”  What other profession has “tenure?”  I don’t want a doctor who has tenure and hasn’t had to learn anything new in 10 years.

I want teachers who are striving and learning and reading and researching.  I want teachers who want to learn and teach the best that they can in classrooms.  And in my eyes, tenure (in public schools–and to some degree in universities) breeds comfort and the status quo.  That, in my eyes, hasn’t worked thus far.

The “C” Student

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 4 Comments

With the great debate going on that has polarized the education world with the mentality of “us” vs. “them,” it is important to be honest about who many of our teachers are.  I know right now that this post is going to ruffle some feathers, but I speak from personal experience in many ways.  I was and still am a teacher.  This isn’t the voice of an outsider.

A larger percentage of students in teacher education programs are C students.  Most A and B students don’t go into education.  They just don’t.  There I said it.  Teacher colleges (aside from the elite schools) are filled with mediocre students.  I notice this in the work I do with student teachers and pre-service teachers. I know this from the work I do as an NCATE reviewer for English Education programs.  I know this because I was a teacher.  Who we are as teachers is how we see our students.  It is how we judge our students and compare them to others.  When teachers see students who are trying as hard as they can and are still only achieving at the average level–that level becomes the A level.  I know there are those teachers of you out there saying “no,” “why not reward growth?”  Well I am here to call you out.  Really you don’t do that?  If you don’t do it now, didn’t you do it in the beginning?  I will admit that I did.  I would see students grow and change and put in so much effort without real gain and I would empathize with them.  I would want to reward them for their hard work.  All I was doing was making myself feel better and setting them up for failure.  It took me a year of teaching and researching to realize what I was doing and that it wasn’t about rigor or good education.

Most teacher prep programs have a required GPA of 2.5.  Really?  That is so low.  I know it’s okay to have a C student as president, but I certainly don’t want one as my doctor nor as my child’s teacher.  Shouldn’t our classrooms be staffed with the brightest teachers we can get?  I really think this is why TFA (Teach for America) has been so successful.  While many of their corps members don’t teach a subject they have a degree in, they are smart.  Smart is important.  Smart is what creates ideas.  Smart is what challenges beliefs and the status quo.  Our educational system (public) was not created to build intellectual capacity of the citizens in America.  If it was, uneducated women (no offense) wouldn’t have been the first teachers in public education.  I have always felt that our teacher education admission requirements were too low.  If we have low standards for our teachers, how can we expect them to have high standards for their own?

Education for too long has accepted mediocrity and perpetuated it.  I’m not sure how to change it or fix it.  I do  know that we should let just anyone who wants to be a teacher be one.  I’m sorry if that is politically incorrect, but it’s true.  We don’t let anyone who wants to be a doctor be one.  We should have high standards.  If a person wants to work hard and is smart enough then of course let’s train them to be a teacher.  These are our kids lives at stake.  Three years of having a bad teacher increase exponentially the chance that child won’t finish school.  Aren’t our children worth the demands and rigor?  I know that mine are.  I know that everyone’s are.  It’s time for a change and it has to be systemic.  If we want our children to succeed we have to have teachers who know how to succeed–not just get by.