Valuing the Wrong Things

Things I learned today:
1). Never eat Little Ceaser's and attempt to go for a run.
2). Never eat Little Ceaser's. Ever.
3). When the stars align, it is possible to hear the same song on four different radio stations.
4). The rate of dislike of a song increases exponentially for each additional radio station the song is heard on.
5). While I have faith in people to do the right thing, right now I believe that we as a community are valuing the wrong things.

More on that last one here:

A while back I wrote about Robert Kennedy. I honestly don't remember what I wrote about, so I don't recommend going back to find it, but trust me, I read a memoir about him and wrote about it.

At any rate, RFK came back into my mind as I started to think about the things we value in America. Let me take you to the start of this thought process. This weekend I ventured over to Family Video to rent a few films. I've been doing pretty well with my goals and wanted to spend some time just hanging out. I rented 'Midnight in Paris,' which I think is a wonderful flick that helps to feed the imagination. Plus, I really like Woody Allen movies and the characters that show up in his films.

At Family Video, there is an anniversary sale going on. I've been there twice now and still don't entirely understand the sale and what movies are at a discount, but I knew that I could get two new releases for a good price. So, perusing the aisles I found one copy of a movie called 'American Teacher.' Its a documentary by Vanessa Roth, narrated by Matt Damon, and starring several teachers from a variety of schools across America. Exhibit A of how we are valuing the wrong things: there are multiple copies of all three Transformers movies and 'American Teacher' had one single copy that was not checked out late on a Saturday night.

The main premise for the film is to shed some light on what the life of a teacher is really all about, showing how teachers use much of their own salaries to get supplies, many sacrifice their own family time to help these kids, and how many are taking part in a variety of other jobs to make ends meet. It seemed to take particular aim at mud slung from pundits calling for education reform and refute the suggestion that teachers are lazy and only looking to have summers off.

For me, the movie was satisfactory, though I must admit, I lost a bit of interest as the film dragged on. This was due mostly because I felt the point was made well before the final say of the movie, which is to say, teachers have it rough, and if we all thought about valuing teaching and education more, many of the problems we face could be righted. At the very least, the profession itself would be viewed with more respect, a point I found personally impactful as this very day a student came to my office looking to change from education to something where she could get a job and make some money. (While we left without a conclusion, I think I convinced her to stay in education.)

For critics, I think the movie was a bit lack-luster. The reviews I read seemed to allude to a desire for this movie to be the kryptonite to 'Waiting for Superman,' a task that this movie did not accomplish. However, I don't believe that was the goal of the movie. While 'Waiting for Superman' seemed to think it had all the answers through demonizing the wrong things and showing flashy statistics, 'American Teacher' was simply a look at the life of a teacher in the city, rural America, urban center, and the impact that a teacher who left the profession had on a community. It showed some statistics, but it was more a story about the teachers and the well-being of our educators and the young minds they educate.

There has long been a push to reform education. Supposedly, it is one of the important issues for 'we the people' that we want corrected. But, it seems that we don't really want to have to do anything or change our ways in anything to make reform happen. Which, if you think about reform, this is very paradoxical. As long as it doesn't cost us any extra, as long as it doesn't require more effort from me, and as long as the comforts and qualities that I am used to are still there tomorrow, I'm all for it. At least, that's how I view the standard view on education.

I don't claim to have a silver bullet to any problems, and I can't say that anyone has argued they do have the silver bullet (though 'Waiting For Superman' and Fox News seem to think they know what's best.) But, from where I sit, it looks to me like there is a crisis in what we truly value. As a solution to really addressing any issues, we have turned to numbers: test scores, college acceptance rates, graduation rates, and overall a small portion of education that seems to be all that is measurable. And it appears that at least in some cases, we know how to manipulate these numbers. Schools have been smart in adjusting to the mandates that have been thrown on them, by inflating test scores, teaching to the test, and overall succumbing to the demands of people who don't know much about education, but do know that if we make the numbers higher on certain data points, it looks better overall.

But, I question if that is really what we want to be focused on. Data is helpful to a certain extent. I work in an environment where everything is data driven and major decisions are based on data that has been received. But, to base our entire education system on data that conforms everything to be the same for every school and every kid seems a bit contradictory. Don't we want to help all our future generations have a chance at doing something different? Don't we want our kids to have basic skills to take what we know and turn it on its head? I often fear that because I grew up in a time when education was so test driven and critical thinking void that I may end up being a mindless drone for the rest of my life.

'American Teacher' didn't offer concrete solutions. What it did suggest is a refocus of what we truly value. We all agree that teachers are a huge part of the success of a school and the success of a student. But, teaching is a laughable profession. And it goes well beyond trying to pay teachers doctors' salaries. Most teachers aren't in it for the money, which is a very good thing. What the increased pay would do, or at least increased pay as the career developed, is help make the profession reputable and allow teachers to sustain a living. It only makes sense that the people in charge of educating the next generation should be valued above all else. Yet here were are paying doctors, lawyers, and business people the highest pay of all. And naturally, what do kids (and kids' parents) want to do with their lives? They follow the money. And for what? Protecting our mortality? Protecting our assets? Its no wonder that we are all suffering from information overload, our best and brightest are continually finding ways to infiltrate our markets with ads because, well, we're paying them to do it!

The point 'American Teacher' was making, and a point that I must agree with, is that we seem to have it all backwards and upside-down. The things we value, at least in my opinion, are very self-motivated. While we all agree we want better schools and less poverty and less homelessness in the world, we put our money, which is speech according to the Supreme Court, in all the wrong places. We all feel quite trapped in needing to spend our money on gadgets and cars and houses, but it seems to me that we still do have the power to say what we want. We don't have millions of dollars, but if we all started to buy local foods, the demand goes up, the price goes down, and the food industry starts to produce better food for us. With better food the number of diseases and obesity cases falls and we have less need for doctors. With less need for doctors we can start to encourage students to go into education and use their smarts to encourage other kids to pursue their dreams.

RFK spoke in 1968 about how the GDP measures all the wrong things. The GDP doesn't calculate the well-being of people. Perhaps we have allowed these types of measures to drive us for so long that we forgot that we still do hold the power. We've relinquished so much that it won't be easy to get it back, but if we hold what is valuable in a position of true value; if we demand that the things we truly think are important get the attention they deserve, then maybe we can start to make great changes for the future. Listen to RFK's speech here and think about how his words are still true today.