Our Mommyhood

Posts Tagged ‘education’

By Michaela, Contributor, Mama Michie’s Musings (@MamaMichie)

As a child I dreamt of being a ballerina when I grew up… later on I wanted to become a pediatrician. When it came time to go to college I studied German, with the intent on getting some sort of business degree… then I moved to Germany after my first semester.

While in Germany I went to school and got what the Germans call an Ausbildung… I became an Industriekauffrau (an industrial clerk)… had a desk job… it was okay, but it wasn’t great. I had to opportunity to manage my (then) boyfriend’s mother’s house wares boutique. That was fun and just when I thought I was starting to get somewhere and bring in more business, we broke up and I moved back to the states. I went to work at a retail store with the hope of working my way into management.

That never happened. We moved and I moved to another retail job… and then I took the job that brought me to tears on many days and nearly gave me an ulcer… I worked in a call center for a major credit card company (I’m sure most of you have one of their many, many cards in your wallet). I hated that job. HATED it… but it actually didn’t pay too bad, so I stuck with it longer than I thought I would.

When Noah was born though, I started my most demanding job yet… the job of being a mother… it doesn’t have a Monday through Friday work week and you’re on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The pay is crap and you don’t always get recognized for the work and effort you put into doing your job, but it’s the best job I’ve ever had.

I’m going back to school to finish my degree over here, since the schooling I got in Germany doesn’t amount to much over here. I still have to decide if I want to end up with and Early Childhood Education Teaching degree or a degree in Digital Media.  There’s also a part of me that would like to start making soap and have that become my full time work from home job. *sigh*

I think it’s a little sad that I am 32 years old and still have no clue as to what I want my career to be when I “grow up”… I’m happy to say though that I’m already the one thing I  have wanted to be more than anything else… I’m a mother and as far as I’m concerned that’s the best job I’ll ever have!

By Megan

The Economy…

Budget Cuts…

Tighten Up Our Belts…

Reduce Expenses…

I’ve heard these phrases so many times over the last two weeks, I’m going to choke on them.

As is the case with so many school systems, ours has hit a financial crunch. Faced with cutting over $4 million in the immediate future, a list of proposed changes was released. On a Friday. There was going to be a Community Meeting held the following Wednesday, where we would be allowed to voice concerns, ask questions, and get a few answers.

That Community Meeting? It was being scheduled for the day AFTER the school board was to vote on the proposed cuts.

THAT idea went over like a fart in church. After much uproar, the voting was postponed, additional opportunities to meet were scheduled, and some snow fell.

And our fears, as parents, as students, as educators, were realized.

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Next year, unless something substantial changes, there will not be Media Specialists in our elementary school libraries. Of all of the cuts that were proposed, THIS one was, in my mind, the most painful.

(For those of us who are.. older, these are librarians. However, in this modern age, there’s so much more to that role than just wandering among the stacks of books. So, the official title now is Media Specialist. Just to clarify. My school system has just cut elementary school librarians. Middle school, as well.)

Young children, as they are learning to read, are blessed by qualified Media Specialists. Guided class time in the Library/Media Center allows them to explore, learn, touch and absorb the love of literature. As they get older, and more and more of the funding is a function of test scores, reading and retention are vital. I could go on and on (and on) extolling the virtues and importance of having a Media Center Specialist in every school.

I fear for the literacy of our children. I fear that they will not develop the love of reading and writing without that guiding hand. The Dewey Decimal System will be lost, devoured by Google, Bing and Yahoo. Late nights with flashlights, hiding under the covers reading after lights out, replaced by Facebooking on an iPhone. The soft sounds of pages turning will be muffled by the chirp of the next text message.

I will forever be grateful to my childhood librarian. Mrs. O. I hope that, as a parent, I will be able to continue to build the love of reading up in my own kids. As a library volunteer, I hope that I can, in some small way, provide some of that for other kids in our school. But most importantly, I hope that we can find other places to make financial cuts. That we can decide that our kids’ educations are worth far more than what we’re giving them.

In the end, there are no “good” cuts when we look at the financial pictures surrounding the education of our children. There are sensible cuts, there are consolidations, and even concessions to be made. There is fiscal responsibility. But I cannot feel that slicing open the artery that feeds the literacy of our children displays any level of responsibility at all.

Megan shares snippets of her life and random, well caffeinated thoughts as a working mom of three on her blog, All A Bunch of Momsense. Family, food, and fun at your fingertips!