(Rick, this is from my wife, who left HP last July and is a facilitator
and meeting manager for several national school reform organizations. She
also teaches in the graduate level teacher training program at San Jose
State. Unlike me, she gets passionate about things like this. :-)
Joe )
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This is in reply to the posting on profit motive. While it may be as good
an answer as is ever given to the question, I still disagree with the
answer a lot. The key section is:
"We talk about it (money) so much because it's the way we keep score."
You see, he was saying, it's about self-esteem, about being successful,
about doing the best job you can, about earning the respect of your
clients and your peers, about self-worth. How much good did I do for
society last year? It's hard to measure directly but, indirectly, it's
measurable by how much money I made. Because money is what society gives
me in return for providing a valuable service. It's my community's
measure of my value and that's why it's important to me.
Money is ONE measure of how the community values you, and only one of
many. It is mostly the measure used by people who don't know you, who
measure the results of your work at a distance and usually anonymously.
The measures by people who do know you, your closest community, are love,
respect, faithfulness, trust, etc. So when I consider my self-esteem, my
success, I have to ask if I care more about how I am measured by people
who know me least or by people who know me best. Is one child more
successful than another because she makes more money? Should her self
esteem be higher? Is she more valuable? Well, yes, but only on one scale
of many, and in my mind, it is far from the most important scale.
And by the way, while I'm ranting, one problem with large comprehensive
high schools is that they prepare people for a life of being evaluated by
those who know them least.
Hudi Podolsky
Hudip@earthlink.net
[Host's Note: Thanks, Joe and Hudi! ..Rick]
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