If I Had a Million Dollars

On our honeymoon, my husband and I went on a cruise. My husband participated in the nightly karaoke sessions, but one time I was actually brave enough to take the stage with him when we sung the following song, which has always been a favorite:



I really do love this song and catch myself singing it all of the time, but, during one of my recent impromptu bursts of song, it suddenly got me thinking, 

What if I really had a million dollars? What would I do with it?

I thought about it for awhile and I am ready to answer that question so that I can be prepared, just in case someone decides to finally drop off my million dollars!

7 Things I Would Do If I Had a Million Dollars:

1. I'd Pay Off My House

The mortgage, the true ball and chain! If I had a million dollars, I think that would be the first thing I would attack.  I feel like doing that gives me a long term gift of money every single month when I don't have to make that payment anymore! How exciting is that?

Without question that is the first thing on my list. Gladly, that still leaves me with quite a chunk of change, so let's move on...

2. Home Reapirs

Well, now that I'm keeping it, let's use some of this money to make it just the way I'd like it! This isn't a case of just sprucing up the place, this house needs some very serious help - we have not yet recovered our basement from flood damages, we have broken doors and doorknobs on every entrance, one dog had lots of fun ripping out window panes when upset and while one bathroom is in the midst of a remodel now, the other is just plain frightful.

Wrapped in this portion of my spending would be fixing up my backyard. There is so much potential back there for gardening, recreation and relaxation. Someday, with my million or not, I hope to help it realize that potential.

3. Renewable Energy Updates

Once the house has been brought up to date and is sturdy enough to hold up some additions, I would like to add solar panels on our roof and see if there is a possibility of adding a windmill anywhere on our property. I seriously don't understand why all houses and buildings aren't equipped with these (I know a lot of people are financially restrained, as we are) now. My husband and I keep crunching the numbers on these and hope that someday soon it will add up for us!

4. Pay Off Student Loans/Medical Bills/Debt

Should this be higher on my list? Eh. Maybe. The medical bills probably make up the largest chunk of change and the ones I need to pay off first. All three of these are getting chipped away at bit by bit, so it would be nice to be freed of them once and for all. Kind of like the mortgage, paying these off would be kind of like giving myself a little extra money each month.

5. Get a Cabin in the Woods

My brother and I have been talking about this a lot lately. When we were younger our grandfather had a cabin in upstate New York that the whole family would use multiple times a year. It's where we learned how to shoot rifles, fish, swim in lakes, climb mountains (OK... they probably weren't really mountains), chop and collect wood, build fires, sleep on cots and survive (EASILY!) without television. We want this back. We want to get a cabin together so we can continue the tradition. This is definitely on my million dollar list!

6. Donate at least 1% to Worthy Causes

There are so many causes that deserve support and need it. I, of course, would send some money to  the Intracranial Hypertension Research Foundation (www.ihrfoundation.org) for all the help they've given me, to Crohns and Colitis Foundation of America (www.ccfa.org) for all the help they gave my mother and then I think I would like to explore other charities/nonprofits to see who and how they help out to decide who I would help out even more. In the end, I'm leaning toward more of a 5% give rate for this sum of money, but, since I haven't run that by the hubby I feel safe committing to at least 1% (because anything less than that, then HE'S going to have problems!).

7. Invest & Save (With Purpose)

I think this is by far the most important part of my million dollar spending. Every single investment made is a vote for a company's products, principles and policies. I would have to become a more hands-on type of investor. I would have to learn about various businesses and companies so I could make more educated decisions about whether or not I wanted my money to back such ventures.

I would invest in local companies to ensure that jobs are created and sustained in my community. I would invest in environmentally responsible companies to make sure my money is where my mouth is. I would invest in companies that I believe in and I am proud of. I would invest in companies that understand that there is more at stake than their bottom lines. I don't expect that this type of investing would be easy, but with a large sum of cash and the type of influence it could potentially have over a business or two, it is worth the effort.

So... What would YOU DO???

This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented and I do my best to respond to the query.  You are invited to as well. This week's "What if?" was

What if you received one million dollars today?

What if #10

This post is an invitation to you to think about the word in the middle of life: IF (L-IF-E). Each week the Rivera Runs Through It blog will present a different "What If...?" question for you to explore. Some will be serious, some will be silly, some might be political, religious or historical.

You can either write a response of your own, or just tune in to see what everyone else has to say about it. At the bottom of this post will be a place for you to link up your own post about the question, so feel free to share. If you have arrived at this post and the inlinkz tool is closed, or you don't have a blog, then please leave your response (or link) in the comment section below using DISQUS.

Happy pondering to everyone...

What IF #10:

What if you received one million dollars today?

No strings attached, after taxes, commitment-free you have mysteriously received the amount of $1,000,000 to do with what you like! A dream come true for most, a possible nightmare for others, but the questions remain:

• What does it mean for you? 
• What do you do with it?
• How does it change your life, your relationships, your family?
• Will you use it sensibly, frivolously, philanthropically, or just save it all? 

There are tons of things to think about and write about on this "what if," so take the plunge! Let us know your perspective and read what others had to say. 

Or take this in a completely fun direction and write about how you think you got this money - stretch your creative muscles to write a fictional tale!

I look forward to the responses, link up or comment below!

For a list of all of the What if questions asked so far, 

see The What If Prompts

Paid for School: My Thoughts As a Teacher

When you are in front of the room with a lesson in hand, questions ready, poignant points to preach and waiting anxiously for, more than anything else, questions, conversations and discussions from and with your students about the topic at hand, nothing, I mean nothing, is more heartbreaking than empty seats. The battle is lost before it has even begun. The occupant of that seat will miss this lesson, you, as a teacher, will miss one more day to get to know them better as a student and as a person.

How do we fix this problem?

• We call home.
• We call their cell phones (if they were silly enough to give us the numbers!)
• We make attendance part of the grading policy.
• We make attendance part of the school's policy, the district's policy.
• We send letters.
• We send people from the school to the home.
• We have truancy officers patrolling outside the school and in the neighborhood.
• We walk the hallways during our free periods.
• We publicly congratulate those with perfect attendance.
• We send e-mails.
• We put our attendance online for parents to access.

We do a lot more. Yet, some seats remain empty. For this reason, teachers and education professionals as a whole are open to suggestions. This is why I am not surprised AT ALL by the program presented in Camden, NJ this year called ICE-T ("I Can End Truancy") which is using a state grant to pay a small group of students (I have read 66 students) $100 on September 30th if they attend every day of school until then as well as an anger-management course. Is this THE solution? Probably not, but it might be one solution.

Here's the thing, we talk about students en masse as if they are all the same, all to be treated the same way, all motivated by the same things and all coming from the same environment, but they ARE NOT. You were a student once (maybe you still are), are you exactly the same as every other person you went to school with? Did you all perceive school the same way? Did you all enjoy the same successes in the same classes? I don't even know who you are thinking about right now and I know the answer is NO.

Some people are intrinsically motivated, not requiring any kind of outside input to want to learn, get good grades, be at school, or be active in the school community. Most others require some sort of extrinsic motivation, whether it be positive or negative, to do the same things. The types of extrinsic motivation also vary from parental pride/disappointment, grades/college choice, scholarships, money or social status (just to name a few!). I think these are just the facts. And I do believe that there is a portion of the population that could be positively motivated by being paid to go to school.

I understand the dissent expressed by many that paid students may get used to a "handout" mentality, or that students may feel that they are entitled to some sort of payment for their schooling, however, I have two over-arching issues in my mind that argue those down:

1. The money should not be "free"and the value of the education must be appreciated by ALL. Valuable learning outweighs monetary bonuses in the long-run. While students are motivated by this little carrot, they should be exposed to the best program available. There should be evidence of the greater gain that they can continue to appreciate if they invest themselves in their education.
2. Sometimes being motivated by money says more than "I like handouts." A student motivated by money may really be saying, "I'm hungry," or "I'm tired" or "I didn't think I could help my family by going to school." I've lost the battle with too many students over the years that chose the workforce over the classroom simply because their family needed it. Good students. Students that I could have long and difficult conversations about their life as it spread out before them conflicted with the reality of their TODAY. If such a grant existed for these students... If my students didn't have to choose between putting off their own education until their younger siblings were grown up enough to all hold part-time jobs together, rather than those of age splitting bills by working around the clock in jobs rather than careers.

SO... What IF Students Got Paid To Go To School?

Just like any other motivational tool, I think money would help with some students, hurt with others, make absolutely no difference with a select group, and ultimately fail if not implemented correctly and carefully. It can work if done correctly, if we can just find some wonderful source to fund it!

This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented and I do my best to respond to the query.  You are invited to as well. This week's "What if?" was

What if students were paid to go to school?


 [I also answered this question from the perspective of a learner, to read that response, see Paid for School: My Experience As A Learner] 

Paid for School: My Experience as a Learner

Money as a Reward for Attendance
 
The first experience I had attaching money to any school performance was self-inflicted. I was in college. I had met this guy at my part-time job in the Mall and I had started skipping classes like crazy! I went to a really small college and had a cool, small group of friends that I used to hang out with in some abandoned lounge in the science building. We were all getting too comfortable now that we were reaching the end of our college careers (I believe it was my third year) - we were all skipping classes (sometimes just hanging in the lounge doing puzzles, exploring pi, or nerd-ing it up in some other way)! We came up with a plan: Let's make a skipping jar! Basically, we decided we had to pay $1 to the jar for each class we skipped and whoever skipped the least amount of times at the end of the semester would win the pot.

I didn't win. I didn't even come close. I believe I was the largest contributor, actually. Happy ending? I married the guy. (Good investment!)

Money As An Added Bonus for Learning
 
The next time I came across money for school was after I became a teacher. I was new to the job, teaching grades I had no previous plans to teach and was desperate for help wherever I could get it. I signed up for and went to professional development classes almost every single Friday of my first year of teaching. I loved it, it was exactly what I needed. I usually picked up at least one good tip from each session, sometimes from the instructor, but, even more often, from the others in the class with me. It was valuable in its content, but then these people were paying me to go there too! I simply could not understand why all of the teachers in my department weren't signing up for this!

It didn't stop there. I was a math teacher in a NYC public high school. In the late 90s/early 2000s there was money everywhere for people like me. I have had the pleasure of learning at a number of higher learning institutions, from and with some of the leading professionals in the fields of education, math and math education. I would have paid for these programs if I could have (I probably would have had to choose only one, instead of having so many opportunities), but, instead I GOT PAID TO LEARN. It still baffles me. Here's a a quick run-down of some memorable programs:

• New York University: I took two courses (no one else was interested when year 2 came around!!) on teaching English-Language Learners in the content areas.
• Brooklyn College: I took two courses and then was invited back for a third semester for a "leaders" group on H.O.T. Math (H.O.T. stood for "Higher Order Thinking")
• City College/City University: I was given three immersion courses in one summer - one on problem solving, one on graphing calculator skills and one on Geometer's Sketchpad
• College of Staten Island: I shadowed a group of high school students learning Statistics in two courses - one that was pure methodology and the other that used the graphing calculator technology. I had a full notebook of tons of learning from that which was extremely valuable when I was unexpectedly asked if I would like to teach Advanced Placement Statistics almost ten years later!
• Rutgers College/Rutgers University: DIMACS was life-changing for me. Changed my theories of learning, taught me about a division of Mathematics I had never heard of (Graph Theory) and allowed me to be a coauthor on an article in a Mathematics journal (nerd points!!). This was a month-long program for two summers in a row.

Did I mention that I got PAID for all of this fantastic learning??? Still completely unbelievable to me.

This Student's Conclusion About Getting Paid to Go to School

I am a life-long learner. Even when I skipped my classes, it wasn't for a lack of love for learning, it was simply because this silly girl fell in love with a guy. Money has never been a motivator for me to go to school, it has, instead, been a greatly appreciated bonus for all of the hard work put in. However, what has continued to baffle me as a student is how the money is not a motivator for more people! In almost all of the programs listed above (except Rutgers) there were definitely people who followed the money, but not many. In fact, I started to run into the same group of people from program to program, as if we were the only people in NYC that wanted to be paid to learn! It was very odd.

I would often present the programs to fellow teachers, ask them to join in on the fun. The responses were usually the same:

• it's too time consuming
• I'm done with school
• I could just tutor for money
• I don't want to travel all the way there
• is there homework?
• if I go to that class, then I'm going have to teach that course

So money, it seems, is not everything and maybe not as motivating as we may think.

Is money for learning something that appeals to you?

Would you like to get paid to learn something?

If you had your choice, what would you learn?

This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented and I do my best to respond to the query.  You are invited to as well. This week's "What if?" was

What if students were paid to go to school?

[I also answered this question from the perspective of a former teacher, to read this response see Paid for School: My Thoughts As A Teacher]