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Two documentaries about the problems with public education. Obviously the problems and solutions are the same in both, right?
I know there's a thread on Waiting for Superman. However, I didn't see anything on Race to Nowhere. The two documentaries show quite opposite perspectives.
The Race to Nowhere focuses on how the stress from school is what's causing the students' failure. Academic stress stems from grades, tests, work, and success. The stress of never being good enough...
In almost absolute contrast, Waiting for Superman emphasizes the importance of doing well in Math and Science. It stresses how important it is to go to a good college to get a good job and be successful.
Now, I haven't seen either film yet. So everything I've mentioned is based on what I've read about the two movies.
If you're interested in seeing Waiting for Superman, I hope you also take interest in its counterpart. I'm actually excited to see both films.
I will say, however, that given what "symptoms" tend to appear the day before an assessment (currently the New England Common Assessments Program - two weeks ago, the Northwest Evaluation Association tests) I'm reasonably sure which one I'll tend to believe more.
I saw Waiting for Superman tonight and thought it was very good. I was very sad at the end when several of the good students were trying to get into the charter schools which use the lottery system to choose students and they were devastated when they didn't get in. I think it's very sad that we're failing our students that much, but to tell the truth, these failures have been going on for a long time--I'm 51 and had 2 insane teachers in elementary--one was kindergarten (!) and the other was 4th grade and they just moved them out to new schools the next year. These women shouldn't even have been allowed to be around children, much less to try to teach anything. The movie sort of presented it as if these things weren't going on back then when I know from my and my classmates experience that it was.
I saw Waiting for Superman tonight and thought it was very good. I was very sad at the end when several of the good students were trying to get into the charter schools which use the lottery system to choose students and they were devastated when they didn't get in. I think it's very sad that we're failing our students that much, but to tell the truth, these failures have been going on for a long time--I'm 51 and had 2 insane teachers in elementary--one was kindergarten (!) and the other was 4th grade and they just moved them out to new schools the next year. These women shouldn't even have been allowed to be around children, much less to try to teach anything. The movie sort of presented it as if these things weren't going on back then when I know from my and my classmates experience that it was.
I wonder if we had the same 4th grade teacher. Mine was a nut case who knew nothing about children. She kept sending notes home saying I wasn't paying attention because I kept asking questions. She and I went toe to toe one day when she put the numbers 1-10 on the board and asked which ones were divisible by 2 and I answered "All of them". She asked me "Ok smart aleck, what do you get when you divide 5 by 2?" and I answered 2 and a half. She then asked "You mean if you have 5 kittens you'd cut one in half?". At this point, I was so frustrated and angry (I really liked kittens and didn't like being accused of being mean enough to cut one in half) I yelled "YOU DIDN'T SAY KITTENS!" and ended up in the principals office yet again.
She once gave everyone in the class a piece of gum, at the beginning of the day, for being so good for the sub the previous day and then lined us all up and paddled anyone who didn't have their gum left at the end of the day because it was against school rules to chew gum in school. She was a whack job.
I almost went to her retirement party to tell her off but decided I'd, probably, do something stupid and end up in jail and she wasn't worth it.
I almost went to her retirement party to tell her off but decided I'd, probably, do something stupid and end up in jail and she wasn't worth it.
No she wasn't worth it and yours sounds just as whack as mine, but the kindergarten one took the cake. We were drawing spring flowers one day and I drew a green one and she about went nuts--she drug me outside by the ear and made me stand outside in the rain to look at the plants outside and told me I couldn't come in until I was ready to admit there was no such thing as green flowers--crazy thing is, I was very timid and ready to admit it right then and there so I wouldn't have to stand outside in the rain but she wouldn't have it til later. For punishment she would take our pinkie finger and twist it back until you yelled but it wouldn't show any damage--I swear she must have broken it b/c one joint is a lot shorter than the other. I remember how hopeless I felt about school and that I had counted up the years until I could drop out--I had it figured out exactly, and by gum, I did end up dropping out. (and back in fortunately)
That was mean of your teacher to accuse you of cutting up kittens--what kind of sicko would do that? Oh yeah, one who can't stand it when a child is smarter than she is.
Oh, and I told my co-workers to be nice to the kids--they might be wiping our butts in a retirement home someday.
I wonder if we had the same 4th grade teacher. Mine was a nut case who knew nothing about children. She kept sending notes home saying I wasn't paying attention because I kept asking questions. She and I went toe to toe one day when she put the numbers 1-10 on the board and asked which ones were divisible by 2 and I answered "All of them". She asked me "Ok smart aleck, what do you get when you divide 5 by 2?" and I answered 2 and a half. She then asked "You mean if you have 5 kittens you'd cut one in half?". At this point, I was so frustrated and angry (I really liked kittens and didn't like being accused of being mean enough to cut one in half) I yelled "YOU DIDN'T SAY KITTENS!" and ended up in the principals office yet again.
She's probably a regular on the Politics forum these days.
I've done a lot of thinking about this today and bounced ideas off colleagues and I'm writing this between baking batches of cookies for the debate tournament this weekend.
The movie Waiting for Superman talked a lot about bad teachers and how difficult it is to get rid of them and I agree that this is a huge problem--I'm esp resentful these days when the market for teachers has dried up and I work in the classrooms of teachers who I know don't teach nearly as well as I do.
But here's the thing--I've almost never seen someone who was awful across the board. I've almost never seen a teacher who's given up entirely. I"ve seen them with classroom control issues, but maybe they just got a bad class--happens to the best of them. I've seen gifted teachers who were terribly disorganized. I've seen poor teachers who were gifted in the mothering realm, and with our emotionally disturbed sped kids, that's a gift that is much needed. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses, and the only ones I've thought were truly harmful were the abusive ones, like the ones I discussed above, and those who are no more emotionally mature than the kids they teach--they're still trying to be popular and it's disturbing, b/c the last one I saw that was like that, slept with a student. Maybe that's why they have such a hard time weeding them out--it's really hard to decide whether a teacher is good or bad for the kids and principals usually have to rely on their own gut feeling, which may not be very reliable. (The one who slept with the student is out though!) I've subbed in some inner city schools too and have met some extremely great teachers, so it's a myth that these schools can't get good teachers.
Compare teaching with every other profession--there are good and bad and average doctors, lawyers, nurses, account execs, plumbers, etc. Why are teachers expected to be superhuman? And what exactly has changed about them in the last 30 years anyway? I still think it's the system that is broken--that and the fact that schools are still trying to teach what they taught 30 years ago, and the students believe that much of it is not relevant to their future lives.
No she wasn't worth it and yours sounds just as whack as mine, but the kindergarten one took the cake. We were drawing spring flowers one day and I drew a green one and she about went nuts--she drug me outside by the ear and made me stand outside in the rain to look at the plants outside and told me I couldn't come in until I was ready to admit there was no such thing as green flowers--crazy thing is, I was very timid and ready to admit it right then and there so I wouldn't have to stand outside in the rain but she wouldn't have it til later. For punishment she would take our pinkie finger and twist it back until you yelled but it wouldn't show any damage--I swear she must have broken it b/c one joint is a lot shorter than the other. I remember how hopeless I felt about school and that I had counted up the years until I could drop out--I had it figured out exactly, and by gum, I did end up dropping out. (and back in fortunately)
I've done a lot of thinking about this today and bounced ideas off colleagues and I'm writing this between baking batches of cookies for the debate tournament this weekend.
The movie Waiting for Superman talked a lot about bad teachers and how difficult it is to get rid of them and I agree that this is a huge problem--I'm esp resentful these days when the market for teachers has dried up and I work in the classrooms of teachers who I know don't teach nearly as well as I do.
But here's the thing--I've almost never seen someone who was awful across the board. I've almost never seen a teacher who's given up entirely. I"ve seen them with classroom control issues, but maybe they just got a bad class--happens to the best of them. I've seen gifted teachers who were terribly disorganized. I've seen poor teachers who were gifted in the mothering realm, and with our emotionally disturbed sped kids, that's a gift that is much needed. All of them have their strengths and weaknesses, and the only ones I've thought were truly harmful were the abusive ones, like the ones I discussed above, and those who are no more emotionally mature than the kids they teach--they're still trying to be popular and it's disturbing, b/c the last one I saw that was like that, slept with a student. Maybe that's why they have such a hard time weeding them out--it's really hard to decide whether a teacher is good or bad for the kids and principals usually have to rely on their own gut feeling, which may not be very reliable. (The one who slept with the student is out though!) I've subbed in some inner city schools too and have met some extremely great teachers, so it's a myth that these schools can't get good teachers.
Compare teaching with every other profession--there are good and bad and average doctors, lawyers, nurses, account execs, plumbers, etc. Why are teachers expected to be superhuman? And what exactly has changed about them in the last 30 years anyway? I still think it's the system that is broken--that and the fact that schools are still trying to teach what they taught 30 years ago, and the students believe that much of it is not relevant to their future lives.
You bring up a lot of good points. I think when you want to point fingers for the lackluster performance of the public education system, you'd better be prepared to do a lot of pointing. Never is there solely one person responsible. To accuse just the teachers or just the students is ridiculous. And anyway, it's the principals that hire and allow these horrible teachers to continue in a profession they shouldn't be in (these teachers do exist, I've come across several and this is just my third year in teaching). Also, it's the parents that raise their children to behave the way they do. I understand some kids are unmanageable (some, not most), but set limits. Giving your 7 year old a pair of Jordans when you're on welfare isn't the right move.
Yes! Harry is older than me but he must have had her too--well she was old and had never been married--and I still remember her name. Lawrence, KS back in the mid-60's it was. Anyway, thanks for the link--I had never heard that song before, and I'm a music lover.
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She and I went toe to toe one day when she put the numbers 1-10 on the board and asked which ones were divisible by 2 and I answered "All of them". She asked me "Ok smart aleck, what do you get when you divide 5 by 2?" and I answered 2 and a half. She then asked "You mean if you have 5 kittens you'd cut one in half?". At this point, I was so frustrated and angry (I really liked kittens and didn't like being accused of being mean enough to cut one in half) I yelled "YOU DIDN'T SAY KITTENS!" and ended up in the principals office yet again. 
