Analysis Of The Documentary Waiting For Superman

Educational systems in America are impaired, and the very educators that are meant to teach are the one’s pulling it down. That is the apparent message that Davis Guggenheim attempts to convey in his documentary “Waiting for Superman”. He uses many strategies to get his message across. Some of these include cartoons, children, and those reformers that are attempting to pull the system out of the ditch that it has found its way into. He makes his point very well, and uses facts and figures correctly. He does leave out some of the opinions of the opposing views, but it does not take away from his point that the educational system in America is in need of repair.

In Davis Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for Superman, he exposes mainly a one-sided argument against teachers unions, by stating the unions are a “menace and an impediment to reform.” His documentary explores the tragic ways in which the American public education system is failing the nation's children, and explores the roles that charter schools and education reformers could play in offering hope for the future. Statistics show our nation’s student dropout rates, diminishing science scores, math scores, and schools closing due to lack of funding, but numbers fail to represent the names and faces of the children whose entire futures are at stake due to the inability to enact change. Bianca, Emily, Anthony, Daisy, and Francisco are five students who deserve a better opportunity in education. By investigating how the current system is actually obstructing their education instead of bolstering it, Guggenheim opens the door to considering possible options for transformation and improvement. Guggenheim uses certain cinematic elements like interviews and cartoons, to influence an emotional response from the viewers and manipulate their opinion for the argument against its portrayal of unions.

The pressures of society and many factors against us can at times seem impossible to overcome, however, these limitations are only the ones we place on ourselves. Whether it’s during the adolescent years as Sherman Alexie explained in “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me”, about the struggles of overcoming the stigma bound by his culture where “A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and non-Indians alike”, as well as having the courage to break free for his own benefit. In addition, this theme was also explored in the later years of adulthood as demonstrated in Malcolm X’s essay, “Learning to Read” where he’d become so frustrated while kept in prison, unable to quite express himself as he did

Chandler Woo The Gender Imbalance in Superhero Film When William M. Marston, creator of fictional heroine Wonder Woman, asked a girl which female superhero she aspired to be, the girl retorted, “Aw, that’s girls stuff! Who wants to be a girl?” And that is the point; just as the young comic enthusiast suggested, our world has become a dominantly patriarchal society, ranking men over women in the social hierarchy. While some might argue that there is more gender equality in our world now than in any other moment in American history, we still find nonetheless in our culture these continually degrading attitudes towards women.

The conflict theory in this case discusses the lack of resources that are down to nearly nothing and about how the lower classes are having to constantly compete for them. It shows you how the poor are controlled by the rich. The film “Waiting for Superman” takes a closer look into the public school systems around the United States from the poorest of the poor all the way over to the suburbs. The parents of these students are obviously sending their children to school with the high hopes that they are going to excel academically, but the reality of it is that most of the children that are either born into or somehow end up in a position of poverty end up either dropping out rather than graduating. The upper class will place their children into schools where they are offered quality education. With the way that our nation is growing, I am confident in being able to say that the gap will only expand and the poor will continue to suffer in the educational department as well as others. While the lower class students in public school are failing and dropping out, the upper class students are too busy bettering their future. Our country states that “every child has a dream”, and that “no child will be left behind”. How true is that claim exactly? Yes, it is true that every child has a dream, but how many children are being left behind because they are stuck in poverty? There was one scene in the movie where the charter schools had to draw numbers just to give a child a chance at a better education. That is highly disturbing that a child has to suffer through something as humiliating as that. Our public system does not encourage academic growth, it hampers it. Over the years a lot of money has been put into trying to fix our public schoo...

Webber, Karl. “A Nation Still At Risk.” Waiting for Superman: How We Can Save Save America’s Failing Public Schools. Ed. Carl Weber. New York: PublicAffairs. 2010. 3-10. Print.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” What does it mean to learn? To learn is the activity or process of gaining knowledge or skill by studying, practicing, being taught, or experiencing something; the activity of someone who learns; knowledge or skill gained from learning. Every living, breathing creature on the earth has been blessed with some capability to learn. The opportunity to learn is in everything we do. We learn inside and out of classrooms, and learn in countless kinds of ways. The prospect to learn is infinite. We are constantly learning whether we know we are learning or not. However, sometimes our likelihood of truly learning and getting a good education is deficient, or held at the gamble of a failing system. Two films, ‘Waiting for Superman’ directed by Davis Guggenheim (1), and ‘The Hobart Shakespearian’s’ directed by Mel Stuart (2), show two different aspects on the dwindling system called “education.”

Film Responses to Waiting For Superman and The Hobart Shakespearians “Waiting for Superman” and “The Hobart Shakespearians”, Tow great eye-opening documentaries of the American public school system and the struggles in the lives of the students and their families. “Waiting for Superman” Featured students from America that have been negatively affected by the public school system. Each of these students and their families have great hardships to overcome yet have a strong will to succeed and a never give up attitude. It shows what they parents go through in making sure that their child has a good educations, from constantly trying to communicate with teachers and school officials that have no interest in helping them, entering Chartered School Lotteries, and actually paying for private school while being low income. “The Hobart Shakespearian” is an inspirational film about Rafe Esquith, one of those rare teachers who extend his time, and energy above and beyond what is required of him.

I believe that the students and the teachers have the most to gain or lose in this argument. Again, for the students, their education is on the line. But it’s more than an education; it’s their future, their lives. Everything they ever do or don’t do is grossly dependent on what they do as a young person. It’s possible to make up for past mistakes but not everyone is capable of doing so—whether that is due to their upbringing or their aptitude. Teachers have their careers at stake. If one school system gets more funding than another, then consequently there will be pay cuts, thus affecting their lives.

Kant: Wow Darwin you either did not read the book, or you completely missed what was going on. Superman had superpowers that consisted of super hearing, super vision, super strength, and flying.