“School is the path, not the point” (Will Richardson) . The documentary “Waiting for Superman” was directed by Davis Guggenheim, released on September 24,2010. In this documentary they investigate the school system and how they uncover how education in America was being declined. Also how charter schools have a exact amount of students that they can accept. The three most important understandings I gained from watching this documentary include how a lot of students start dropping out in high school and don’t graduate, also how tenure makes some teachers lazy, and how charter schools can’t accept every student. One issue in education that I learned from this documentary was that a large amount of students start dropping out once they get to high school. I believe that every student that has the chance to go to school and learn for free should take the chance and get educated. Instead of doing bad things and getting locked up they should go to school and get educated while they have the chance. “Sixty percent of inmates in pennsylvania are high school dropouts”
Tenure is when a teacher has a permanent spot at the job and no matter what they do they have the job guaranteed. I expect teachers to give students a good education and have a good lesson planned for every day and not just get lazy after they get tenure and not care about the education of their students. “Money, passing laws, latest reforms but you can’t have a great school without great teachers” (Waiting for Superman). This quote is on point, why keep spending money and passing laws if the schools don’t have good teachers. I think that teachers should get tenure after more than just three years. I don’t think that they show how good or bad they are in just three years. In conclusion, people shouldn’t be teachers if they are just going to stop teaching and get lazy after they get
-- Public eduction is one of the most significant and unfinished achievements in American history. The main point of the first video was to show the viewer how far public schools have come and how far they still need to go.
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.
He also argues that without tenure it would to be easier to fire the 10 percent of teachers that are poor performers. I personally agree with Matthew Miller’s proposal.
America’s public school system started off very rough, but through the dedication of many hard-working Americans, it was starting to shape into a system that allowed all children, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nation of origin, to have an education.
As a matter of fact, this entire documentary is reliant on logos to get its point across. For example, there are a various number of schools nationwide known as “dropout factories”. And an enormous percentage of these dropouts- 68%, in fact- end up as inmates. It cost $132,000 to house these inmates for four years when giving a child education for thirteen years only costs $107,900. So it’s no wonder many kids end up in jail; it’s practically an expensive hotel stay with no monetary cost to them. The problem is we have too many “bad” teachers distributed across all schools, so students do not get the schooling they need to be successful so many end up in terrible situations.
The film stated that only certain aspects of a subject are selected to teach because they are either useful to the teacher or they could cause trouble in the classroom. Education either frees the mind and allows you to think for yourself or it controls the mind. I believe the purposes of education is not only to teach the common subjects of math, english, science, and history, but also to teach students about issues in our world and about life in general and how to grow individually as a person. Teachers should be encouraging students to have their own opinions on matters and should also be teaching and introducing other skills. Society teaches that in order for anyone to be successful and have any social power, you have a proper education and to further after high school. People tend to look up and respect someone based on the highest level of education they achieve and the professional career they hold. Conversely, we tend to look down and have no respect for others who did not get a college education and simply have a technical or trade job. Personally, I disagree with this view. College is not for everyone and unlike the school system misleads you to believe, you can succeed even if you choose not to pursue a college education. Everyone has their own standards and level at where they are content with their
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.
I found this film to be a good tool for people going into the criminal justice field. I think it is important for people going into this field or already in it to understand the importance of racial biasing. The exercise in the video that was used where they changed what the juvenile was wearing was very eye opening. Trained professionals were drastically characterizing the same person differently based on their appearance. I found this to be the most powerful part of the video and gave me a better understand how important it is to not judge someone based on his or her appearance. It is defiantly not only relevant in the juvenile system. People in the adult system are also characterized on how they look. I think the exercise they used in the film for juveniles would also be helpful for people dealing with adult
From the reading “Ethical and Legal Issues in U.S. Education”, there were three points that that surprised me. One point was that it is so surprising to me that there are so many steps that a teacher, on tenure, must go through before they get fired. It makes it so difficult to be fired and such a long process that they will never be fired unless they commit a major crime and I believe that this should change. As a teacher, we need to be at the top of our game at all times, and teachers with tenure seem like they do not always have to in order to keep their job. It is also surprising to me that student teachers do not receive the same rights as normal teachers in some states. Student teachers are practicing to become a teacher one day, and
Professors with tenure, contend Hacker and Dreifus, are not motivated to perform well and therefore will engage the students in the way Hacker and Dreifus believe they should. To correct this, Hacker and Dreifus advocate for tenures to be replaced with multiyear contracts to ensure professors work hard for their own benefit and for the benefit of the students’. Keep the teachers in the classrooms inspiring young minds rather than taking unnecessary paid vacations, assert Hacker and Dreifus, who believe sabbaticals should be limited. Hacker and Dreifus also agree that adjunct teachers, professors who teach at a college but do not receive the same benefits as their peers who are, in fact, faculty members, should receive similar benefits. Capitalizing on adjunct teachers should be discouraged, demand the authors. Presidents of colleges, on the other hand, should receive less, more reasonable compensation for their
After reading Joel Spring?s book, and reflecting on some of the issues facing our schools, it is apparent that our educational system requires much attention among our nation?s leaders. While the system has transformed in many beneficial ways, we are still plagued by the growing problems of society. I look forward to reading another book by Joel Spring, and developing my evolving understanding of the educational system within the United States.
After watching the Teach Us All documentary on Netflix, it opened my eyes to many of the issues regarding educational inequality. The study looked at schools in Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles to show us the current state of U.S. education and how far we have come since the school desegregation crisis. The thesis of this documentary is that since the efforts of the Little Rock Nine, our belief is that educational inequality has improved when in reality, it hasn’t improved and the actions of our country have had negative effects. Teach Us All emphasizes the need for unity and collective action to improve our education system for the kids in poor communities that are in the most need. Our country has devoted all the resources to the middle and upper class for education and are taking money away from where it needs to
In my experience, the majority of my teachers were dedicated and caring people to their work. I previously thought that maybe I had gotten lucky with my instructors in which classes I participated in, or maybe I am a more open minded person than those who criticized our educators. Now I see that teachers are scapegoats for other complications outside of their control. Even if some are no longer of a higher caliber, a reason for the decline could be disheartening caused by their limited resources and general disrespect year after year. The government may not be willing to reverse past changes, but now the system whose purpose is to prepare the children of today to become the adults of tomorrow is being annexed by business behemoths striving for ever greater profits to fill their
This film focused on a teacher who was willing to fight for the students and find ways to reach them with tactics other than just typical pedagogy or academic discipline. Where it is commonly believed that students growing up in poor families seem to be labeled as juvenile delinquents and not much is expected of them, Mr. Dadier tried to change this perception by showing his s...
A time approaches in every person’s life when they must come to learn new things. Speaking on behalf of all those who have attended school at some point in their life, I must say that most do not like it for its educational significance. Today’s youth undervalue the worth of America’s public school system to the point of shame. Hard-working, underpaid teachers and professors prepare to educate these ingrates as their living, and it’s exasperating for the students to not even care. I must be fair though and call attention to the fact that not everyone shares this loathe for education and schooling.