Racism+-+'A+Call+to+Action+for+Public+Schools'

Racism: "A Call to Action for Public Schools" I remeber watching "Waiting for Superman" in English class last year, so this it's interesting to read about an analysis on the film and its implications. I remeber when we watched the film last year, I tried to be pretty critical of it, but in the end, it got the better of me. I don't like how documentaries, no matter how well-meaning they are, always end up having a slant to them or if they don't, they feel fake. Still, as someone who likes education and learning, "Waiting for Superman" did provide enough factual information that I'm willing to admit any emotion felt over the film was probably self-induced. Personally, I don't know think the solution to our problem is charter schools, and I don't think Guggenheim does or did either. I think Guggenheim wanted to show that the formula of a charter school is what we want to achieve; after all, a school is a school, success doesn't just magically come with a fancy-sounding title. That being said, I would be in absolute favor of education reforms, even at the risk of possibly going to education maybe some day myself. Although, once you get into lower-level classes, I think it's a little unfair to judge a teacher on the students' performance: a teacher could be absolutely brilliant, and if the students don't care, they'll do poorly and it'll reflect on the teacher, but it'll be completely inaccurate. So even though I like the idea of reform, it's still really messy.

One thing that the documentary did stir, and there had already been a bias against previously, was a disdain for teacher unions. For the most part, the unions just seem to shuffle through bad teachers or do nothing with them at all, and it was frustrating to hear about. On the other hand, I can also understand the need for teachers unions, just like any other union; to protect the worker rights of the teacher. Still, I don't think job security should really take precedence over effective teaching; although there is the possibility of a revolving door of teachers in a really bad streak. Although, after reading the article, I see that Guggenheim forewent to include information about how the unions did manage to make progress, which really does change the way things can be looked at. First, it shows there might very well be a bias slant in the film, but that really isn't important. More importantly, it shows that the teacher unions aren't as bad as they were made out to be, but they still have a lot of work to do if you ask me.

What really stood out to me was the idea that "It doesn't matter if you learn. Your future is determined" (34). This just shows the current-held view by some, if not a majority, of teachers, and it's absolutely revolting. The future isn't set in stone, it never will be, there is absolutely no reason for a fifth-grade teacher to tell a student that, none whatsoever. Perhaps in the school system, the future is determined; it does take quite a bit to make any academic ground, but fairly easy to lose it. In that case, it's saddening that teachers have given up hope on students long before they even begin to seriously contemplate their futures. On non-academic terms, it's just wrong. Personally, I think a lot of the highschool then college then graduate school then a nine-to-five job then retire is just social norm, and one that does not have to be followed. The world is huge, there's no such thing as a "hopeless future", we don't need to follow the book. Personally, and I'm kind of getting side-tracked, there was a chance that I could've hooked up with an Arabic translator, learned Arabic, become a translator, and wouldn't have to worry about any thing. If only people knew their possibilities, everything would seem much less forced and rigid, it's just that people don't want to do anything that isn't socially acceptable, at least that's how it seems, and it's really dissapointing. Even though I would love to just ditch school somedays and actually live life, I follow the norms too, it's just what keeps us out of trouble.