Christeen
Edward
Philosophy
Of Education
Week
4, "Waiting For Superman"
Reflection
Many of us attended different public
schools, but really few of us who questioned if the type of education that we
received was the best or could been better. Few of us can recall if they had
bad teachers that made them hate the class that they were teaching. The movie
"Waiting for superman" demonstrated the huge impact that the
teachers' play on the students' academic success. The movie's saddest part was
when Canada was in 4th grade, and his mom told him "Superman
doesn’t exist. He started crying – his mom believed that he cried just as kids
cried when they were told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist – but he cried because
he now knows that there isn’t “anyone to save us” (out of poverty)."
(Resmovits, 2011)
Davis Guggenheim in the
movie also showed us another big issue in his opinion that causes the American's
failing public school system as he thinks that teacher's union is a fetal to a
child's education. He talked about how the union is just about the teachers,
and is not beneficial to the students. Union now is only there to ensure
teachers' careers, but is not helping or guiding our students to successes or
schools to become better. In his film, he portrayed the union as the first reason
that caused students' failure, "Guggenheim painted teachers union leader
Randi Weingarten as a fire-breathing stalwart who only cares about kickbacks
for teachers." (Guggenheim, 2010)
I learnt a lot of information after watching
this movie about the unions that I didn't know about them before. For an
example, I never heard before about the term "tenure" which I
understood itnow that is about ensure a teacher's job for life after being a
teacher for three years whether she/ he is a good or bad teacher. In my
opinion, that is not fare for our students to have a bad teacher who doesn't
teach in classroom or doesn't like his/her job, but still want keep it for some
financial concerns. ''Bad'' teachers like those not only they lead our students
to failure, but also they made our students hate the certain subject they teach
for the rest of their lives. A lot attempts happened to get rid of those bad
teachers from the school system, but didn't succeed. Such as, Michelle Rhee, from
" Waiting For Superman" was shot down by the teacher's union after she
tried to change the way tenure works.
The problem is Unions
are only taking care of teachers and how to protect them in many ways, without
paying attention to the most important part, which is good education and good
teachers for our children.
Another thing that is
quiet new to me " The lemon dance" which happens when schools trade
their bad teachers with other schools within the same district hoping to get a
new teacher that is better than the one they had before. School districts are
in need to find a better solution and methods on the way they evaluate their teachers
and have an evaluation process that is more effective, and make sure that each
teacher is producing satisfactory results. Unfortunately, most of the schools
fail to provide a good evaluation to their teachers, which effects our students
and set them up for failure instead of guiding them to be successful.
Another thing that I
learnt from the movie "Waiting For Superman" that if a public charter
school has more applicants than openings, then the laws say that students can
get in by lottery. To many children and the real-live five kids' experiences
that were brought in the film, getting in a public charter school is the only
path for them to succeed.
I agree with most of
the ideas that Davis Guggenheim demonstrated in his film, however I think he
blamed the American's school failing system mostly on teachers, without talking
about the bad environment that contribute the most in the students' failure.
Moreover, he didn't mention the impact of the Standardized exams on the
students' academic success. Overcrowded classroom and the economic status of
each student play important part on the students' achievement. In the article
of "Why are Finland's schools are successful?" Hancock discussed that
how their schools are not into taking the district-wide exams as the US does
"Not until sixth grade will kids have
the option to sit for a district-wide exam, and then only if the classroom
teacher agrees to participate. Most do, out of curiosity. Results are not
publicized. Finnish educators have a hard time understanding the United States’
fascination with standardized tests." (Hancock, 2011)
Davis Guggenheim didn't
show us any of the test scores for the past years compared between charter and
public schools. Evidence
from a recent national study done by the Center for Research on Education
Outcomes at Stanford University states that “only 17% of charter schools have
better test scores than traditional public schools, 46% had gains that were no
different than their district counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse” (Holden,
2011). Also, Guggenheim didn't talk much about the students' overall
achievement in the US comparing to worldwide. He didn't draw the light that our
students' test scores in math and science are really below the levels, which it
might lead to "the productivity of the U.S. economy could be
greatly enhanced if a higher percentage of U.S. students were proficient in
mathematics." (Peterson, 2011)
Teachers need to get
more involved in their students' education which will lead their students to
have more fun and be excited about learning new things. Harriet
ball, from "Waiting For Superman", is a teacher from Houston, Texas
who noticed her students were not remembering key terms, and decided to create
a song to get her students to learn the subject and made memorization easier
for them. We are in the 21th century, students need to have teachers like
Harriet that uses creative ideas like using lyrics or different types of
technology to help his/her students to learn.
References
* Guggenheim, D. (Director). (2010).
Waiting for 'Superman'[Motion picture]. United States
Are U.S. Students Ready to Compete?"
http://educationnext.org/are-u-s-students-ready-to-compete/
* Hancock, LynNell.
September 2011. "Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?." http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?c=y%3Fno-ist
* Holden, Stephen.
September 23, 2010. "Waiting For Superman: Students Caught in the School Squeeze".
www.nytimes.com/2010/.../movies/24waiting.html?...
*Resmovits, Joy.
05/24/2011. "NYC Teachers Counter
'Waiting For Superman' With Film Of Their Own" http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2011%2F05%2F24%2Finconvenient-truth-behind-waiting-for
superman_n_865962.html&ei=QJjiVKKmLujfsASoqYCoBg&usg=AFQjCNE4FBO9lxlEiXxx9h_mI2wNFyrHRA&bvm=bv.85970519,d.cWc
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