The week before last, I missed a class for my technology course. But when I found out that our professor gave us the option of watching an educational video or documentary, I was thrilled. Why, you ask? Two reasons: (1) I have been meaning to watch the documentary Waiting for “Superman” since it was released in 2010, and (2) I love when my school to-do list and my non-school to-do list align so harmoniously.
Waiting for “Superman” opens with Geoffrey Canada, a prominent educator in Harlem, New York, recounting his experience of realizing that Superman isn’t real, that there isn’t anyone who is powerful enough to swoop in and save everyone. It’s a poignant way to begin a documentary on the harsh realities of the American public school system. Education reform activists such as Canada and Michelle Rhee from Washington DC are introduced, and the film shows each trying to create a more positive and more effective schooling experience for the young people in their areas. Yet, each runs into the massive challenges and seemingly unassailable barriers of the system. Not least among these are teachers’ unions.
The film explores different aspects of the American school system, often comparing public schools to private or charter schools, impoverished neighborhood schools to those in more affluent areas. It presents a heartbreaking look into the life that too many children and their families face on a daily basis. Classrooms and schools that are too full and don’t have enough resources, programs that systematically don’t or can’t meet the language and math needs of individuals, tracking, a bureaucratic mentality that forgets the actual human people for whom the system was created to support – the film shows how all of these and more are factors that contribute to a school system that has “drop-out factories”, appalling low academic scores, and even lower hope and self-confidence in students. For an education system that was once the model for the world, it’s alarming and tragic at best.
The documentary follows five families from five different schools in five different neighbors in the country. All of them want the best for their children, and the filmmakers capture their heartrending journeys as they all make huge sacrifices and take enormous risks to help their children get the education they deserve. All enter lotteries to attempt to gain access to better schools, which in these cases are charter schools. Two got into their schools of choice eventually (one was waitlisted first), while the other three simply didn't.
Waiting for “Superman” paints a bleak picture of the future of the American school system. Unquestionably, a reformation, a transformation is needed. But, there is hope as well. Many teachers, leaders, and others who work in the education field dedicate their lives to making change a reality. People work in everything from curriculum to teaching methods, from teacher education to professional development, from social outreach to politics in order to bring about change for the better.
However, as the film suggests, none of this will really change if we do not refocus all of our efforts on what is actually good for our students. Too often other motives creep in to become the priorities, and adult success takes over student success as the modus operandi. To have any kind of authentic, enduring change in our school system, we must first examine and improve the mindsets and principles that guide us. Education is a field of service, and that service needs to be especially visible in leadership. The transformation that the American system needs cannot be half-hearted; it must be wholehearted, or it is simply not real change. What will it take for us, for anyone who invests in the future, to realize that we must return to a service-oriented, other-centered mentality before we can affect the kind of change our young people need?
Waiting for “Superman” opens with Geoffrey Canada, a prominent educator in Harlem, New York, recounting his experience of realizing that Superman isn’t real, that there isn’t anyone who is powerful enough to swoop in and save everyone. It’s a poignant way to begin a documentary on the harsh realities of the American public school system. Education reform activists such as Canada and Michelle Rhee from Washington DC are introduced, and the film shows each trying to create a more positive and more effective schooling experience for the young people in their areas. Yet, each runs into the massive challenges and seemingly unassailable barriers of the system. Not least among these are teachers’ unions.
The film explores different aspects of the American school system, often comparing public schools to private or charter schools, impoverished neighborhood schools to those in more affluent areas. It presents a heartbreaking look into the life that too many children and their families face on a daily basis. Classrooms and schools that are too full and don’t have enough resources, programs that systematically don’t or can’t meet the language and math needs of individuals, tracking, a bureaucratic mentality that forgets the actual human people for whom the system was created to support – the film shows how all of these and more are factors that contribute to a school system that has “drop-out factories”, appalling low academic scores, and even lower hope and self-confidence in students. For an education system that was once the model for the world, it’s alarming and tragic at best.
The documentary follows five families from five different schools in five different neighbors in the country. All of them want the best for their children, and the filmmakers capture their heartrending journeys as they all make huge sacrifices and take enormous risks to help their children get the education they deserve. All enter lotteries to attempt to gain access to better schools, which in these cases are charter schools. Two got into their schools of choice eventually (one was waitlisted first), while the other three simply didn't.
Waiting for “Superman” paints a bleak picture of the future of the American school system. Unquestionably, a reformation, a transformation is needed. But, there is hope as well. Many teachers, leaders, and others who work in the education field dedicate their lives to making change a reality. People work in everything from curriculum to teaching methods, from teacher education to professional development, from social outreach to politics in order to bring about change for the better.
However, as the film suggests, none of this will really change if we do not refocus all of our efforts on what is actually good for our students. Too often other motives creep in to become the priorities, and adult success takes over student success as the modus operandi. To have any kind of authentic, enduring change in our school system, we must first examine and improve the mindsets and principles that guide us. Education is a field of service, and that service needs to be especially visible in leadership. The transformation that the American system needs cannot be half-hearted; it must be wholehearted, or it is simply not real change. What will it take for us, for anyone who invests in the future, to realize that we must return to a service-oriented, other-centered mentality before we can affect the kind of change our young people need?