Waiting For Superman

I enjoyed Waiting for Superman. I felt that it really made one think about a lot of different things. I could see how the unions or some teachers may get upset from this video. I was upset at some aspects of it too. I felt that it did make the unions looks a bit bad because they didn’t want to get rid of tenure and help make it easier to monitor teachers. This fact kind of upset me even. I don’t think teachers should be set for life after 4 years of teaching. It should not be impossible to get a teacher who is bad out of teaching, but it seems like that is how it is. The video did not show many examples of bad teachers and some were just cartoons. But I do know what they were talking about. I myself in high school came across or knew about these kinds of teachers who know they have tenure so they don’t care about what they are teaching. It truly is sad. I think the video made a good point that this is part of the reason why students are not learning in certain classes. One bad teacher can set a student off for a long time and one good teacher can make a huge difference in the success of a student. Another part of the movie that I found to be not so good was that it was basically saying public schools are bad and we can’t really fix them so the solution is to go to a charter school. Yes charter schools are good, but I think public schools can be and are as well. Not everyone can go to a charter school like the movie showed. And we shouldn’t have to just keep creating more and more charter schools. What needs to happen is we need to improve the schools we have. I am sure that is something that will take tons of different things, but I believe it is possible. If we can make good charter schools then we can make good public schools. The main thing we need is good teachers I believe and that is what I got from the video. The other part would be more funding for schools that need it, but that is always an issue. Those were my initial and overall thoughts of the movie.

I personally agree with almost all of Ira Shor’s argument. I felt the same way that the movie was focusing on and glamorizing public/charter schools. What it really should have been doing was showing the public schools more and dealing with the main issues and what needs to be fixed. It is not a solution just to make everything privatized. And I also felt that there is no way the charter schools could be this much better. It seemed like they were focusing on certain aspects and not others. Like Ira said public schools are being underfunded and over regulated while charter ones are being overfunded and under regulated by the public policy. In having these charter schools with lotteries, it is making students go through an awful experience. They have to hope to be chosen and understand the fact that they won’t get a “good” education because they were selected so they won’t go to a “good” college or get a “good” job. I just don’t believe that one bit. Another aspect of Ira’s article was that the way the teachers were shown teaching in the movie, just simply giving facts and lecturing. When I watch videos of classrooms nowadays or go into schools and observe, I do not see much of this. Most teachers in public schools I observe are doing lessons that incorporate all different kinds of learning and are making the lessons more student-centered. This is what is being found to be most effective and this is what makes a classroom good and learning successful for students. So like I mentioned already, I do agree with Ira’s arguments in this article because I feel like he hit on all of the things I also noticed. The movie was good for raising awareness about public schools and getting people talking about it, but it definitely seemed to be lacking in other aspects.