Improving lower-performing schools does not require the ability to fly faster than a speeding bullet or a spandex-wearing sidekick. Instead, to improve these schools we need a multi-faceted approach that involves teachers, support staff, voters, administrators, parents and community members.
Despite the heavy promotion of charter schools in Waiting For Superman, research shows charter schools are not the end all be all. Nor are they our only solution. To effectively change the school system, we need to focus on all the aspects listed above. The I Have a Dream Foundation seems to have hit a good method to improve scores and graduation rates for underprivileged minority children in lower-performing schools. Their method? A well-run after school program. They're doing their part in the community to put these schools back on the map. Research shows their method, as well as other after school tutoring programs, is extremely successful.
Benefits for children of a well-run after school: - More likely to go to school regularly - Show more excitement about school and learning - Better test scores and grades - Average graduation rates roughly 20 percent higher than that of peers with no after school program - Less likely to get into fights - Less likely to have babies - Less likely to use drugs - Better behavior during school hours
Also importantly, studies show that children most at risk are the ones who are most likely to show significant educational and social gains after participation in after school activities.
In addition to these positive impacts, the National Education Association writes, "After-school programs also are increasingly providing the kind of enriched academic content – especially in arts, music, foreign language and civics education — that has been cut by shrinking budgets or shoved aside so that teachers can spend more time preparing for high-stakes tests. Especially in high-poverty, high-minority communities, where the pressure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress is fierce, teachers report that the No Child Left Behind law has forced them to abandon anything but reading and math."
If the I Have a Dream Foundation can successfully give their students higher grades and social skills with unpaid volunteers for less than $2,000 per student per year, why are other staffed after school programs not following their curriculum and program examples? Several school-run after school programs worry more about feeding children snack and keeping them quiet than they are about showing interest in students' personal lives, helping with homework, giving special rewards like ice-cream sundae parties or slumber parties and making sure they know they're appreciated. If lawmakers, community members, taxpayers and teachers joined up to create school-run after schools with better programs, modeled after successful programs such as IHAD, we could probably achieve the same, if not better results in neighborhood public schools than the results of children in Waiting for Superman's heralded charter schools.
"One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist," said educational reformer and South Bronx native Geoffrey Canada in the documentary Waiting For Superman. He added, "(My mother) thought I was crying because it's like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us." The film follows, among other aspects, Canada's charter-school program Harlem Children's Zone, which seems to be extremely successful at getting children through high school and into college. His program's accomplishments are very similar to that of the I Have a Dream Foundation, though both are largely dependent on private money, volunteer time and trial and error.
To me, the film's most emotional moments followed the lives of five underprivileged children as they competed against hundreds of other students in the same situations to win a lottery drawing and get into a charter school. By the film's end, watching to see if these children won their lotteries, I was dismayed that the direction and future of these elementary school children's lives was based on the pulling of numbered balls from a spinning plastic box. I myself was denied entry in three educational lotteries for charter schools, but since I came from a more privileged background, I didn't suffer the detrimental education loss that these children faced. Underneath is a trailer for The Lottery, a movie that looks inside the charter school lottery process. Watch the first 30 seconds or so and you'll quickly grasp the importance of charter schools that Waiting for Superman promotes.
While this documentary effectively brings viewers' attention to America's failing school systems, I believe it puts too much of its focus on charter schools as the answer to all of our nation's educational woes. Also, it paints a somewhat overly simplistic view on the problems facing low-income communities.
The documentary also harshly criticizes teacher's unions and the lack of various schools' abilities to fire incompetent teachers once they receive tenure. It is shocking to see the statistic that only 1 out of 2,500 teachers loses their credentials, or learn that a teacher can gain tenure by doing little more than staying awake in their classroom for two consecutive years. When I combined the problems of tenure with film's idea of the "lemon dance" where schools shuffle around their under performing teachers, which seem more likely than not to end up in segregated minority districts, I worried that the children I'm tutoring will have weak or apathetic teachers who can never give their students the chances in life that motivated charter or private teachers give. However, there are several factors than teachers alone we must take into consideration when looking at problems facing the education of underprivileged children. Factors such as difficult home life situations, poverty, health problems, lack of community involvement and more can also shape a child's educational future.
Waiting for Superman's unaddressed paradox is that if unions are actually the source of urban public education problems, why aren’t the predominantly non-union charter schools performing better? For example, Stanford University, in the first national study looking at charter school students' academic performances, found that only 17 percent of charter school students were outperforming their public school peers on math assessment tests. Forty-six percent of charter school students had results that were indistinguishable from results of their public school peers, and 37 percent of charter school students were performing significantly worse. Not to mention the fact that these public neighborhood schools were accomplishing these rates despite the fact that they are also enrolling and including in their tests higher numbers of non-English speaking and special needs students than charter schools.
Waiting for Superman did not need to explain the widening gap between the rich and poor, the technological divide, schools' deviance from the social contract or the despair of the underclass. Instead, it effectively showed how dedicated education reformers such as Canada are making a difference. This documentary, while housing a few faults, is an inspiring call to arms. Take a stance! Don't give up on the school system, work with or around it until we can find something that works.
This week I read Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol, a powerful book describing several pitfalls of the education system, focused specifically on the "restoration of apartheid schooling in America". This is presented as a bad thing, in case that was not abundantly clear. From Kozol's more than 300 pages on inequalities in funds, buildings, opportunities and teaching methods, I gleaned several things that I could personally relate to: education starts before kindergarten, if learning is not presented in a fun manner when a child begins school they'll always view it as a chore, learning can not take place only in a school environment, and if you personally can't give money to or desegregate the schools, there are other ways to help.
For the past four years I've worked at a daycare. Not just any daycare, but the only five star daycare in Charlotte N.C. For those of you who aren't "in the know" about daycares in Charlotte, competition is fierce. We have more than 100 daycares all fighting over the same 50 or so rich families who are willing to shell out to ensure their children receive the best daycare opportunities. My daycare, Dilworth Child Development Center, as the only five star in town, charges upwards of $300 a week for children. We usually have a waiting list of more than 40 families, all of whom are paying us weekly dues so that when a spot opens up, their children get in. Half of the mothers waiting to get in are still pregnant, and a few aren't even pregnant at all, but plan on it in the next year or so. Below is a link to my "exclusive" daycare's web page.
In return for such high tuition we offer socialization skills, 3 nutritious meals a day, group time, daily crafts, reading, writing, songs teaching about letters, days of the week, months of the year, and so much more. Kids who leave DCDC do phenomenally well in their early school years, thanks to the skills they learn about socialization, the importance of following classroom rules, and the basic skills needed to learn in general. Every child should get that opportunity, not just children of the privileged.
At DCDC we have 118 white children enrolled and 3 black children, 2 of which were adopted by white families and one who is a child of one of the teachers, enrolled using our only scholarship. Where are the minorities going for their Pre-K classes? More often than not, nowhere. It seems ironic that the children getting Pre-K are also the ones whose parents could help them outside of school, while the children not receiving this experience have parents who struggle to give them these skills while working full time.
The state of North Carolina does not have enough funding to allow Pre-K education for all children, meaning before they even reach school age, minority and low income children are already at a massive learning disadvantage. So shame on us as a nation for not supporting these kids! And shame on me as an individual for not knowing what an issue this was before I read Kozol's book. Luckily, advocates have already set funding in motion, and not for segregated Pre-Ks, but for state-funded public programs everyone can attend. As individuals, we can vote to finance this and be proud that more Americans are starting off on an equal foot.
Learning should be fun. Kozol suggested that with the focus on standardized testing, fun has been taken out of the classroom setting. In underfunded minority (and other) schools there are no positive motivations, discussions outside of school curriculum, recess, or allotted times for exploring wrong answers. In light of this information, I challenge individuals to step up. Can we change school curriculum and teachings? Probably not very quickly. But can we personally make learning fun outside of the classroom setting? Absolutely. Even minimal time commitments, such as working with the I Have A Dream Foundation once a week, can show children that learning can be fun. I'd never worked with underprivileged children before my experience with IHAD, quite the opposite in fact. But as soon as I met the children, I realized they're not much different than children I worked with in the past. They had the same zaney personalities, corny jokes and dreams as the children I worked with at DCDC. I got to joke around with students, relate math problems to basketball games (it was a stretch, we all laughed at my lack of b-ball knowledge), and sit down to talk with children once they were finished with their work. They were hilarious! They made light of their impoverished schools by laughing about their lack of textbooks and they asked me about my experiences in college. They wanted to have fun with me, and see me as a person instead of just a tutor assigned to help them for class credit.
IHAD gives children one-on-one tutoring where they can ask questions, get off topic, and pursue topics that interest them the most. They are in an environment where it isn't "lame" to learn, or read. They work toward finishing all homework so they can play with friends and earn things like sleepovers with their friends and tutors. Learning becomes fun, which is ingrained and hopefully gives children a higher rate of graduation. IHAD students certainly boast a much lower dropout rate than is expected for their income rate and race. The problem with programs like IHAD are that they are far and few between. Not every underprivileged student can attend. Where those programs stop is where we as individuals have to step up. We can't say, "We need to dump money on underperforming schools around the nation, trust teachers to come up with their own working curriculum and remain in the school system for years, immediately tear down and rebuild any decaying schools and completely rework the school system that has been in place for decades." No one will listen. But we can vote for more local school funding, advocate Pre-K programs, take time to volunteer for field trips and other school activities outside of the classroom, teach young students learning should be fun, and show them positive role models to look up to. If we take these individual stands, the nation's shame Kozol spoke of won't be able to touch us.
No one should be able to honestly say they know the exact meaning of life. Whether their theories are complicated or easy enough for a elementary school student to follow, theories remain just that, theories. Defined by the Merriam Webster as a belief, policy or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action, no one can argue that their theory is fact, just that their theory is better than others'.
What can one do if they're plopped down in front of a computer to pick apart the theories of highly respected psychologists about the meaning of life? In oral conversation this wouldn't be an issue. A person could just smile and nod, regardless of how wrong or right they thought those theories were. Or they could voice differing opinions while talking quietly so as to avoid notice. But in writing opinions out, an individual's thoughts have no choice but to shine through. After watching "Examined Life", based on what several noted psychologists believe are the theories and ethics that make up life's purposes, I tried to nail down my own, somewhat under-developed, purposes and meanings that humans attach to life. I took the musings of more than seven thinkers (several of which flew waaay above my head) and sifted through to find what information matched up with or expanded on the thoughts I already had about "the meaning of life".
I can't quite change my opinions on life's purpose and meanings based on one movie, but I can use these psychologists' musings to question or strengthen my ideas. In short, I believe that there is no one purpose or meaning to life. Every person can decide whether they want their own life to have a purpose, and what that specific purpose should be. Generally the meanings they associate with the actions and events that happen in their life will be shaped around said purpose. Purposes can differ from nothing at all to religion, and as long as a person truly believes in those ideas, their life can absolutely be shaped and created through those beliefs. Feel free to challenge me or tell me I'm wrong. Say that there is only one purpose to life or meanings for a person's actions. You can even tell me there is no purpose to life at all, and we all lead lives of chance and accident. You'd be right, but based on what I believe, your statement may only apply to your specific life. I'm all for the idea of indefinite purposes that give people's lives the meanings that they crave.
The major theme I want to examine from the "Examined Life" was the idea of whether ethics or morals can give people or be a purpose of life. Philosopher Avital Ronell took the approach that while our meanings are in constant negotiation throughout life, a person cannot claim that being an ethical or "good" person is a purpose of life. In fact, she went as far as to claim that the only people who are truly good/ethical are the ones who make ethical choices but don't believe life has ANY purpose or meaning, because they are the only ones who are acting ethically without any expected personal gain. Her ideas challenged my belief that you can act ethically even if you're doing so because you believe you are supposed to do the "right" thing based on secular or religious life views. If someone gives money to the poor and also believes that doing so furthers their own purpose to life of being good and going to heaven, how is their action itself any less ethical than someone who gives the same amount of money even though they have no ulterior motive. More self-serving, perhaps. But not less ethical.
Peter Singer used applied ethics to challenge morals, but said that ethics can be unrelated to anyone's meaning of life. His philosophy was you don't need a God to tell you what to do, but your life can't be totally subjective, you have to take others into account. He used a great story in explaining what he thinks people should ethically spend their money on. He said anyone wearing an expensive pair of shoes, say Manolo Blahniks, that saw a child drowning would wade into the water without question to save the child, even if those shoes would be rendered unwearable. He argued that the money spent on those shoes should be given to help unknown others in the first place, since the shoe buyer wouldn't mind giving their shoes up for a person struggling right in front of them. I completely agree with Singer's thought, but doubt it will ever take root in our materialistic society where people work hard to give themselves the best, and commonly assume others can take care of themselves, only reaching out when the needy are right in front of their face. His idea was expanded by another philosopher who said we're now responsible when we're face-to-face with others, but in our new virtual world we need to create a global citizenship that makes us responsible for others we've never even met.
To me, the most insightful philosopher in "Examined Lives" was Cornell West, who explained everyone is "finite" and have desires in the face of death. He said we all have to sustain our path to death, but that pleasure has its truth. His ideas were as vague as mine! I took his musings and applied them to my own view, agreeing we could all find different ways to sustain our path to death, and those methods would quickly become our life purposes that shape the meanings we give everything. As far as pleasure, he blew the idea of ethics shaping everything out of the water. Maybe we all do pursue pleasure, and but that shouldn't make us less ethical, just give our lives more meaning than going through the motions of life while not reaping personal benefits. Giving life the purpose of pleasure doesn't mean other, more "ethical" purposes can't be pursued simultaneously.
The ideas expressed in "Examined Life", while not confirming or dis confirming my personal beliefs, did confirm the idea that there is more to life than being born, doing actions in-between, and dying. That alone has to give us hope that there is some point to life, no matter what that purpose or meaning may mean to us.
