Teachbad Watches “Waiting For Superman”, Part I
I know I’m a little late to this party.
Remarkably, I have not seen the blockbuster film Waiting For Superman…until yesterday.
I have, of course, been aware of this movie and heard what many people, especially teachers, have had to say about it. It will not surprise you that, generally, people in my circle have not liked this movie. (By the way, I borrowed it from the public library, so I didn’t pay for it. But, ironically, I suddenly think I might be in favor of more censorship in public libraries.)
I have not read reviews of the movie, but I have passively absorbed the disgust and revulsion emanating from the pores of friends and colleagues. It was such big news that I intentionally avoided seeing it and reading about it. (You won’t catch me following the crowd.) Now that nobody cares anymore, I thought it was time to see for myself.
At long last, here is the official Mr. Teachbad Review of Waiting for Superman:
Damn.
There is nothing…NOTHING…that Americans like more than a cute, non-white kid between the ages of 5 and 11 looking attentive and excited in school and then raising his hand; then looking even more attentive, hopeful and empowered than before…and we didn’t even know that was possible. We can’t even stand it. It makes our little hearts swell and we’ll do anything for you if you promise us that you will help this kid and snuggle him and make sure that he is OK. You just can’t beat that. Don’t even try because you’ll look like an asshole.
The movie is great with imagery. Rough footage of crowded, crappy-looking school buildings juxtaposed with low-income parents who, despite their lack of wealth, are determined to do anything and everything they can do to get the best possible education for their kids. (There is also comically scary music playing when the discussion turns to the teachers’ unions and their contributions to the Democratic Party. Spoiler Alert: It turns out that Democrats hate poor kids.)
Watching this film I never had any doubt that the parents and kids in it were absolutely genuine. As an observation of documentary film-making, which I am in no way qualified to make, it holds up well in that respect. It uses real people and their very real emotions as a tool to create emotion in the viewer. It’s pretty effective, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
It wants us to feel a certain way in order that we might believe and do certain things. I believe this is called persuasion. At the end of the movie, I really wanted all those kids to get picked in the lotteries for the charter schools. I would be a total dick if I didn’t feel that way…after seeing how hard everybody had struggled and all.
The movie’s second weapon is an awe-inspiring ability to ignore huge tracts of evidence and wide swaths of ideas and data in order to create a desired, predetermined reality. There are a lot of numbers and graphs and maps that are used extremely liberally, and with no discussion or counterpoint, to support a narrative that goes something like this:
Poor, minority kids work super hard all the time but public school teachers hate them almost as much as the Democrats hate them and that’s why they don’t know how to read.
(And to add diversity, the movie included a very thin storyline about a white girl in the suburbs who wanted to go to a charter school because her parents were afraid she might be “tracked” at the regular school. Call me a cynic, but the girl seemed to be put there simply because she was white and from the suburbs. This is important because we need white people with money to feel like they are being oppressed as well so that they will give some of their money to Michelle Rhee and her people. Have I got that about right?)
But the real sin here is the Sin of Omission. Where are the parents we don’t see? We are spoon-fed several people who seem to be excellent parents working under difficult conditions of stress and need. Part of what makes them excellent parents is that they know that an environment full of peers who are acting crazy is not where they want their children to be. They take the time to notice and then act. They go to meetings about schools. This is not news, but the kids with parents who are willing and able to do the research and legwork required to enroll them in alternative schools have a leg up.
I am experiencing this, again, right now. I taught at my neighborhood elementary school and there is no way I would have sent my kids there. Not because of teachers or the teachers’ union or the bureaucracy or the principal (the best boss I have ever had), but because of the kids. It was a school filled with poor kids who acted poorly. I have provided the details of this school elsewhere. So my wife and I (that’s two parents) spent a lot of time finding another school. Now we are doing it again because there is no way in hell my kid is going to a Ward 5 public middle school in Washington, DC. Again, not because of the teachers, but because I know the kids who are going to be there.
Back to the movie…
Where were we?…yes…the Sin of Omission…
This film ignores the fact that a critical mass of parents who send their kids to “failing schools” are not determined to do anything and everything they can to get the best possible eduction for their kids. Rather, they are shitty parents…
Part II coming soon…
Mr. Teachbad
I think you reversed some word in that last paragraph. Instead of “are not determined to do anything” you probably meant “determined NOT to do anything”
Those are the parents with the bogus phone numbers on file, don’t come to meetings or even wonder why they never see report cards or interim reports even when they’re mailed directly to their houses. (“My child would never intercept mail!) etc
yeh, more than anything else its the kinds of kids at the schools that make the schools suck. teachers and admins try to figure out how to best have wild kids learn and so they direct their curriculum, etc. to that. the “good kids” get left behind, ironically. usually the curriculum is so watered down to allow the least (which is the most) of the kids to learn such that the good kid gets a “poor education.” but again, that’s not the “school’s” fault or even the teachers’ or admins’ faults. (unless they are expected to differentiate instruction for a variety of kids in their class of 40 and deal with all sorts of crazy behavior, all at the same time…oh wait. they are expected to do all that. and document it all. and…)
schools get blamed which goes to the admins and admins pass it down to the teachers so teachers get blamed. teachers get blamed because they’re low on the totem pole. parents and kids don’t get blamed or asked to do much because you can’t administrate that. you CAN however administrate like nothing else teachers. and that’s exactly what’s happened and what this movie in great part is proposing. fix the teachers. get their unions out of the way so the fixing can work. everyone jumps on board because its so convenient to blame and place responsibility on someone else.
anyway…its the kids and like you said, in great part the parents. can’t make ppl raise their kids the way you’d like though. that’s teachers’ jobs!
I think, by far however, the biggest slap in the face is when these same worthless parents, the ones refered to in other posts as, “…determined NOT to do anything,” and the ones who “…can’t raise their kids [correctly]” decide that the manner in which you are forced to raise their child for them just doesn’t work for them. They don’t actually want to do the raising mind you, but after giving up that control to a teacher, because presumably they didn’t want the responsibility, they want to bitch about how you chose raise their child for them.
i hear ya!
so parents should be able to send their kids to better schools? well its THEIR KIDS who are making the schools NOT “good” in the first place!
if in this documentary every parent sent their kids to the “better” schools those “better” schools would eventually be just like the “bad” schools the parents were trying to get heir kids out of.why? because where you get a lot of “bad” kids you get a “bad” school.
(now i know this is not totally true. you can take a school full of “bad” or otherwise “wild” kids who aren’t very good students at all and keep them all in a row with a good bunch of admins and teachers and facilities and a disciplinary plan. and once the kids are calmed down and behaving like decent students THEN you can teach them (because they’re paying attention now.))
the problem with the above description of a “good” school despite being full of “bad” kids is that some “bad” kids just do not respond to ANYTHING. and i also think that teachers at such schools do not always get the best admins, facilities or disciplinary plans to support them. EVERYTHING is put on them.
think so?
A colleague stated that ‘Waiting for Superman’ was “excellent, but a little biased against teachers”. It was all I could do not to slap this person. ‘Waiting’ is INCREDIBLY biased against teachers. My blood boiled every moment I was watching it, especially when Michelle Rhee was on the screen. She, and the entire “fire the teachers, buy from the College Board, and test the kids to death” establishment DO NOT care about children, they care about their careers and their status as second-rate celebrities, and it makes me sick. It makes me even more sick that the majority of people cannot see this. Someone should make a movie about that…
Well said, Teachbad.
And in part II, please do address that graphic in which the kids move down the assembly line and the good teacher takes off the top of their heads and dumps in a year and a half of learning whereas the bad teacher takes off the top of their heads and like, reaches in and grabs their ability to understand decimal points. Because that is exactly how the whole thing works.
Demographics Don’t Determine Destiny! Woot woot!
I found this movie to be absolutely appalling. Who originally came up with this garbage and when will these unfounded ideas die?
What struck me about this movie was how bizarre it was to see those auditoriums and gyms packed with parents concerned about their kid’s education. That is not a familiar or realistic sight in urban schools. If it was, and we actually did have standing room only crowds at school events, we wouldn’t even have a charter school movement. Instead, we have schools where way too many parents don’t care enough to not only NOT attend school events, but they also don’t even bother to send emergency contact information with their children to the school. I can’t even imagine sending my 5, 6, or 7 year old child ANYWHERE and not providing a phone number in case of emergency. But that is routine in every school where I have worked. In this day of disposable cell phones, it’s chronic. On the other hand, if the kid is in trouble or feels she is being bullied, she whips out that cell phone hidden in her pocket or backpack and calls Mom who shows up in 5 minutes wanting to know why so-and-so was allowed to beat up her daughter and what is the school/teacher going to do about it. But when her darling is sick or suspended, Mom is unable to be reached.
I think awful parenting has been upgraded to a facet of cultural diversity that should be celebrated and respected, or simply worked around, but never judged.
Ooh, I have an idea that i could only put on this website – how about we beat up all the kids whose parents don’t provide contact info. then, when kid whips out cellphone and calls parent, parent doesn’t get to leave without providing contact information which is verified before parent leaves?
Just “thinking outside the box”
Hi!
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Have a great day!
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voteforteachers@worthavegroup.com
I could not agree more with this assessment of the movie or the parents who care not. Every single teacher I know–I am one, too–would agree with this. But parenting remains a subject no one’s allowed to criticize, or judge, as you say. If we’re dealing with a cultural issue (as in, this student comes from a culture where education isn’t important), why aren’t those cultures (as in, parents who can’t be bothered) allowed to go fallow and get “left behind”?
I think that’s already happening. It’s just that the current methods employed to fix it, while politically appealing, are not working.