Hot Topic: Education!

I've seen two education documentary films this month. Can you guess both? They have left me devouring articles on education. The first film I saw was screened by a local Montessori school--Race To Nowhere. If you haven't heard of it, I highly encourage you to check it out! It features the stresses children experience in today's highly structure society and focus on high-stakes testing. Film maker Vicki Abeles saw the stress on her children and approached educators, parents and child development workers. I left this movie willing to agree that the amount of homework (particularly in elementary school) needs to decrease. Just see more here and here. But the film also left the door open for several other discussions on child development and education.

For example, are children's lives over scheduled? My opinion is, generally, yes. It's not that kids lives shouldn't have a structure and a schedule. In fact, they should! But that the activities scheduled should be more child-led and driven. Children often love to please and therefore follow adult direction, but when we always direct kids what, how and why to do things, these kids never discover life for themselves. Kids need to learn their abilities, boundaries, and likes and dislikes for themselves. It is understandable to see so many lost college students today. They finally have the freedom to discover for them selves safe boundaries, but have no practice from their childhood with smaller consequences. We need to give kids more freedom sooner and some risk that they can handle. This can be addressed by family members, community members, and also schools. Schools, however, need the freedom to focus on the whole child's learning and not just reading and math test scores. Check out this video to hear about it from Education Professor Dr. Pedro Noguera:

The second film is, of course, Waiting for "Superman". Oprah has made it popular and Bill Gates has put money into promoting it. Waiting for "Superman" is a great documentary film. The story is well driven and it made me want to keep watching. While watching I felt sad for the children and families who were looking for a better life through education, sad for the many issues that our education system has, and amuse/angry from some of the horrible metaphors about education--teaching is about filling an empty brain with 'knowledge'!? The film has driven me to some others responses. Steven G. Brant responds by sharing fault in the type of solution thinking the film uses to address education. Diane Ravitch's The Myth of Charter Schools allowed me to finally understand a fuller perspective of the charter school system. Superintendents Michelle Rhee (former), Joel Klein and more shared a manifesto on how to fix our schools. Leading Diane Ravitch, a high school teacher, and Richard Rothstein to respond.

There are LARGE numbers of people who understand we need to improve schools-not by focusing on high-stakes test and privatizing all schools. If we get enough voices, we can improve the lives of children in the US. It won't be about one solution that we all agree upon. Instead, it will be about each community fighting for the solution that allows kids to love and learn from childhood. This will be done much more easily for we also get those in our state and federal governments to value education not achievement (testing).

Write/send these letters.

Race to Nowhere petition

Put Parent Voice back in Public Education

Petition to Oprah

Heavy reliance on test scores for teacher evaluation is misguided

Find a cause in your community, such as:

Playworks

KaBOOM!

Institute for Democratic Education in America

Alternative Education Resource Organization

Alliance for Childhood

Support another community in need:

Please comment with additional resources, and I will add them.