Waiting for Superman

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Documentary

We watched “Waiting for Superman” yesterday. While we homeschool, I have heard that this film is something to watch. I did have some reservations as the director also did “An Inconvenient Truth” which I do not accept the premise.

Tracy and I homeschool for a variety of reasons. Our first interaction with the school system here with our children labeled our oldest, something that we didn’t want him to have to live with. Tracy’s interaction with the school system in a work related setting was far from stellar. My reasons are probably less concrete. I had a bad time in my seventh grade, and was put on a specific track. It took me 4 years to get off that track into the college prep track. I was not reacting well to the lesser demands and I needed the challenge. My middle school years I considered wasted because I was so labeled. I didn’t want my children to have to face that, the whole institutionalized feeling of the system. In one class where I tanked my first grading period, history if I recall, I put my mind to overcoming whatever the heck was keeping me back, only to be accused of cheating by the teacher. (Certainly someone can’t change that much just by applying one self.) Ideologically, I have problems with the entire setup. My worst teacher, who was completely disengaged and hostile, I found was the union leader. I went through a couple of strikes. My father, an accountant, told me to not cry for the teachers, that they were well paid but couldn’t elaborate due to professional ethics.

The movie is sobering. It wakes you up to how bad off our children are in this system. I bordered on rage when the film went to the lottery where children were selected to go to the charter schools that are in their districts. Each politician, school board, etc. should be taken by the scruff of their neck and made to watch and experience the hope and grief of these parents and children are made to go though just to get the education that they are paying for. It is criminal.

I recommend the movie. Every parent should watch it. Every taxpayer should watch it (especially those in Wisconsin). Every teacher should watch it. It is a condemnation of the system that the adults have built for themselves. And it is about the adults. I want to gag each time we talk about “the children”. Stop it and grow up. I know what education costs. We do it. We pay extra every year, even though a significant amount of my money each and every year goes to the public schools.

Some take-aways. The television is going dark. The kids will read more, write more. Their education will become our focus. We will stop wasting time and money on things that don’t matter. It will be more of a life-style change than I was contemplating, but that is life. It doesn’t work out sometimes the way we plan, but what is important, if not the education of our children.

For another review, try
http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/waiting-for-superman/