It's 11:45, those twilight hours on one of those twilight nights between the time Craig goes upstairs to bed to the time I finish whatever project I'm working on because it's got to be done by tomorrow. I must say I'm getting better at not letting these nights happen, but sometimes they do and tonight is one of those nights.
In an effort to better myself and not feel like a zombie, I've decided to STOP watching crummy Netflix television while completing said projects. Craig and I just got through ALL of the Bones seasons on there and afterwards both admitted we were glad it was over so we could move on with life. Awful, right? While brainless TV is definitely a good release sometimes, too much of it also definitely leaves you...well, brainless. I know you know what I'm talking about.
So tonight while finishing a project for a little birthday 2 year old friend tomorrow, I decided to watch some "non-crummy" Netflix television. While I wouldn't necessarily consider all documentaries out there quality material, I decided to start in this genre in search of some interesting to watch. What better way to educate myself than by someone's extremely passionate, completely biased, funded-enough-to-make-a- movie opinion about something?
And I am stumped.
If you haven't seen the movie, it deals with the extreme disadvantage that under-funded public school students have from their fellow students who attend well-funded public schools, private schools, or lottery-drawn charter and magnet schools in their area, the "bad guys" being the teacher unions who fund potential politicians that don't believe that a disparity in pay-roll should constitute a good teacher from a bad one. This enables tenured teachers who essentially don't do their jobs at all to protect their position and thus continue to put students back in progressing in their education.
SO, the big, over-arching point that the movie was trying to make was that there IS success out there, a line of charter schools in inner-cities with the lowest funding and the lowest scoring has made success by adding more classroom hours, on weekends and summer time, high expectations, and an attitude of success and support in every classroom. They are getting positive results.
Which is actually pretty amazing, because until now, according to this documentary, there has been little to no hope for these kids.
Here's my beef: I have always felt that the majority of the problems students have in the classroom has more to do with their home life than it does with their teachers and their schools. However I can believe this until I'm blue in the face, and very likely will, because I also don't believe it's a school's place or certainly the government's place to tell a family how they should raise their child. Conundrum.
Here's a story about me I don't often share. I nearly didn't graduate from high school. In fact it's something of a miracle that I made it into college at all. My home life growing up? Not that great. I can safely say my decline in education started after my parent's divorce. I clearly remember my sixth grade year, first year in middle school, and getting a report card with D's on it and pretty much feeling that my future was over. It went up and down from there until graduation...mostly down. AND, it didn't stop there. In fact, another story I don't often share, I was put on academic probation after my freshman year of college, lost my financial aid until I could get my grades back up and nearly lost my scholarship as well (again, another miracle, else I would likely not have a degree right now). Don't worry, all ended well, and after a few years of working my butt off, I was able to maintain a 3.1 GPA when I graduated, and again, it was a miracle I even got it up that much, plus woven into those last years was marriage and two pregnancies, but it was meant to be and I got it together (can you see a blessed life emerging here? Because I sure do...)
Now, I don't consider my childhood a sob story. I had a lot of good things going for me. I made some poor choices. I hold no grudges against anyone, life is what it is. However, I can completely empathize with the kids I saw in my classroom every day who may have looked like they had it together okay, but that were struggling to even think that homework was important when so much else was wrong in their life. It's not easy. In fact it's near impossible.
So to say that the ultimate form of success in a child's life is to get them passing and into college I would say is a fallacy. How many times do we send kids to school who have had their hand held all through their education and then fall apart when they enter the college party scene? Or who then get degrees that will give them no steady job and then pursue something completely unrelated to what they studied in school? Aren't we in a recession now because of people, with and without college degrees are making poor choices with money, the very thing we get college degrees to obtain, and ruining their lives? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure college should not be our end goal in public education, especially when we are looking past college for the future success of this nation (ideally stating that good careers will put the US back at the top of the charts).
Well what is it then?
Life. Long. Learning. We talked about this a lot in our trainings at school, the idea that you help a child foster a love of learning and you help them be the best that they can be because then the wheel is back in their hands. And it's more than just the scores on a paper, I think everyone can agree with that.
You know why more classroom hours and even in one instance in this film, a boarding school works for those inner city kids? Because they have poor home lives and they are spending more time away from those homes in an environment where people are showing them every day a shiny glittery castle away from all that mess and finally making them believe that it is their choices that effect their future and not where they are born and who they are born to. Okay, that's probably not proveable at all, but I just feel like if the world had better lives for our children (BETTER HOMES), they would have kids with better grades, better test scores, better lives, and ultimately a better society, right? I mean, I understand that's sort of a utopian dream, but is it too much to ask that we at least strive for it?
HOWEVER, while I will root and cheer those inner city kids all the way through their successful school careers with more classroom hours on weekends and summers, it scares me to death that this is where education is heading when I take off my "educator" cap and put on my "parent" cap. The thought of another person having more influence on my child than me makes me want to shut all our windows and never let my kids leave our house. Drastic, yes, definitely not the answer, but that is a lot of trust that we as parents are putting into our education system.
And yet I am just as stumped as ever. Do I support that there is an answer to helping struggling kids succeed in school? YES. Do I trust a teacher at school to teach my kids things like morality and character? NO. Do I want the education in this country to change and better yet, improve? YES. Do I want to give my kids up on the weekends and the summers? NO. Do I want bad teachers out? YES. Do I trust the government to come in and decide who that will be? NO. Okay, soft no on that one, more like a "PROBABLY NO UNLESS YOU LET REAL RESEARCHED EXPERIENCED EDUCATORS BE IN CHARGE OF IT AND NOT ELECTED OFFICIALS". Do I want parents to step up and claim their children and claim their responsibilities to teach them just as much as their teachers do? YES! If they won't, do I think they should be made to??
I'm sure there are a lot more facets to this than I'm looking at right now (i.e. we are a huge, free nation that offers FREE public education to every person in this country and that is a heck of a heavy burden to carry compared to other countries whom we feel we need to measure up to somehow who only let their better students through to the top, unlike us where every kid goes through the whole nine yards before university), but I just feel like I'm suffocating at the thought of sending Chloe to school in the fall.
Anyone else watch this movie and have half-sane thoughts of running out to Home Depot right now for those boards and nails....?
And just in case anyone is wondering, I suck at politics.
AND...also, another kind of fun, non-brain-frying-suffocating show on Netflix to watch is Steven Fry in America. Basically what America looks like to England through the eyes of a sophisticated Brittish actor/comedian. AND I also watched a NOVA story on cracking the Maya Code. Fascinating stuff.
