education reform

Tavis Smiley, in his show with Geoffrey Canada, CEO of Harlem’s Children Zone, and Davis Guggenheim, director of Waiting for Superman:

Some of this Geoffrey, you came out of the classroom, before you were running a school you were a teacher. Some of this to me, I think words have meaning, I think language is important. I want to be frank about this, this term “Race to the Top” which is this administration’s approach to this. This term “Race to the Top” disturbs me. One, education, pardon my English, ain’t a race. It’s not a race; it’s a guarantee. Every kid in this country ought to have access to an equal high quality education. The very notion of a race to the top means by definition that somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to lose, if it’s a race. I don’t understand how we’re going about solving the problem starting with the language and the process itself.

I really enjoy the fact that Tavis Smiley, (1) let’s his feelings be known, and (2) challenges his guests. It makes me happy that these things happen, but truthfully, in these situations, as a good host, he offers his guests the opportunity to rebut his statement and make their argument stronger.

I haven’t seen Waiting for Superman. Much, if not all, that I’ve heard from the really good teachers that I am connected to, the classroom teachers who spend much more than 8 hours a day dedicated to their craft, their students, their community, is negative. I don’t recall a single one talking about the positive movement that could come to education with this movie. I’ve heard positive publicity from Oprah and NBC’s Education Nation, both of whom are absolutely massive movers of misinformation and superficial thinking.

I also haven’t seen Race to Nowhere, a movie also about education reform. I haven’t heard much about it either, from the classroom teachers or from the media hype machine. I may not see either, simply because I fear being emotionally worked up without being able to respond intellectually. I’m a whole lot more likely to react out of irrationality and anger rather than respond after deep thought. (That’s something that I’m actually working on here.)

So how do I respond to this situation? I don’t know. Mostly what I notice is that the teachers in my school, the smallest building in our district, far on the outskirts of the city, don’t seem to be aware of some of these issues. Truthfully, I need to be more aware of the local issues that are present within our district and city, while I also want the teachers in my small school to be aware of these larger issues that seem to be setting fire to large cities that eventually may affect our small school.

On a barely related note, these are the things I’ve learned about Davis Guggenheim from his Wikipedia entry, in no particular order: he's married to Elisabeth Shue, who's been "hot" since Karate Kid; he was born in St. Louis, MO; he directed and produced An Inconvenient Truth, also a fairly provocative documentary; "he directed Barack Obama's biographical film, which aired during the Democratic National Convention;" he directed It Might Get Loud, a really cool documentary about the electric guitar, told from Jack White, the Edge, and Jimmy Page, and given to me by my brother; and he was an executive producer of the movie Training Day, a movie which scared me in its fierceness and brutality.