Waiting For Superman Movie Review

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After watching the movie “Waiting for Superman” for the second time since beginning my college career it just reiterates to me how messed up our public school system is. In this movie we follow about five children’s stories as they go through the lottery process of getting into school that will help them succeed in the future as opposed to the low performing public school they are currently in line to attend. The title refers to the need for someone or something to be able to come into this nation and help solve the problem of poor school systems. Whether that be the system as a whole, the teachers, or the community. Whatever the case may be, education is failing these students along with countless others throughout our nation and it is a problem that needs to be handled, however, there are not enough people willing to give up their job security in order to be effective teachers as opposed to just giving out the information. This film is all about helping our youth succeed by changing the way the public education system is ran, these young people are assets to our future and yet we are failing them on a daily basis by allowing them to attend low performing public schools. During the film it talks about ‘drop out factories,’ in other words public schools who have a higher dropout rate than graduation rate and the number of school considered a ‘factory’ is alarming. We are just expecting children to attend school because legally they are required to, until a certain age that is, however, we can’t expect them to want to be their when the school system is doing nothing to help them. We have teachers on tenure, who do what is necessary to get by, but aren’t actually teaching the students in ways they can be successful because their job is guaranteed at this point. This is the time when students need to begin standing up for themselves and showing the school system they will not put up with the way in which they are being treated, as if they are an inconvenience. They tried in the film to get teachers to agree to do away with tenure and instead receive merit pay based on how their classroom did, giving them the opportunity to make double what they are currently making and it didn’t make anyone budge. Therefore, our youth need to start speaking up and make it a point to show the system they are worth making sacrifices for. The five children we follow during the course of this film were all trying to do better for themselves, whether it was with the help of their parents or not, in order to not be thrown into the statistic that is failing students or drop outs. As we continue to work on our own futures and begin getting out into the world working alongside youth. I believe we need to keep in mind that not all of the school systems we may work in or near are going to be working as hard as we are in order to prepare these young adults for the trials of life. We are going to have to work harder than ever before and be a voice and advocate for them if we want to see an improvement in the way in which these problems are handled. This is even more important to consider if we are going to be working in an area that is not as well off. This tends to be the place where we see low performing schools and it is where …show more content…
These children shouldn’t have to cross fingers and pray that their number or name is called in order to have a chance at a good education, it should be something they are given from the beginning and that is a problem that will more than likely never be fixed in our lifetime, no matter how many people become advocates for it and how many people take a stand. I would without a doubt recommend it for my fellow peers to watch, especially those in the education field, or looking to work in the school system at some point in their life. I believe it is quite eye opening and needs to be understood if we stand a chance at doing anything about this

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