Getting Schooled

Imagine if your fate laid in the hands of this contraption.

You, merely a number on a ball hoping to roll out of the cage.

Where, if you were chosen, you could actually escape an institute where teachers don’t really know what their responsibilities are and spend class time reading the newspapers or chatting on the cell and where the ultimate goal is not that you will actually learn from the classroom but to just slip through the educational cracks to a life of  ungraduation, unemployment, and worse of all, uneducation.

I don’t know if most of us realize how easy we had it. Well, at least I never really saw it.  I went through my youth thinking that learning in school was a given.  Duh, teachers are expected to give me an education. Duh, what I’m learning in school should get me into college. What I didn’t know were the millions of kids out there in inner-city schools and the likes just grasping for a chance to learn, hunting for a chance to have a future career and not a future job. I was fortunate enough to go to school in the suburbs, and lucky enough to have had the right amount of encouragements, tools and people around me to cultivate a deep thirst and passion for garnering knowledge.  It started with my grandmother sitting me down 2 hours everyday, forcing me to copy the alphabets and multiplication table, it continued with my 2nd grade english teacher holding writing contests, it lingered with my 11th grade history teacher scaring the bejeezus out of us with his nazi-style of teaching, but actually forcing us to ask questions, and it is still with me today as I willingly skipped the blockbusters sat through a two-hour lecture of a documentary in the theaters called, Waiting for Superman, soaking in the unsettling knowledge that our nation-and our children- are facing a serious learning crisis.

Granted, Waiting for Superman did make the learning a lot easier by spotlighting the plights of some adorable kids. Daisy (above) is an exceptionally bright and ambitious girl who crossed every last finger on her tiny hands in the hopes of being selected in a lottery to go to a better school. She competed with over 100 kids for 10 slots.

Superman also introduced loving parents who are desperate to give their children the best opportunities life can afford them.  That’s Francisco and his mom above.  They were willing to wake up at 5 every morning to go to a school an hour away just so Francisco can finally have teachers that will pay attention to him.

Parents and cute kids make for great emotional brou-ha but the deep fault in the educational system is a bureaucracy so complex most would scratch their heads and give up rather than tackle.  Superman followed superheroes like Geoffrey Canada (left), an educator who started up a charter school (a public school who is funded by the government but gets the freedom to set their own curriculums) in the most dire blocks of New York and transformed it into a statistics-breaking educational beacon of hope. Michelle Rhee (right) is a superintendent who tackles the faulty and old-fashioned teachers tenure, trying to find a way to keep the teachers that can actually teach in school and the rest out.

The film-maker himself, David Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), is also a superman. His film spotlights a most-troubling American problem and brings with it emotional gravitas and educational baggage so that you can’t walk away from the theaters and not care. And, changes are already starting to appear. For every movie ticket purchased, $15 can go to a classroom of your choice.  I can’t see $15 being better spent.

Thanks to my own Superwoman for drawing my attention to this plight. If you do watch Waiting for Superman and don’t have a school to donate your $15 to, how about Eliot Middle School in Altadena? I know a great teacher there who could really use those bucks. *wink wink.

You don’t need to be a teacher to change the educational system. You don’t need to be an educational expert. You don’t need to be a parent to care. You don’t need to be a student.  You just have to be you.  I personally think the best way to start is to realize that when you’re in a position to learn, don’t take it for granted and toss it away.

Keep filling your brain with knowledge, keep seeking answers, keep thinking that all things are possible. Keep thinking.

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posted by Janice | Comment: 5 | Uncategorized

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