From the director of the popular documentary "An Inconvenient Truth", comes a similar disheartening but eye-opening (must-see!) film "Waiting for Superman" released in 2010. Seeing this documentary just a few days ago, made me feel frustrated at how the world has become so unequal, that even passionate reformers in the past could not break the system of injustice. As one reformer featured in the film, Michelle Rhee said in her speech at a D.C. restaurant in May 2008:
"It’s the biggest social injustice imaginable.What we are allowing to happen in this day and age, we are still allowing the color of a child’s skin and the Zip code they live in to dictate their educational outcome, and therefore their life outcome. ... We are robbing them every single day of their futures. And everybody in this country should be infuriated by that.”
Even though this is a documentary on the public education system in the US, it raises a lot more issues about socio-economic perspectives, that are deeply rooted to what we really value as human beings.
I wish to expand more and reflect on the different issues raised in this documentary in my future posts. But for now, I encourage you to see this film and comment below about how you felt or what you think about it.
I always thought that education was a right. This films makes is seem as though giving children an education simply means letting them sit at school while the teacher does nothing. It is really unfair how the poor become excluded from quality education.
ReplyDeleteI think that the new policy Rhee proposed - giving teachers the choice to give up on tenure, was a good idea. It was disappointing to see that it didn't go through. It made me realize that one person does not have enough power to make a dramatic change, there needs to be a lot of support to fight for something.