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Race to Nowhere: Important Film
"Race to Nowhere" is playing in various locations across the country. Get more info and see the trailers here.
by Danny Miller
The Race to Nowhere. From the ridiculous to the sublime, this important documentary by Vicki Abeles shows the intense pressures that many adolescents face today with their mountains of homework, test-centered school culture, full slate of extracurricular activities, and desperate expectations about getting into the “best” schools rather than the ones that are the best fit. Abeles started working on the documentary when her own children began to crack under the weight of the daily grind that included absolutely no time for unstructured play or the relatively carefree childhoods our generation enjoyed. A bunch of teachers, students, and others are interviewed in the film to bring home the point that something has to be done about the non-child-centered focus that is hurting so many children throughout this country.
One of the saddest interviews was with a clearly devoted, passionate teacher working with low-income kids in Oakland who finally felt forced to resign from her job after getting so much pressure to stop doing all of the stuff she did that worked with the kids in favor of the soul-killing practices that were geared towards higher test scores at the cost of creating lifelong learners or effective problem solvers.
Much of the work that I do is aligned with the tenets of this film so I was hardly an objective viewer but it's impossible not to be moved by the stories of some of these kids including the lovely, talented 15-year-old girl who committed suicide over a bad math grade. This film is part of a broader movement to reject the craziness that is being mandated from above. The film's excellent website includes many resources and ideas for combating the system. One person interviewed is spearheading the "no homework" movement and makes a strong case for eliminating homework.
Thank God Leah's homework isn't as insane as the six plus hours that many of the kids in the film have to do each night, but I'm very interested in the move to abolish homework completely. And by the way, when several AP teachers in the film cut their homework load in half, do you know what happened? Their students’ test scores went way UP. See this film…and help stop the insanity!
— Danny Miller
Jew Eat Yet blog
2010-09-14
http://dannymiller.typepad.com/blog/
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