January 21, 2011

• Race To Nowhere.

  Notes/reviews/pieces from the movie, Race to Nowhere.

  1. I can’t really remember the last time I just went outside and ran around
  2. We do whatever it takes to get an A
  3. When I had kids, I didn’t think that the only time I’d see them was for 20 minutes at dinner
  4. These kids are so overscheduled and tired … I’m afraid that our children are going to sue us for stealing their childhoods
  5. We want the best for them [so] we put pressure on them to be what we want them to be
  6. [All of this pressure] ends up turning kids into little professionals
  7. I figured out that not eating gave me more energy … but it still wasn’t enough to get everything done
  8. My school principal told me [when I tried to return from a treatment facility for anorexia and anxiety] that she didn’t want the teachers to have to worry about me – I was too much of a distraction for them [and other students]
  9. We lose boys because they tune out and we lose girls to depression
  10. The countries that outperform us on international tests actually give less homework than we do in the United States
  11. At what point did it become okay for schools to dictate how we spend our lives after the bell rings? [regarding homework]
  12. Parents need to educate themselves that homework isn’t going to make their students any smarter
  13. When American kids encounter questions [on international assessments that don’t look like what they’re used to from their rote practice], they fall apart
  14. These tests that they do so horrible on – they don’t test my kids on the curriculum, they test them on their culture and their culture isn’t represented on the tests
  15. I tell my [urban] students that learning is power – to do whatever you want to do in life, you have to be a learner and you have to care – that is not what the district wants from me as a teacher
  16. If we forget this [question] or do a different one, then we’re going to get in trouble and we’ll lose 5 minutes of recess [4th grader]
  17. Your 6–month-old is supposed to be sucking on his toes and thumbs, not doing flashcards
  18. [Students say] ‘The teacher doesn’t care – it’s just busy work – why CAN’T I just copy my homework?’
  19. The point of education is to learn, not memorize
  20. It’s impossible to cover all of the material for the AP course in one year. Literally impossible.
  21. After my daughter passed her AP French exam, she said, “I never have to speak French again.”
  22. So much of [kids’] time is structured. The only unstructured time they seem to have is the time they spend on the computer.
  23. What’s happening these days is that kids aren’t getting a chance to find out what they love to do.
  24. They’re 4 or 8 [years old] and they’re resume-building
  25. Parents say ‘My child is a good kid.’ No, they were a good performer. You never found out if they were a good kid. You just know they’re a good student, not a good solid kid.
  26. I stopped trying because if you don’t try, you can’t fail.
  27. I think that success in America is measured by how much money you make, not how happy you are in your life
  28. The environment and culture are so competitive that kids don’t feel like they can ever let people see their true selves
  29. If you’ve always had As, there’s only one way to go and that’s down, so that B feels like a failure
  30. We need to redefine success for kids … We have to get off this treadmill together. [We have to discuss] what does it take to create a happy, motivated, creative human being?

  • 3:21 pm
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