The idea that success in America is defined by money and not by happiness causes competition between students to get into the "good" colleges so that they can make more money after college. The problem, then, is that teachers think that more homework is the best way to prepare students, when the reality is that at a certain point homework stops helping and begins simply to hurt students.
There seems to be a need to look like all is right with the world, but in reality many students struggle with the stress that school puts on them. There's a fear of getting lower grade, a fear of not being perfect, a fear of being looked at as being “less than” one's peers.
The solution suggested by the movie and during the discussion afterward was for teachers to try giving less homework and eliminating quantified grades. Since cheating is so easy, grades are not necessarily an accurate representation of what a student knows. It was also suggested that students try to get enough sleep, unplug, talk to adults about how they feel, and take less AP classes.
I believe that the movie also brings up another suggested solution to the problem. Content learning should not be the focus in the classroom, and of education in general. Like you said, there is a fear of getting a low grade, a fear that a student does not remember the required content. But content does not equal understanding. I remember in the movie the Stanford student that said in high school he played the game, memorizing facts to pass the test and forgot about them right after. However, in college students are required to understand and remember all the material throughout the course, not just until they pass a test. For me, this was one of the biggest points Race to Nowhere had. Education today strives to get student into college, but not to always to prepare them for it.
ReplyDeleteWhile I have not seen the movie, the title "Race to Nowhere" reveals that there is a sense of urgency and lack of time implied within the movie. I think this is one of the main problems, not only in the education system, but the American lifestyle. Our quality of education is measured in the quantity of information taught in the shortest amount of time. Everything is a race in education. Who can learn the fastest, who can teach the fastest, complete their homework the fastest, get to the next unit the fastest. Once we eliminate this idea of time constraining our ability to learn, then we can start making steps into a more enriching education system.
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