(1) The film's theme and meaning
In the black ghetto of Washington, D.C., the Latino ghetto of Los Angeles, the ghetto of New York, and the rich neighborhood of Silicon Valley, those who know the importance of education to people and families, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, know that children who love learning and want a good education are waiting for a chance, a chance, to get into a relatively better public school with 12 years of compulsory education. But the chances are too few, and the poorer you are, the farther the chances seem to be from you. Most people will be shocked when "Waiting for Superman" silently records the happy or sad expressions of children and parents in the process of waiting for an opportunity. Children only have one chance to grow up, and we are loyal to this country; we are this country; and it is our children's right to have a good education.
But as the parents in "Waiting for Superman" realized, for some reason, education has deteriorated. Society is full of pressure, and I also realize that children must receive a good education, but the reality is that they have to entrust their own rights to the spinning table tennis ball, which is not fair! And allowing some children to receive a good education while others lose the right to receive a good education makes this injustice even more cruel. The question that "Waiting for Superman" has to think about is: what is wrong with basic education in the United States? Why does it arise? How to solve it?I think there is such a premise when reflecting on education: there is nothing wrong with children; it is education, the system, society, and adults who should reflect. When children cannot receive a fair education like others, parents may tell their children that they have to work harder, and many children do work hard. But you know that education itself shapes people, and it is too difficult for a conscious child who needs education to take on more things that he is unable to bear. There is nothing wrong with children. It is a social shame to shirk responsibility for children. Of course, children who grow up in suffering are more likely to become great, but those are very few.
And we have to admit that most of that greatness occurred during periods of social upliftment. The reflection of "Waiting for Superman" has always said that no child can be successful, and no child can become excellent. The movie understands this basic truth, and its reflection is also based on this premise.Failure in education is the foundation of social deterioration and the root of all social problems. When there are more young people who cannot study, there are more dropouts, more unemployment, more poverty, more violence and crime, more of their offspring who cannot have a good family environment, and more social cost. And social deterioration will exacerbate injustice in education and make this tragedy even worse. Sociologists have long said that in order for a society to make continuous progress or have the ability to self-correct, it is necessary to maintain a certain distance between education and society; that is, education should be as independent as possible, and educators should run education independently, and equity should be guaranteed in basic education, to make independent intellectuals in education and other fields, and those engaged in spiritual work in society. This creates a progressive force that both drives social progress and fights against any distortions.
And if there is a problem with education, which is both part of the social cycle and the subject of a progressive force, it is even more frightening. because it not only creates problems but also makes it difficult to correct problems without seeing hope. There is a big problem with basic education in the United States, and that is something that shakes the cornerstone of society. Therefore, the power of progress, including the ability of educated people to repair themselves, is the key to whether American society can repair itself. Yes, such capabilities still exist in the United States. The creators of "Waiting for Superman" and the countless idealists who have invested in changing it all prove that the mechanism is still working. This is one of the most important messages in the film! And if you read "Waiting for Superman" carefully, you will discover that progressive forces have been fighting, just like the Harvard educator, Geoffrey Canada, who grew up in the ghetto in "Waiting for Superman." Even though the externalized thinking is done, only when you seriously think about a lot of issues can you judge whether that person is actually doing things and thinking.
I love Obama and don't hide it because, in concrete observation, he is thinking, he is doing, he is doing big! It should also be emphasized that a lot of families in the United States today are much luckier than us, who have suffered injustice in a system that is basically in line with the nature of education and selection. The reason why I am writing this article is to compare the education of China and the United States. By summarizing the thinking in "Waiting for Superman," I will summarize some of my thoughts on basic education in the United States to systematically compare the education of China and the United States and think about China. Prepare for education. And I think the conclusion of comparison and thinking points to the same conclusion in many East and West comparisons: we are the opposite of them; we and they are living in two worlds; and we are not comparable to them. Although we are all human beings, we are all part of globalization. We are talking about borrowing all the spiritual wealth of human beings, but you suddenly find that we resist modernization or their "Westernization" righteous words deep down in our hearts, but behind the scenes This complex thinking is painful and happens every day around you and me. Those reflections have been written in this collection of essays.
(2) The film's reflections on American basic education and some of my views
The basic education system that has trained more than 100 Nobel Prize winners is the basic education system that has adapted to the needs of children who have grown up in various models and has produced various kinds of freedom and great people in their respective models. In 1999, Director Nian was still excellent in one year's observation, and the public schools were still satisfactory, but today in 2010, he must bypass three public schools to use money to let his children go to school and provide a better basic education in a private school. He is lucky because he can choose. More children, especially those of the black and Latino people who live at the bottom of the society interviewed in the film, can only use their luck to get a better education by rocking a ping-pong ball. Education has deteriorated, and people can only look for better opportunities in the existing system.
Real American elementary education is made up of two parts: public schools and private schools; and those public schools that are paid for by taxpayers are divided into three categories: schools under the jurisdiction of the district, but only accepting children in the district. They become Although teachers move among them, the following is getting worse and worse: The characteristic schools under regional jurisdiction that appeared in the 1960s; those schools are very good, but they are difficult to get into; the public contract system that came from the struggle in the 1990s; In schools, anyone can apply to enter without regional restrictions. However, only about one-fifth of the schools are good, and good schools have a high number of applicants. Like these families shown in the movie, when not so rich and wanting to To give children a good education is to look for such schools and rely on luck. So what is wrong with basic education? What makes it worse and more families feel stressed and unfair?
Is there a problem with the educational philosophy and system design? It seems not. There is excellent education in the theory and a very high level of institutional design that aids the process of realizing human nature. Although it also complained about the independence of schools, even after the abolition of the Ministry of Education, it was still constrained by levels of bureaucracy because in basic education they were in charge of education funding, because of the top-down statistical design. It cannot perfectly meet the needs of specific and changing current situations. However, most of these systems are still strengthening educational fairness under the constraints of the big picture. The bureaucracy cannot interfere with the education of the educators; the content of education is free; the educators are independent and guaranteed; and the children and parents have a feedback mechanism.
Is there something wrong with the selection system? It also doesn't seem to be the main thing. There are comprehensive and fair systems for selecting excellence. Although it also complained that the standards set by different states are different and unreasonable, so that children who live very close to the test have the same score but have different results in different regions. But basic selection criteria and fairness are guaranteed to a very high standard. The fairness of enrollment in basic education and the selection of higher education are also considered from the perspective of human comprehensiveness and development. While it attacks the placement system, the system that most public schools practice
Children with different development and self-awareness receive resources and treatment unfairly in their growth because research shows that even if a child in the middle class works hard, he may not be able to catch up with the children in the front. Is it bad hardware or an uneven distribution of resources? "No" From 1971 to the present, the cost of each student in the United States has risen from $4,300 to $9,000 a year, and this figure is adjusted for inflation. In every public elementary school in the United States, whether in a ghetto or anywhere, those educational resources, including teachers and learning environments, are $9,000 per person. That's a right, and it's guaranteed. So what is the problem that has caused the education system to keep the reading and math levels of American children declining? Are they spoiled? Are they too?
Are you free and confident? Is it their family's problem? Politicians keep claiming that they want every American child to get a good education. (The makers of Waiting for Superman are also skeptical of Obama, although Obama's philosophy is closer to solving the problem than the movie shows, but this is a must-have and justifiable skepticism.) But the result of each goal is getting further and further from the goal. Many children in the United States get worse grades from fifth grade to seventh grade. The high school dropout rate in the United States is getting higher and higher, and there are more and more high schools with a dropout rate of more than 40%. There are now more than 2,000 such high schools in the United States. With millions of young people roaming the streets of America, crime creates social problems and drains resources that shouldn't be drained.
It's not the fault of ideas, systems, or material resources; nor is it the child's fault, because the child is not at fault, so what makes education worse and worse?teacher... This understanding is almost a consensus, which can be seen in the reflections on basic education by different subjects within the American progressive forces.That is, the quality of teachers is getting worse and worse. Surveys show that a good teacher can achieve three times the effect of a bad teacher. They make education worse and cause more serious social problems. So firing bad teachers and selecting good teachers doesn't solve the problem of injustice? Understanding and thinking about the reasons, we will find that it is a very tangled issue, and my understanding of this issue is different from that of the film. And the more you think about it, you will find that solving this problem is part of repairing the cornerstone of society, and what I think is a variety of ways for this cornerstone subject to repair itself, must be self-repair. And some of the directions of change pointed out in the movie are also needed for this kind of self-healing.
In the film's thinking about why teachers are getting worse, the target is quickly pointed to the two major unions of American teachers: the National Education Association and the American Teachers' Union. These two trade union organizations are also organizations that were gradually formed and established in the American social progress movement to protect the rights of teachers because of the exploitation of female teachers. It was the union effort that gave American teachers tenure, the system that protects university professors from being fired for political and other reasons, and that's hard to come by. Moreover, the movie even links the two unions with the Democratic Party because 90% of the political donations of the two unions are given to the Democratic Party, and they think that these two unions control the education policy of the Democratic Party! The film supports the idea that the unions do too much of what they shouldn't, and that teachers enjoy absolute fairness (although in my opinion, there is a bottom line). Good teachers and bad teachers are treated the same, and we know that in the public schools of elementary education in the United States, teachers, students, their parents, and superintendents are small systems of mutual supervision and restraint. When teachers have greater
The teachers' union uses democratic mechanisms to allow the government to recognize these rights, which damages children's rights, such as the right to receive a good teacher education. While there are regular teacher flows in public schools, the film sees more of the bad effects of these bad teachers' moving across schools, which it calls "dancing lemons" or "turkey runs." And the film also denies the existing practice of selecting, restricting, and eliminating teachers, such as the trial system in New York State, which the film believes is not only useless but continues to waste resources. And it is proved by the huge difference in the elimination rate of teachers compared with lawyers and doctors. The film believes that the elimination mechanism of other industries should be introduced to balance power and set a stricter bottom line or a certain standard like the American system.
In general, the point of view in the film is that the existing system of teachers and their unions makes teachers worse and worse, education becomes worse, and externalization causes more social problems. The labor unions and the Democratic Party have become obstacles to reform, and tenure for teachers is the system that needs to be changed most. And I want to introduce political and business thinking into education. It is not appropriate. There are problems with this system, such as the class system, the bureaucracy is not detailed, and the access conditions for teachers need to be reformed, but education is different from other fields. And in my opinion, if it is really just as presented in the movie, then the problem will be easy to solve.
I will talk about my thoughts. We know that Western society is in decline, and that society is lagging behind the progressive forces themselves due to various inevitable tendencies of closure, which lead to the erosion of various intrinsic values (of course, this is an understanding, and it may take a long article to specify that, and I think everyone can read the book and context of this kind of understanding.) which also include parts of the progressive force, such as education. This erosion makes all external systems appear misrepresented and distorted to varying degrees. (Just like the Western democracy that people criticize has become out of democratic meaning, although its predecessors were designed with this retrogression in mind, so that the system does not do evil when it does not live up to its name! Also, like the various isms in the evolution of our society, in fact, most of them have nothing to do with those rational or exploratory spirits, thoughts, and practices. They are just living and doing it for their own cannibals in the sauce tank of a struggle mentality formed in a subtly cultural direction.
And they are extremely hypocritical. Under the promotion of the outside world, the existing cores are constantly arranged and combined to put on a modern coat, beautify some people, and ugly people. This situation has not changed now. Because we know that human existence has different latitudes, we know that society is the same. The former is the basis of the latter. And when a society has profound accumulation on the spiritual level, for example, the Enlightenment, and many modern values, knowledge, and ideas have become self-identified by everyone, then this society is built on this basis by progressive forces. For example, the consensus, system, and game are solid; otherwise, the name is not true. The erosion of other social groups is not terrible.
What is terrible is the erosion of progressive forces, which is not only a vicious circle but also makes people lose hope. But this social law that is bound to be closed is something that the sages of Western society or the predecessors of progressive forces understand, so they have always attached great importance to the system and inheritance (not to mention the system, you can find it in many fields through detailed understanding, where it is based on freedom, especially in the spiritual field). Inheritance is an example, and freedom is another. The two complement each other, because the more freedom, the more attractive the good things must be. So that the power of progress is immortal and can survive . Even if they themselves have been eroded in this way but still retain a lot, the progressive forces in the United States are now at a turning point in resisting the closure. It should also be emphasized that in this period, the progressive forces are more concerned about their own repair. The current wave of reflections in the United States and the waiting for Superman itself show that this society is still moving forward with self-healing.
Therefore, if we ignore the attributes of educators as part of a progressive force and treat them as other members of society, correcting them through institutions or general methods of resistance will not achieve the desired effect. because that system is adapted to them both as part of the social cycle and as part of the progressive force. If the guarantee is abolished, such as the tenure of teachers, any upward restrictions on completion of a certain standard, such as graduation rate, admission rate, or setting too strict lower limits, will interfere with the independence of education and violate the essence of education, and let the education of children be free. The subject is not free. Moreover, teachers themselves are also a process of growth and exploration. Too much pressure will distort and destroy the possibility of existing good educators who have grown up through this system. Of course, as mentioned earlier, some of them have been eroded from the inside, and the system is also problematic and needs to be more severe, but we must not demonize trade unions and we must not allow the system to violate its original functions to punish due to some inevitable erosion. Some of the fallen ones, well, that's pissed off.
Therefore, the film also struggles with itself when it comes to solving the problem of teachers' ills in basic education. Michelle Rhee, the head of education reform in Washington, D.C., wants to abolish tenure, introduce competition, and challenge unions, just like in the movie. But like her predecessors shown in the movie, this is not the main way to solve the problem. In my opinion, the core of teachers who call on progressive forces, the values that teacher union leaders claim to uphold as the causes of the current system, is the right path, and the other ways to change the status quo shown in the film are based on different issues. In terms of understanding of the cause but also the same goal, that is, those methods
Independence, freedom, role models, and those "supermen" who believe in the value of progress (maybe that's why the movie is called that name; it's called Superman, it's called hope). (Writing about this and seeing the investment in the film The Superhuman Beings, my eyes are wet.) Use your own actions to summon those who are in the system, because it is impossible for any society to have no system. (This is also what I have always said: the promoters of social progress are outside the system, and here is the proof! Promotion outside the system is the most important way for progressive forces to change society and themselves. These people believe that poor children are better off. It is wrong to be unable to learn. Education should not put the responsibility on the family, society, and children. Education must undertake the task of reversing the decline of society, and they have successfully undertaken this responsibility with the concepts and methods that have proven successful. 82 KIPP schools and more contract schools in the poorest communities are working hard and calling. The movie admits that such a school cannot be generalized to form a system, so
I think it is a force. When it is spread as "Waiting for Superman" was, the core of the teacher will be restored.The film ends with a developmental phenomenon and a reflection on what I think is this inward erosion, and that reflection I think I disagree with. When people don’t take this kind of erosion seriously, its development not only harms the social cycle and social progress externally but also causes many negative consequences internally. For example, the rationality of the division system is recognized. Hierarchy and differentiation are exacerbated when there is growing distrust that certain children can be good. This kind of retrogression affects the educational atmosphere of the whole society and the quality of higher education. In the film, a girl from a wealthy area near Silicon Valley or a family with a good life is faced. The schools around her are good enough compared to the regional public schools in other slums, but she is also reluctant to attend because of the divided classes. She hopes to choose a better contract school because of the psychological panic caused by the decline in the system and the overall education level. The more unequal people are, the more eager they are for quick success, and that is not the mental state that should be in education.
Such eagerness for quick success also makes higher education unreal, even if it has a good selection system. In "Social Network," I believe everyone can see the distortion of so-called excellence under such eagerness. The film believes that the root cause of the problems in basic education in the United States is that it has not kept up with globalization. The world has changed, but the system has not changed, and the understanding has not changed. For example, some people said that when Nixon went to China, he wanted to sell things to China, but they didn't expect China to sell things to us now. Globalization has made the United States the hub of economic production, and what the United States needs is better educated people to do these jobs. American young people must receive an advanced and good education to meet the needs of the American economy. Otherwise, these opportunities will be provided to young people in China and India.
In the film, Bill Gates also stated that society's progress cannot be dependent on reform but rather on education. I would like to criticize this understanding. Does education keep up with society? Education and training of people according to the needs of society? I think this is the reason why I think the inside is eroded (although the way out of this kind of thinking has a bottom line and will not be evil), and this is also the reason why I said before that a good system allows people to think freely. No matter how wrong you think, the result of evil will rarely appear): When the power of progress is limited or when it is not ahead of social changes, the power of capital, efficiency, urgency, and utilitarian power will not be noticed by you. places such as globalization to fight back. From the outside in, speculate and erode. I wrote about this process in "China's Globalization" before. The reflection in the film is still under the control of these forces, which is understandable but may not change what they want to change. Do they also learn the logic of Tiger Mom learning China? They think exactly the same as in the film, such as pressure, such as social changes, such as adapting to society. I think it's better that the president of Harvard said, "We are not to adapt to society but to create!" We are eroded, we are behind society, but our goal is not to adapt to society but to recover as part of a progressive force, and that is more spiritual work than globalization and economic pressure, as Bill Gates said. And it requires education to change.
(3) The film itself, as well as some additional comments
The film was shot in two locations. One is a reflection on basic education in the United States: problems, hazards, reasons, ways out, and reflection. This is an interview and discussion with practitioners, scholars, politicians, and other reflection participants.One is an example of education from several families. Those who know that education is important (through their parents' experience), do not know the reason, but know that the social pressure is huge and they are disappointed with the current education system to choose a better education. The inheritance is confirmed in the first one and in the clues. And this is especially moving, because it reflects what the film wants to convey. The movie evokes thinking, although I think there are some places that should not be thought of that way, and expressing emotions to society from the standpoint of parents and children, which is the scene described at the beginning of the article. Why is it so painful? Why is it so unfair? Why are we so helpless with the rights that the country should give us? And they push them to those tragedies that they know or don't know the cause, burying the child's future. This is a kind of power, this is a kind of call, and the example that is already being done in the film also calls for more people to participate in this change, which I think is the process of resisting the closure.
The film was directed by Davis Guggenheim and written by Davis Guggenheim and Billy Kimball. The release date is 2010 and the film is 111 minutes long.Before closing this review, I would like to express this thought. Did someone say you've been to America? Have you actually inspected basic education in the United States? Have you studied the history and materials of basic education in the United States? Are you qualified to talk about these issues? Of course, the real China has to have labels to be qualified to talk about issues, and I don't have any labels. But I will say that I have observed and thought about Chinese and American education for a long time. I haven't been to the United States, but I think that going and practicing in my cognition is part of the experience and part of understanding the diversity of human nature. For investigation and reflection, it is better to think at a distance.
After all, films like this and people who care about education have long provided vivid examples for those of us who have observed and thought for a long time. Of course, reflection and limitations are inevitable, and I have always had confidence in my ability to reflect. But some misunderstandings, such as the qualification theory mentioned above, are contrary to common sense, and I do not accept them. Even without any study, observation, or thinking, it is beneficial for a person to express his views on some of the problems he sees in his own life and environment. When you read their thoughts, you actually see life and diversity. Never use your own standards and requirements to completely deny and prevent communication. The more you disagree, the more different it is from your standards and perceptions, the more you have to understand and learn from others. That doesn’t mean you have to change your own attitude, but you have more diverse perceptions.
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