"Waiting for Superman"

 “Waiting for Superman” is a documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim in which the education system in America is strongly criticized.  Through all of the statistics which the documentary evinces, one stuck in my mind.  By the year 2020, nearly 150 million high-paying, high skill jobs will be available in the United States.  However, there will only be 50 million Americans will the education and skill to fill these positions. To get to the root of the problem, Guggenheim starts from elementary school and works his way up, carefully analyzing the subtle changes throughout the education system.  Nevertheless, Guggenheim focuses specifically on high schools within the inner city which have a reputation as schools with high dropout rates and poor academics.  He refers to such schools as “dropout factories”.   Most children living in the inner city will end up at one of these dropout factories, and inevitably be unable to go to college and achieve the success that some students across the nation are able to achieve.  There is however a way out.  There are a small number of schools within the area which are known in the area known as “Lottery Schools”.  These schools get children in poor, struggling neighborhoods out and put them on their way to success.  However, admission is only possible to lottery.

            The documentary inadvertently ties in to the two books relating to success which we read in class titled Outliers by Maclolm Gladwell and Mindset by Carol S. Dweck.  In his book Outliers, Gladwell insists that success is based primarily on luck and being in a particular place at a particular time.  It is unfortunate, but true that the children living in inner city neighborhoods with drop out factories for schools cannot get out of poverty without winning at one of the lottery schools.  This does however support Gladwell’s main idea.  Dweck can also be related to the documentary “Waiting for Superman”.  Dweck says that success is based only on one’s mindset.  The documentary suggests that school administrators and teachers are stuck within the fixed mindset and therefore are unable to better schools for the students.  The students, who have the focus in the documentary, however possessed a growth mindset with a natural desire to grow and expand their knowledge.

            Although the reason that these “lottery schools” are so successful is based on the better allocation of financial resources and longer school day, perhaps there is another “way out” for the students who cannot make it into the lottery schools.  It has been scientifically suggested that boys and girls learn differently, so why not simply separate them to promote a better education?  Most schools across the nation who have converted to the single-sex classroom have seen improvement in test scores.  I mean, the education system doesn’t appear as if it can get much worse in some of these inner city schools, so what is there to lose?  I went to a high school which boasted about its reputation in academics and I know that I cannot relate to students in these tough situations where a good education is based on a series of numbers and letters.  I would however like to think that a positive change will come for these students and educators will set aside their fixed mindsets in an effort to secure the possibility of a better educated America.

Argument FOR Gender-divided classrooms

                Whether or not, we as a society want to admit it the education system in the United States is failing its students and thus destroying the future of the country.  Just to exemplify the severity of this problem, I would like to share a statistic.  According to the documentary titled “Waiting for Superman”, by the year 2020, nearly 150 million high-paying, high skill jobs will be available in the United States.  However, there will only be 50 million Americans will the education and skill to fill these positions.  With numbers like that, does it seem responsible to do absolutely nothing?

                It has been scientifically suggested that boys and girls learn differently.  So why not simply separate the boys and girls during certain classes to see if this is true? For further emphasize and support this point, we did conducted own research by performing a study.   In the study, surveys were given to middle school students from three different school districts to ask them about their opinions on various topics relating to academics, including gender-divided classrooms.   When the survey results came back, we learned that boys and girls, as well as educators believe that there is a difference in the ways that the two sexes learn.  The survey results also suggested a significant difference in the confidence level of boys and girls in subjects such as math and science.  So now perhaps it’s time to consider how to fix these problems.

Although there is no guarantee that what we are suggesting will fix all the problems with the education system, it does provide a basis for which administrators can expand upon and sculpt out their own plan with all other considerations such as financial resources in mind.  However, the solution we are providing is not so black and white.  We are by no means suggesting that ALL classes should be separated at all times.  As Mark Twain one said, “''Too much of anything is bad, but too much whiskey is just enough''.   Now if you completely ignore the latter half of that sentence, you will realize that the great American author is right.  And we collectively agree as a group.  It seems pointless to make all classrooms single-sex classrooms.  This would be like performing a scientific experiment without a control group.  It would also inadvertently promote gender stereotypes.  Therefore, our group has proposed a change in the very structure of the week’s schedule.  From Monday thru Thursday, students would be placed in single sex classrooms, but only for the subjects of math and science.  On Friday, however, students will be in a coeducational classroom to make sure that both the boys and girls are on the same level of understanding of the subject.  The Friday with coeducational classes will also allow boys and girls to have social interactions with each other, thereby promoting success without promoting gender stereotypes.  But as mentioned before, this will not immediately fix all the problems with our education system.  That will take years and years of fine tuning, as well as a change to the overall curriculum, but we will leave that in the hands of school administrators.  This would simply just be a step in the right direction.