Waiting for Superman

Movies, when they work, are supposed to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. Personally, I’m not an unemotional viewer or reviewer. Ask anyone who’s seen a film with me and they’ll tell you that all you have to do is look at me to tell whether or not I liked a film.

After seeing “Waiting for Superman” this past weekend, I didn’t know what to think. Or feel. As a former educator, I find myself unable to really articulate my feelings. I was ashamed. Ashamed for living in a country where things are obviously this bad, and ashamed that I left a profession that so obviously needs help – all the help it can get. I left the theater in tears.

It’s common knowledge the American educational system sucks. No Child Left Behind is the dumbest idea since people thought the world was flat. The statistics didn’t surprise me in the least – American kids are behind in everything.

But it’s easy to rationalize that. I usually blame it on lack of parental involvement. Then again, those same parents may be working two or three jobs just to get by in today’s economy, if they’re lucky enough to be working at all. If not parental involvement, blame it on lack of parental maturity. Babies are having babies. The trend started and isn’t stopping anytime soon. Parents don’t motivate their children to do well, or put any type of importance on education.

However, these parents did. All of them. And their kids are still getting the short end of the stick.

I’ve always been taught that education is just like anything else – you get out of it what you put into it. I still have this thirst for knowledge (although you could make the case that what some people call “drive”, others call an obsessive personality).

Personally, I can’t comprehend a lot of the obstacles facing these kids. I was lucky enough to be in a decent school district surrounded by kids that were just as smart as I was (in some cases, smarter). I didn’t have to worry about going tens of miles in order to go someplace decent, forget about above average. But that was over 25 years ago.

In my current office, they say that you can’t really air a problem until you devise and identify a solution. This film does that too. There are people making a difference. There are teachers that care and schools that work and kids that truly want to learn. It’s just heartbreaking to me that they are the exception rather than the norm.

I only hope that this trend eventually reverses itself. But it’s not something that’s going to happen soon. Not in this administration, not in the next. Maybe not even in my lifetime. But you just have to hope that it will. Because if not, this entire country isn’t waiting for Superman, more like waiting for Godot. They’re waiting for a rescue that simply will not come.