Via HuffPost Education, I came across this article this morning, thinking to myself, "here we go with another 'WFS' endorsement from the White House". But to my surprise, the current president's baby half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng (biography), a former educator and university professor as well as a writer-in-progress, had a different reason of endorsing the film, according to her informal e-mail sent to family and friends, including education blogger Sam Chaltain (he shared her entire e-mail on his blog); read below:
Dear friend and caring community member,
I only have a few minutes right now, so my evaluation will be necessarily incomplete, but I want to share some thoughts about Guggenheim’s new documentary, “Waiting for Superman”, which I saw last night (I had only seen several discrete segments before).
At the point in the film when children were crying because they weren’t selected in school lotteries, many people around me couldn’t suppress tears and, as a mother of two girls, I too felt intense grief and empathy for the parents of the children. After the film, I spoke with a wonderful longtime public school teacher and she was teary as well, for a different reason; she was shedding tears of frustration about the fact that the film ignored the enormous commitment and talent of many public DOE teachers and the great work taking place in the classrooms and schools where they throw in their hands and spend large parts of their days. I was one of Randi’s teachers myself in my first years of teaching in NYC. I was even the union rep. for a couple of years. I do understand the hurt, but I urged this teacher not to let the imbalanced nature of the documentary frustrate her, and instead to go talk with others in the community about what she knows, feels, remembers, and can use to help make schools even stronger.
Marveling at the emotion generated by both those who are critical of the film and those who wholly accept the film’s assessments, I’ve become increasingly glad that this imperfect but also compelling film has come along at this time. Here’s what I hope doesn’t happen: I hope that we don’t grow more embittered and angry with one another and expend huge amounts of energy in senseless shouting; I hope that public school teachers are not vilified by people who think that they know more than they know about what happens in classrooms. I hope that the film’s emphasis on test scores doesn’t make us lose sight of the many other potent and meaningful forms of learning and assessment that exist like creative writing, projects of civic engagement, Socratic learning forums, and multifaceted portfolio presentations.
Here’s what I hope happens: I hope that the film will increase the amount and caliber of dialogue between teachers, administrators, community members, and parents. I hope that it will encourage teachers everywhere to share their craft and schools loudly and proudly, when pride is merited, and welcome the community’s assistance as well as new opportunities for collaboration. I hope that the film will help people to see the importance of graceful negotiation when trying to change a system and recognize the true power of persuasion. I hope that people will think of public schools as belonging to all of us, regardless of whether we have kids in the system, or have kids period.
I hope that we begin to view successful experiments, like good charter schools, as opportunities for evaluation and implementation of best practices. Of course a larger percentage of charter schools are healthy learning environments, not because the teachers are all better but for the following reasons: charter schools are usually smaller and therefore more manageable; school charters require greater buy-in and contribution from parents; charter schools have the freedom to create cohesive school cultures surrounding issues of local interest and imperative (i.e. Hawaiian language and cultural immersion schools); the choice and freedom in charter schools often allow for a greater sense of ownership by teachers, students, and administrators; and whether conversion schools or new, charter schools are often built using innovations that have been tested and found effective in older, larger, and more overwhelmed regular DOE schools.
Now it is time to reverse the flow of innovation and use charter schools as laboratories for what might work in larger DOE schools. Let leaders of schools, government, and community focus on building a strong sense of school family, or ohana, in every public school with less tracking, smaller class sizes, smaller learning groups within the classroom, and family-style attention to the whole child. Let’s think about how to get the community more actively involved in public schools, find new ways for families to participate and share in the culture of the school, and bring the kids out into the community more. Let’s work to offer free after school, extended year, and parent-enrichment programs, and have school event daycare options for single and overworked parents. Let’s think of our public schools as the center—the beating heart—of our communities. Go check out the film, by all means, but then let’s keep talking. With mighty love,
Maya
While I have my own issues with the movie, I too agree with Soetoro-Ng; the movie is worth seeing due to its compelling appeal to spark dialogue. Look at what's happening now in the education reform debate since the release of this film! Unfortunately, this movie has become another exploitative tool to push anti-public school and anti-teacher union propaganda being endorsed by so-called experts, including her big brother and his incompetent Secretary of Education. Thankfully, in spite of her White House connection, Soetoro-Ng hasn't forgotten where she comes from; also, she is a proponent of village accountability. These alone are refreshing...:)
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