{"id":3683,"date":"2013-02-24T20:58:15","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T01:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=3683"},"modified":"2013-02-25T08:48:41","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T13:48:41","slug":"homework-under-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2013\/02\/homework-under-siege\/","title":{"rendered":"Homework Under Siege"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2009 documentary, A Race to Nowhere<\/em>, was the brainchild of movie director\/protective parent\/concerned citizen, Vicki Abeles. \u00a0The film contains a powerful combination of “expert” interviews and emotional vignettes to convince viewers of the dangers of putting students under too much scholastic pressure. \u00a0We meet a high school girl who starves herself to stay up and do homework, ultimately resulting in her admittance to a psychiatric hospital for anorexia. \u00a0Depression, stomach pains, and headaches are the tip of the iceberg for the students depicted in Race to Nowhere. \u00a0<\/em>In the beginning of the film, the\u00a0director discusses her own children’s struggle with anxiety induced illness. \u00a0According to the film’s website, “[Race to Nowhere<\/em>]\u00a0reveals an education system in which cheating has become commonplace; students have become disengaged; stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant; and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired”[1]. \u00a0Throughout the film, the audience is shown one tragic case after another to expose the harmful side effects of America’s obsession with achievement and performance.<\/p>\n

The film makers of Race to Nowhere <\/em>pulled out all the stops to ensure that this documentary tugged at the heart strings. \u00a0Anxious about their future’s dependence upon their academic performance, the desperate students in the film took prescription drugs, starved themselves, and stayed up all night to make the grade. \u00a0The film portrayed students as victims of the system and framed parents as helpless bystanders. \u00a0The selected interviews and imagery in the film were incredibly emotional. \u00a0There were several scenes that showed the poor overworked students in emotional distress.<\/p>\n

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Stressed over homework, 10 year old Zachary is consoled by his mother.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ten year old Zachary and his mother were the most difficult for me to watch. \u00a0In one scene, Zach is sitting at the kitchen table slaving away and obviously stressed. \u00a0He twirls the pencil through his red curly hair as he tells his mother about the consequences of giving an incorrect response to his homework [00:38:23]. \u00a0Zachary fearfully warns his mother, \u00a0“If we forget this mom or if I do a different one, then we are going to get in trouble. \u00a0Then we lose five minutes of recess.”[2] \u00a0The way this scene is structured makes taking recess away from a child facing adult-like pressure to perform seem like a crime. \u00a0The film paints a clear picture of victims and villains.<\/p>\n

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Zachary stresses over the consequences of an incorrect response on his homework.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To go a step farther in the fight against homework,\u00a0Race to Nowhere\u00a0<\/em>had several experts whom stated that homework is detrimental to the long term mental, social, and intellectual success of students. \u00a0An AP science teacher says that when he cut student’s homework load in half they scored better on the AP test. \u00a0If that doesn’t move you to ban homework everywhere, watch as an incredibly passionate English teacher cries on camera as she talks about how the pressure of performance is making it impossible for her to teach her students valuable critical thinking skills [00:34:19].<\/p>\n

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This teacher ultimately resigned, because she wasn't willing to teach to the test.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most critical point of the film was the final scene. \u00a0In the closing frames, viewers learn that the film is dedicated to young Devon Martin who took her own life, because of a poor math grade. \u00a0The film closes with her picture and several frames containing advice for everyone from parents to students to teacher to school administrators. \u00a0This is definitely a call to community action on behalf of children who the films claims are being robbed of their childhoods.<\/p>\n

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13 year old Devon took her own life, because of a poor math score.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One thing that troubled me was the omission of the driving force behind the culture of competition and achievement. \u00a0Teachers are not giving ridiculous amounts of homework, because they love grading papers. \u00a0They are facing the same pressure to perform that their students are facing. \u00a0A variety of teacher interviews would have made the arguments presented in the film more credible.<\/p>\n

If ending homework is the way to improve student’s experiences in education, it would have been nice to hear from the principal in Wyoming that chose to do away with homework altogether. \u00a0Education reformers are constantly discussing a lack of challenging curriculum for students. \u00a0In this documentary, we did not hear any thoughts from those responsible for creating school curriculum. \u00a0No current school administrators were consulted to shed some light on why they feel homework is an important part of school education. \u00a0I also find it odd that of all the families featured in the film, there was not one that was grateful for the extra time, effort, and attention teachers were putting into creating such challenging coursework. \u00a0There is obviously some benefit to a rigorous academic curriculum. \u00a0This documentary only presents information that will garner support for the filmmakers’ mission to change the way student success in education is evaluated.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/strong>
\n[1]\u00a0“About the Film.” Race to Nowhere:Leveraging the Power of Community to Transform Education<\/em>. Reel Link Films, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013.<\/p>\n

[2]\u00a0Race to Nowhere<\/em>. Dir. Vicki Abeles. Reel Link Films, 2010. Web.<\/p>\n

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The 2009 documentary, A Race to Nowhere, was the brainchild of movie director\/protective parent\/concerned citizen, Vicki Abeles. \u00a0The film contains a powerful combination of “expert” interviews and emotional vignettes to convince viewers of the dangers of putting students under too much scholastic pressure. \u00a0We meet a high school girl who starves herself to stay up … Continue reading Homework Under Siege<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":356,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3683"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3853,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3683\/revisions\/3853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}