{"id":5448,"date":"2014-02-23T20:43:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T01:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/?p=5448"},"modified":"2014-02-23T20:43:47","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T01:43:47","slug":"race-to-nowhere-illuminating-a-problem-still-searching-for-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/2014\/02\/race-to-nowhere-illuminating-a-problem-still-searching-for-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Race to Nowhere: Illuminating a Problem, Still Searching For Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In their 2009 Documentary Race to Nowhere<\/i>, Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon paint a startling image of today\u2019s school system in America.\u00a0 Rather than helping children to learn and to find themselves, Abeles and Congdon argue that the pressures of school are making our kids unhealthy, teaching them to cut corners, and failing to actually help students learn and grow.\u00a0 They identify different pressures that children endure at both at home and in school, yet find it harder to point to solutions that are both realistic and effective.\u00a0 While Abeles and Congdon point accurately to unhealthy pressures that the school system places on children, they have mixed success in proposing solutions, falling short on specificity and practicality.<\/p>\n

Abeles and Congdon point to parents and home life as one source of unhealthy stress that school-age children endure.\u00a0 Rick Simon, principal of the Wheatley School in Old Westbury, NY, observes a pressure on children born into wealth to match or exceed the financial success of their parents.\u00a0 He says, \u201cWe\u2019re a New York City suburb, [with] high-powered parents who are very competitive themselves\u2026they want to talk about how their kid is going to Harvard or the equivalent, and I worry about what happens when their kid isn\u2019t going in that direction\u201d (Abeles, et al. 0:06).\u00a0 Students, intentionally or not, are made to feel as though their happiness later in life rides entirely on their perfection in school.\u00a0 In the race to our best colleges and universities, the pressure students feel at home goes beyond academics.\u00a0 Parents insist that achievement requires a range of extracurricular successes, including sports, clubs, the arts, and community service.\u00a0 In a forum on stress, Jessica, a senior at Carondelet High School in California says that \u201ceveryone expects us to be superheroes,\u201d pointing to the unrealistic ideal that students our held to, which ultimately harming their wellbeing (0:09).\u00a0 When asked about the pressure that they place on their children, the parents interviewed by Abeles and Congdon report that they are simply relaying the stresses that they experience from peers and schools.\u00a0 Stacy Kadesh, a parent and private college counselor, admits, \u201cEven though we know we shouldn\u2019t be pushing our kids, inadvertently, we are\u2026I\u2019m also feeling the pressure that they need to work really, really hard\u201d (0:10).\u00a0 In the blog on Race to Nowhere<\/i>\u2019s companion website, Abeles references an article by clinical psychologist Jeff Mitchell where he refers to this irrational fear and pressure as \u201cHavard or Walmart Syndrome\u201d (Abeles).\u00a0 In his paper on the subject, Mitchell describes the syndrome by saying, \u201cThis is a societal disease, a virus of an idea that has spread through the LinkedIn generation and its children.\u00a0 It is a conviction, stark and unforgiving, that one\u2019s children will either (1) get into Harvard or (2) spend their lives working for Walmart\u201d (Mitchell). \u00a0In proposing means by which to remediate the unhealthy stress children experience at home, Abeles and Congdon implicitly concede that there is little parents can do, other than be loving supporters of their children, without drastic changes to how our schools work.<\/p>\n

\"Students<\/a>
Students feel tremendous pressure to get into top colleges
Race to Nowhere (0:37)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Race to Nowhere<\/i> illuminates the negatives effects of the overwhelming volume of work children receive, as well as the pressure to achieve, at primary and secondary schools.\u00a0 Darrick Smith, a teacher in Oakland, CA, views the unforgiving regiment of work and extracurriculars imposed on kids as misguided, saying, \u201cwhen you have students that have three, four hours of homework, after [sports] practice or work\u2026and their whole future is on the line, at that moment, its no longer about learning\u201d (Abeles, et al. 0:23).\u00a0 Abeles and Congdon make the argument that our insistence to driving every student to be perfect is leading to a failure on the part of schools to actually educate kids.\u00a0 Race to Nowhere<\/i> emphasizes unrealistic expectations as a leading cause of this failure of schools, as well as of student stress.\u00a0 Stacy Kadesh says, \u201cWe are teaching the majority of our kids as if they are in the top 2%\u201d (0:37), and psychologist Madeline Levine, PhD expanded on this by saying, \u201cEvery kid is expected to by [going to top colleges] and that\u2019s just not the way it works, there\u2019s a bell curve\u2026smart has many different definitions\u201d (0:39).\u00a0 Levine makes an important point through her connection between unrealistic expectations and our narrow definition of academic success.\u00a0 Abeles and Congdon argue that our measures of success do a disservice to a wide range of students.\u00a0 Carmel, Indiana student Allison told Abeles and Congdon that she is, \u201cvery disappointed that there\u2019s no artistic, right-brain kind of measurement of success\u201d (1:02).\u00a0 Abeles and Congdon make persuasive claims as to how are schools are making our kids unhealthy and unprepared, but find that practical solutions are difficult to achieve.<\/p>\n

\"Race<\/a>
Race to Nowhere provides recommendations to administrators
Race to Nowhere (1:23)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While some of their solutions are effective, many of the proposals made by Abeles and Congdon fall short in terms of practicality.\u00a0 In the end of the film, they use the Blue School in New York City as a model of effective schooling.\u00a0 While the Blue School makes effective use of pedagogical theories such as Reggio Emilia and Gardner\u2019s theory of multiple intelligences (1:14), the school\u2019s annual tuition of over $34,000 demonstrates that this sort of learning environment is often unattainable for many students (blueschool.org).\u00a0 While tuition-free schools that use the Reggio Emilia model of alternative learning and student respect are emerging (for example, CREC has a Reggio Magnet elementary school in Avon, CT) (Smith), sweeping reforms to education such as Reggio Emilia have historically tended to create more problems then they solve if they are misguided in their implementation.\u00a0 In The Death and Life of the Great American School System<\/i>, Diane Ravitch conveys her wariness of reform movements, writing, \u201cThe fundamentals of good education are to be found in the classroom, the home, the community, and the culture, but reformers in our time continue to look for shortcuts and quick answers\u2026we will, in time, see them as distractions, wrong turns, and lost opportunities\u201d (Ravitch 225).\u00a0 If a widespread implementation of the Reggio Emilia philosophy in the United States falls into the same traps as countless other reform movements have, I fear that we will end up with a continuation of our current educational failings.<\/p>\n

In Race to Nowhere<\/i>, Abeles and Congdon shed light on the alarming realities of how primary and secondary schools are failing American students.\u00a0 The cumulative stress students experience from home and school leave them overly stressed and underprepared.\u00a0 However, Abeles and Congdon\u2019s proposals prove that practical solutions are hard to find.\u00a0 They promote the Italian Reggio Emilia philosophy of pedagogy, yet this reform is not only difficult to afford, but is at risk of falling into the same failures as past reforms.\u00a0 What our students need and deserve is a society that recognizes that financial success isn\u2019t the only route to happiness, and a society that doesn\u2019t rob children of their formative years through stress and homework.<\/p>\n

Works Cited:<\/p>\n

Abeles, Vicki. “Harvard or Walmart Syndrome.” Web log post.\u00a0End the Race Blog<\/i>. Race to Nowhere, 22 May 2011. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.<\/i><\/p>\n

Mitchell, Jeff. “Harvard-or-Walmart Syndrome.”\u00a0Jeffmitchellassociates.com<\/i>. Jeff Mitchell Associates, Web. 22 Feb. 2014.<\/i><\/p>\n

Race to Nowhere<\/i>. Dir. Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon. Prod. Vicki Abeles. Reel Link Films, 2009. Online.<\/p>\n

Ravitch, Diane.\u00a0The Death and Life of the Great American School System<\/i>. New York: Basic, 2010. Print.<\/p>\n

Smith, Josephine D. “Principal’s Message.”\u00a0CRECschools.org<\/i>. Reggio Magnet School of the Arts, \u00a0Web. 22 Feb. 2014.<\/p>\n

“Tuition and Tuition Assistance.”\u00a0Blueschool.org<\/i>. Blue School, Web. 22 Feb. 2014.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In their 2009 Documentary Race to Nowhere, Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon paint a startling image of today\u2019s school system in America.\u00a0 Rather than helping children to learn and to find themselves, Abeles and Congdon argue that the pressures of school are making our kids unhealthy, teaching them to cut corners, and failing to actually … Continue reading Race to Nowhere: Illuminating a Problem, Still Searching For Solutions<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":735,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63,67],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448"}],"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\/735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5470,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions\/5470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/edreform\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}