I recently saw the movie Waiting For Superman and wrote a mainly positive review. I found the film to be heartbreaking and brilliant as it dug deep into the growing areas of dysfunction in our public educational systems.
John Armstrong also recently viewed the movie and wrote a very positive review. Then today he wrote a "rethink" piece questioning some of his initial response to the movie. It is a great example of humility, honesty, and critical thinking.
If you have seen this movie you should read both of his pieces (part one and part two). Here is his conclusion from his second post:
Here is what I should have written after seeing the film. This is a good, indeed a must-see, film. But like An Inconvenient Truth it offers far too many simple answers to complex issues and problems. Come to think of it conservatives are prone to this kind of reasoning and I am not sure why, especially if they believe in personal and systemic sin and the need for real community. Sometimes I wonder if they say they believe these things but then act as if the solution is to attack what we have and then embrace the easy solutions offered by films and media sources. Life is just a little more complex than this version of conservatism understands. What we need is a little of the older form of conservatism, the kind that we once called “classical liberalism” before these words got hijacked by modern political opinion shapers.
Why then did I miss all this when I saw the film? Like most everyone else I want answers and this film gives them. I want hope, and this film offers it. And I would like to see everything in the best light, a weakness of mine at times. So I was taken up by the powerful answer this film offered me about a complex issue that I think Christians must grapple with deeply in our present cultural breakdown. My thinking is now more sober but I would still urge you to see the film.
1 comment:
He needs to rethink yet again. Specifically, to his inclusion of the Cornell West comment, he should check with any statistician as to why it is criminally negligent to compare the United State with Scandinavian countries in nearly any respect.
The author is correct in stating that it's far too simplistic to assert that all the problems can be fixed by eliminating teacher unions. That absolutely needs to be done and should be at the top of the priority list. But that won't solve nearly all of the problems in education.
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