I'm not usually very interested in documentaries, but tonight I watched "Waiting for Superman" and it definitely has made me do a lot of thinking. I have always been grateful for my education. I realize that out of everyone in the world, not many graduate from high school, even less graduate college, and even less than that finish graduate school. I am very fortunate to have done all of these things.
After watching this movie, I am even more aware of how blessed I was to grow up in an area where I had good teachers (for the most part), and my schools weren't considered "dropout factories" (these are schools whose senior class has 60% or fewer of the kids who entered as freshmen). I actually just checked and Utah has 0% rate of dropout factories... some states have 51%. It's hard for me to imagine how things might have been if I was born into a different life. Some parents work very hard to get their kids into good schools, and when it really comes down to it, the decision is made by a random drawing. If their kids' names aren't called in the drawing, the chances of them graduating from school pretty much plummet.
Wow... I meant for this to be a really brief post, but I guess I had more to say than I thought! I feel like some things were pretty much given to me and I've always taken that for granted, but tonight I'm glad to have the chance to think about it all and really appreciate what I have.
1 comment:
I work with a girl that is just finishing up student teaching and she suggested that I see this documentary. I have always known the public school system is a big flawed but now I really want to see it. I like perspectives, thanks for sharing.
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