Waiting for Superman

I would definitely consider myself a person who often complains about schoolwork. My idea of a 'normal' evening is coming home from school, stressed and tired, and complaining to my parents or my brother, or anyone who will listen for that matter, about the amount of schoolwork that I have. And I feel like this is a relatively normal occurrence for many of the students that go to New Trier. This idea of mine was backed  in American Studies as we watched a trailer for the documentary Race to Nowhere. This film, directed by Vicki Abeles, is a documentary focusing on the amount of pressure students of all ages get in this generation of schooling. It focuses on many ideas that I find stressful as well, such as applying for colleges, or the amount of homework the average student gets every night. The makers of this movie agree with what I thought; that the workload students are getting each day has just become too much, and something has to change. To them, school has just become too much to handle. 

However, last night I went to see a movie, and as I was sitting through the trailers, something caught my eye. It was a preview for another documentary about school, only the premise of this movie was entirely different. It was called Waiting for Superman. 

This film as well focuses on the problems of America's educational system, only instead of discussing the schools that are academically taxing, it talks about five promising young students, who wish to leave their current schools "that inhibit, rather than encourage, academic growth" and get accepted into better, private schools. The film talks about how so many students attend schools that are not academically taxing, but wish to do so. They wish to receive a better education. It was interesting to me that there could be two documentaries, both focusing on the problems of America's educational system, out at the same time, but both being entirely about different problems. And after learning more about Waiting for Superman, it  became obvious to me which problem was more prevalent in America. 

There are few public schools out there that are as good as New Trier, and after learning about Waiting for Superman, it became obvious to me how many students would benefit from attending a school such as ours. Majority of the schools in the country don't have the facilities or the resources that we do, and the education of the students that go there is obviously lacking. These students, and those portrayed in the film, strive for a good education, while I complain about the one I am receiving. I believe that I, and many other students, take the education that I am getting for granted, and should not do so, because there are so many out there that wish to go to a school like ours, but can't. And I believe that this is the problem in the educational system that needs to be changed.