Waiting for Superman (movie review)

I am an educator (and I have taught from high-school level to graduate level, Masters and PhD), and so I have a direct stake in the fate of the education system. So when I got an invite to see the Vancouver premiere of Waiting for Superman (and I gave away a couple of pairs of tickets for it), I was very excited to go check the movie.

While I teach at a university, I feel rather ill-equipped to make an informed commentary on the state of Canadian and American pre-university educational systems. I don’t have experience teaching high school nor grades below. That said, three of my nieces and two of my nephews live in the US and I think I will do some informal research and talk with them about their perception of both the movie and the US educational system.

My own view of the movie was that it was heartbreaking, if everything said on the movie was true. Of course, as my good friend Meghan said, there are points where it looks totally inflammatory and overstated. One of the things that it made me think about was – this will be a topic that my students will have to analyze in my Public Policy course next term. There is no better way to assess the state of the educational system than look at data.

And as I mentioned, I’m a specialist in environment and public policy who teaches at the university level, I’m not a specialist in educational policy, so I have no direct experience. My nieces (and by extension, my brother and his wife) are, however, directly immersed in the US/California educational system (college, high school and grade school), so I will ask them how they feel about the movie.

All in all, as a movie that will tug at your heart and make you think about the future of your children’s education, I liked Waiting for Superman. It’s showing at Fifth Avenue Cinemas right now.