Waiting For Superman Essay

The documentary “Waiting for Superman” investigated the ways in which the American Public Education system is failing our nation’s children. It highlighted the roles that Charter Schools and education reformers could play in an effort to offer hope for the future. Moreover, the movie depicted the dropout rate of high school students and schools closing due to lack of funding. The families of five children, who were enrolled in public school, shared their personal stories. These families have taken the necessary steps to provide their children with the opportunity to obtain a good education. The children themselves aspire to be great, and desired the opportunity to one day be able to attend college. They feared, however devoid of a good public

education that dream would not be realized.
Anthony is a child that understood the significance of an excellent education. During his earlier years he struggled academically and emotionally when his father passed away. Anthony recognizes that if he was to attend the district junior high school that he was assigned to his chances of attaining a quality education and completing high school was unlikely. He wanted his life to be different than what was perceived around him. Anthony stated “I want my kids to have better than what I had, I want to go to school”. This is Anthony’s dream for himself.
According to the transactional model of teaching-learning process, Anthony’s classroom climate is important because it can have a positive or negative impact on his learning, and ultimately influences his success.

(Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p. 7 & 8) Classroom climate is designed to assess the average child’s experience in the classroom. The amount of emotional support experienced by children in a classroom is based on the warmth, respect, teacher sensitivity and responsiveness, support, approachability, child-centered focus and positive effects that are provided. Anthony’s classroom climate portrayed a welcoming atmosphere to all students, a place where instructions and responses are in an individualized way and motivated to foster each student’s learning. Although Anthony’s classroom didn’t seem to be culturally diverse in terms of ethnicity, his teacher had to respect the diversity within her classroom in order to create a positive classroom climate for Anthony to feel safe, which would benefit his achievement socially, emotionally and academically. High-quality emotional climate in classrooms may have beneficial effects for all children and particularly protective effects for children with existing behavioral, academic, or contextual risks (Rucinski, Brown & Downer,

2017).
Another factor that impacted Anthony life is familial involvement.

I believe that a student’s success in traditional learning and social development is dependent upon the skills of the teacher in the classroom in addition to family involvement. Families and educators build the foundation upon which students will either thrive or fail. To build this foundation in our changing and expanding world, teachers must have the ability to engage and connect with students of different ethnicities, diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and familial environments. Socioeconomic status can profoundly affect the learner’s attitudes toward school, background knowledge, behaviors, expectations and academic achievement. (Education & socioeconomic) It is the job of the teacher to encourage parental involvement in the classroom. As Anthony’s grandmother raise her grandson with the absence of a biological mother and deceased father due to drugs she was innately aware of their difficult situation and was doing her best to make sense of it. Anthony’s grandmother did not have anyone to motivate and encourage her to value education. In the research by Hickman, Greenwood & Miller states that parents of high socioeconomic status are actively involved and interact with their children both at home and at school, while low socioeconomic status parents value education but are less involved in the school community because they are less comfortable communicating with administrators, and they work longer hours

. Nevertheless Anthony’s grandmother supported and encouraged him and found it essential that he be given an opportunity to have a better and brighter future; however this can only be accomplished through a quality education.
The status of equality is not exclusive to students with a disability. Statistics show that students of low socioeconomic status do not grant the same opportunities as those of high. They are generally unexposed to extensive vocabularies, after school programs, tutoring, parent homework help and team sports. In this way, these students are not equal to those of high SES. In contrast, those students of high SES don’t grant the same level of peer engagement and generally do not possess the playful nature of a child from a low SES, in this way they too are at a disadvantage. As stated in Kliewer, by educating all children together we can,
“Alter the metaphor of community in order that each individual may be recognized as a rightful participant, no matter what his or her strengths are in conceptualizing and acting on the universe” (1998, p.132).

An effective teacher is characterized as one that share knowledge, one that challenges, inspires, motivates and encourages students. An effective teacher focuses on a student’s strengths, gives them opportunities to demonstrate what they have learned, support and guide future leaders while continuously seeking to obtain new knowledge. A successful educator encourages students to be proud of their accomplishments and view their struggles as areas of growth (Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p.14) Anthony’s teacher supported and presented to him and his classmates another alternative and new expectation on the field trip to the SEED Charter, college-preparatory public boarding school. She had high expectations for her students overall achievement and for them to envision a life outside of their norm. “Something expected to happen is indeed more likely to happen than something that is not expected to happen. This is self-fulfilling prophecy” (Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p. 25) an experiment performed by Rosenthal and Fode to show the effects this theory have on educators perception of their students or schools educational performance. Students who are perceived negatively feel unsure and stressed. This interferes with their cognitive abilities and overall performance. Fortunately for
Anthony his teacher believed he can achieve and expected him to believe it also.

Schools provide support for students, families and staff and prepare students for a productive adulthood, when it is a vital part of the community. Effective and appropriate collaboration are key to community development, learning and family self sufficiency. “Failing neighborhoods blamed on failing schools” (Chilcott & Guggenheim, 2010) Anthony’s community environment did not possess outlets for him to establish himself without an education. “No matter how great a child’s inborn intellectual capacity is, that capacity will not be realized or actualized unless the home and school environments are reasonably supportive and stimulating” (Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p. 171) Social interactions occur in the schools/classrooms and build a larger social community and create changes in individuals. Educators possess essential skills to involve families and communities in many aspects of child’s development and learning.
Anthony’s culture, family environment, past experiences and prior knowledge influence his present learning. Cultural differences affect how people communicate and interact with others and their expectations of how others will respond. Every culture has its own sets of rules, interpretations and expectations. Being aware of your own cultural experiences, influences how you see, appreciate and accept others culture. Skin color, language, access to education, accent and demeanor are all linked to identity. Each of these factors influence how one sees others and them self. They grant opportunities and access into certain parts of the world that, for others, may remain unattainable. When educators do not acknowledge their students native language they disregard two of the most essential components of their identity: their language and their culture. Educators must "reaffirm the legitimacy" (Delpit & Dowdy, 2002, p.172) of their students’ primary language or dialect, validate their experience, and applaud their current understanding. In Tuckman & Monetti, Byrnes recommends that students must be exposed to opportunities and motivated to capitalize on these opportunities in order to improve academic skills. Students require support and encouragement to flourish. As an African American, Anthony was also faced with stereotype threat about his ethnic background and educational performance. To alleviate stereotype educators should challenge struggling students, provide role models of successful people of that ethnicity and encourage students to be proud of their accomplishments ((Tuckman & Monetti, 2013, p. 143) Eliminating stereotype threat makes for better student performance and self confidence.

Students do not walk into a classroom with equal opportunities. Students with disabilities, language deficit and ethnicity have a history that is far different than their counterparts. These students may communicate differently than the majority; their intelligence may be expressed in ways that other students have never had to consider. This realization had a powerful impact on my conceptualization of equality in the classroom. The vast majority of Anthony’s classmates come from families living at or below the poverty line. In this respect they are equal in their opportunities or lack thereof. Additionally, the students are equally insightful and equally respected, yet they are not equal in their abilities. When I say abilities I do not necessarily mean academic ability. What I have seen is that the highly academic students are those that struggle in social situations and in their attempts to form relationships in the classroom. Those students, who may struggle academically, are our biggest conversationalists whom others gravitate towards.

Each student should be viewed as a whole child, made up of strengths and challenges, and many of these challenges are simply of their control. It is the job of an educator to create an environment where students stand on an equal playing field. The classroom may be the one place on earth that students are equally respected and given equal access to citizenship. If the most important thing for students to learn all year is that they are an important and contributing member of a community, then educators have done their job.

One of the most important and applicable realizations I gained as a result of engaging in a dialogue surrounding these readings is the simple fact that good parenting has no universal definition. The concept of good parenting is culturally, socially, economically and racially based.