<p>There are some schools that are interested in kids who are very, very good in one thing. But there are a few schools who can hold out for candidates who are very good in just about everything (and many are *still *very, very good at one thing). If you want to go to one of those schools, you have to be one of those people. This may mean a lot of sacrifices–just as you might have to sacrifice to be an Olympic athlete, whether it’s as a pole-vaulter or a Decathlete.</p>
<p>I guess what annoys me is the title, “Race to Nowhere.” If some kids are racing to get somewhere they don’t actually want to go, that’s one thing. But to suggest that this kind of goal is “nowhere” isn’t right, in my view.</p>
<p>i think the filmmaker lives in a highly competitive community and i believe she has or had kids in the schools there…my guess is that her kids were not high performers and that motivated her to make this film. I believe she’s missing the point…you race ahead not because you have a goal but because you can, you like to race and like to win. the nature of a high performer is they thrive on competition and working hard to perform, the goal be it math, or running, or art is almost not important. what’s important is the competition!</p>
<p>Also, remember most high performers fail a lot. Michael Jordan’s famous quote about how many game winning shots he was entrusted to take failed, how many games he lost, etc…and as he says; “that is why I succeed”. one of the messages in this film is that it’s damaging to have kids racing ahead because many fail…I disagree, protecting johnny by not putting him in the race to begin with is actually more damaging.</p>
<p>I think this film just points to the literal insanity of the ‘college admissions process’ in the US. As someone now living outside and looking in, and living in a much more sane college application environment (Canada), I am just so thankful we left when we did. </p>
<p>Here there are no SATs, no collection of awards and ECs at the same degree, no APs needed (though you can take them there isn’t a sense of collecting them). I find ittelling that when we look at UK schools, Canadian kids need around an 80-85% average in their grade 12 courses only (not APs), yet US kids at the same schools need like 3 APs with “5” scores. Hmmm. </p>
<p>Kids here, for the most part, get a great normal highschool experience. They belong to activities they enjoy, they study, they get a great college education (for a fraction of the price), and the populace is educated, creative, achieving. I’m not sure what they are missing, to be frank. There isn’t the focus on resume padding and collecting points and scores, and I think it enables them to just learn and enjoy.</p>
<p>The trailer seems interesting but what surprises me is the distribution of the film in Texas. ElPaso? Not particularly known for a competitive ISD. There are some key ISDs (Independent School Districts) in Houston, San Antonio & Dallas that should be showing this film. If the film is to make an impact, proper distribution should be a consideration.</p>
<p>Maybe the film creators skipped AP Statistics.</p>
There is a difference between “doing well in math” and being genius level. Lots of people “do well”. Some even go on to get PhD’s in the subject. But far fewer are at the level of genius. Where they fall can be hard to discern from their spanish grades.</p>
<p>OK genius level math and an A in AP spanish:) The kids from my community who go to HYPS are rock stars in several areas and A students in the others. the “genius” that can only master one subject will have to be very outstanding in that subject to make it in to HYPS, but I’m sure the few true geniuses out there do get tapped by HYPS and other elites.</p>
<p>Agree that Canada and most of Europe has a more laid back approach to education and life, we’re more hyper about everything. And I think that we are a more competitive culture, it’s an American attitude…it’s why the majority of the innovations in the world come from the US. The qualities that fuel innovation start in our school system. I think it’s a good thing.</p>
<p>My son had a good experience in high school, but there were definitely aspects of the competitive achievement culture that were an eye-opener. In particular, I regret that I did not speak up when he felt compelled to take AP courses in several subject areas because it was expected of him to do so this on top of a course load that was already heavy with other AP and advanced courses. I will be more careful with his younger sister to make sure she is taking a properly challenging yet realistic course load to hopefully help her avoid the same pitfalls.</p>
<p>“AP classes are not an imposition. If one is “unhooked” yet wants to compete for an “elite” university, it is required that he take the most challenging courses offered at his respective high school”</p>
<p>Other than the top 25 or so, kids really don’t need to take 8 or 9 APs to get into well rated colleges. Unfortunately at many top High schools, there is a widespread impression that to get in to a selective college you do need to do that. </p>
<p>I am not even sure the tippy top colleges are well served by the pressure to take so many APs.</p>
<p>There are kids who get into top colleges without taking the most rigorous classes, or even close, if they make good use of the extra time they then have, to pursue something they love to do outside of school. This may sound trite, but it is true.</p>
<p>The Federal Government has a program called “Race to the Top,” which seems an apt terminology for public education these days, with its competition via standardized tests and curricula. This movie’s title must refer to that “race.”</p>
<p>The point is, I think, that actual learning suffers because of the competitive nature of schools and college admissions. The article someone posted describes this well. Kids tend to want to say or do the “right” things and this can stifle not only their own development, but classroom discussions as well.</p>
<p>Good book on how all this affects kids’ sense of self: “The Price of Privilege” by Madeline Levine. Again, some of it is a bit well-worn, but it fits the movie’s thesis quite well.</p>
<p>Ironically, someone sent me another movie trailer today for “Waiting for Superman”, which pertains to an entirely different demographic and argues for raising the bar and, presumably, the stress level, for underserved children.</p>
<p>i think the article from Columbia is a bunch of BS and I’m glad my daughter passed on Columbia even though they did fly her out for the weekend. </p>
<p>kids are programmed to get the right answer because it’s helpful to know that 2+2 always equals 4. Once a kid has all the basics down, which is learned up through high school, then they can pursue more creative thinking…isn’t that what Taylor at Columbia should be doing, teaching them to use their brains creatively? Instead he blames his lack of teaching ability on parents and primary school teachers who have taught the students in his class to spell and add, correctly!</p>
<p>Our cultures most creative minds continue to come out of these elite institutions…like you know the two guys that invented google, I bet they get the answer right every time, what would Taylor say about them?</p>
<p>I’m just not buying this whole failure in eduction shtick, seems like things are pretty great from the kids I know going HYPS and even some who go to Cal:)</p>
<p>“There are kids who get into top colleges without taking the most rigorous classes, or even close, if they make good use of the extra time they then have, to pursue something they love to do outside of school. This may sound trite, but it is true.”</p>
<p>I don’t see this happening. My daughter has one of those loves for something outside of school, 35+ hours a week for 4 years. But her top school dictated her senior class schedule, which includes 3 AP classes, including AP AB Calculus. She tried to get an easier schedule, they said no, not if you want to come here. </p>
<p>So being literally the best in the country in her sport didn’t get her off the hook on taking more AP classes and getting A’s.</p>
<p>“Instead he blames his lack of teaching ability on parents and primary school teachers who have taught the students in his class to spell and add, correctly!”</p>
<p>I dont see him saying that at all. I seem talking about the importance of passion, learning for the joy of learning, instead of going through hoops for the next step. We have seen what he is talking about.</p>
<p>“Our cultures most creative minds continue to come out of these elite institutions…like you know the two guys that invented google, I bet they get the answer right every time, what would Taylor say about them?”</p>
<p>They came out of state schools undergrad, and Stanford for PhDs.</p>
<p>And I certainly bet they were more focused on their passions than on getting the right answer every time. </p>
<p>Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
Albert Einstein</p>
<p>there’s a difference between getting the right answers so you can advance to a better school and getting wrong answers because you’re passionately pursuing something. The latter is the failure that comes with success, but it’s a separate subject from studying hard and jumping through hoops, aka getting A’s, when your a junior. I bet Larry and Serg jumped through a lot of hoops to get to Stanford, and that hoop jumping gave them the building blocks to program Google. </p>
<p>Having discipline and strict learning regiments so a child learns to do Calculus well or a foreign language or a science doesn’t stifle a kid, or hurt their ability to think creatively, or be passionate about a subject. On the contrary the discipline and hoop jumping gives them the ability and confidence to pursue things passionately.</p>
<p>And I guarantee you that both Larry and Serg had mostly right answers and jumped through many hoops at Michigan and Maryland to be accepted to the Stanford PHd program.</p>
<p>Bumping this thread since the film was reviewed in the Washington Post recently. Apparently the film’s title was suggested by a student. I’m surprised the article never mentioned teen suicide, which we had a lot of 2 or 3 years ago around here. </p>
<p>Serena Ranganathan, 16, a Whitman student, said she thought the movie overstated stress-induced health problems. She doesn’t know anyone who wakes up at 1 a.m. with stomach aches or has checked into a stress clinic, she said.</p>
<p>Still, the issue of teaching to the test is true to life, she said.</p>
<p>“We’re not really motivated to learn to gain knowledge,” Ranganathan said. “We just want to memorize it and get a good grade and get into a good school.” In a sense, she said, the educational process has been corrupted. “Especially after the final exam, you just forget it afterward.”</p>
<p>Schools in our area stopped posting the Honor Roll in the newspaper to try to lower the stress level after a rash of suicide by high-achieving teens who apparently didn’t find themselves to be achieving high ENOUGH. (Face it - who hasn’t looked thru the Honor Roll listings to see who made it - and who didn’t? Why does the public need to know “Johnny didn’t make it this time, gee I wonder what went wrong?”)</p>
<p>A private all-boys high school here has a weeklong retreat before senior year. It’s ostensibly a religious retreat, but parents I have spoken to say its emphasis on “God loves you and He will love you no matter what” is an attempt to ward off self-destructive behavior that has occurred when the uber-selective college rejections start rolling in. They had a suicide this year after graduation anyway.</p>
<p>There are many many many wonderful colleges and universities that offer academic challenges and mind-expanding experiences, and they don’t all start with the letters H,Y,P,S or M.</p>
<p>Many colleges are limiting the number of AP credits they will accept. Do you really think Harvard is going to accept Billy because he took 10 APs and reject Andy because he only took 9?</p>
<p>Kids get one shot at high school. Is spending 6 hours a night doing AP homework the best use of their time? Clearly, spending hours each day playing video games or drinking is not a good way to spend one’s high school years, but there has to be a happy medium. </p>
<p>Kids should be able to play a sport, and to take the time to cheer on their friends’ sports team. They should have time to volunteer because they WANT to, not because they need X number of hours for their activity resume. They should have at least one non-academic class in their day that uses the other side of their brain - art, music, etc. </p>
<p>I’m not saying they shouldn’t be the best they can be. But they shouldn’t be spending all their time worrying about their best being better than someone else’s best, and they shouldn’t spend their teenage years doing things that they think colleges want to see. They should do things they are genuinely interested in. If it gets them into Fabulous Univ, that’s a bonus.</p>
Well, it’s good to hear that the 10% of applicants who get accepted to uber-selective colleges think our education system is just fine. BTW, Cal (I assume you mean Berkeley?) is pretty darned selective too. Good to hear that the kids who are winners under this system think the system is great. Why wouldn’t they?</p>
<p>My math genius (well really more like computer genius) son also took (and excelled at) AP Latin. I’ll admit though he didn’t take the top level courses in English. I will also say that both my kids each took 8 to 10 APs (depending on how you count them) and were not at all overworked in high school. I thank our teachers for not making AP courses crazy.</p>
<p>I do think there is an arms race out there, and that too many kids are taking APs who aren’t ready for them. Both my kids refused to take AP English even though the school urged them to take it. Both kids had mixed results in college acceptances but they each got into one of the top 20 schools on the USNWR list. (Which I think is a stupid list, but for what it’s worth, it proves to me that you don’t have to kill yourself to get accepted at those schools.)</p>
<p>As compmom said (in #30), both my kids were probably greatly helped by what they did outside the classroom walls.</p>