This is one of the saddest documentaries I have ever seen. As I watched these children, stressed out to the point of developing eating disorders and having anxiety attacks because of the pressure from school, I was deeply saddened. What are we doing to our children?
Having studied the school systems in other countries, especially the top performing ones in the world, it is clear that we have doing serious damage to our children... and it isn't helping us to achieve anything.
We start them in formal academics too early. We pile on homework and testing from the beginning. When a child doesn't learn to read in Kindergarten, we label them as "learning disabled" and send them for tutoring and more pressure. When they can't sit still for long periods of time at age seven, we label them as ADHD and medicate them.
This documentary tells of some of the academic pressures our children face. This doesn't include peer pressures or home pressures or the pressure to fit in with others. This was solely about the pressure to do well in school, the hours of homework, the ambition in working to get the best grades, and the negative impact it has on young minds.
I can't fix the American educational system. I can help my own children. We homeschool. The pressure to perform isn't absent in homeschooling, however. Many parents homeschool as a way to give their child a better education than the public school, but then do what the public school does. They pile on the work and push the standards more and more, until the child hates school.
After researching Finland and other countries, I decided to change the way I homeschool. I want my children to have a great education, but not at the expense of their mental health. And so, I designed a different path, with lots of art and music and play time for my ten year old. She will have school, but not six or seven hours a day.
Even my oldest will have a gentler schedule.
I recommend this documentary. I think many parents don't truly know what's going on, or we assume it is happening "elsewhere." The documentary was full of teachers that were honest about the pressures they face from administrators and the government to teach to the tests. Most confessed that they'll didn't even have the time to teach all the material they were supposed to cover.
The fact that any child would be suicidal over grades shows how obsessed our culture has become with achievement. It also shows how little we respect childhood as a special time. Of course, if we don't respect children, we won't respect childhood. If we see children as little adults, we won't understand that they shouldn't have two hours of homework at twelve years of age.
One beautiful, smart young girl in the movie committed suicide because of a bad grade. How hopeless must a child feel to commit suicide? For suicide to be about something as temporary and unsubstantial as a grade is a punch in the gut. This girl was beautiful and smart. She was a musician. Why did one math grade hold the power of life and death? Why did her father go to the school and be told that everything was fine? Why are there more questions than answers?
Life is precious. It matters. It matters more than grades. I love to learn, but even I see the futility of pressuring children to do what they never should... be little, achieving adults.
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