Tierra Foxworth

April 18th, 2020

IDC 201-201

Most Likely to Succeed

This documentary was amazing! I loved listening to the different points of view of the

people in it. There are so many things that need to change in the school system and so many

things that need to change in the way we think about school. I think this documentary takes a

deep look into the two different areas of interest and really opens them up for good discussion.

Within the first five minutes I was very intrigued and it really kept me thinking the entire time. I

kept wondering about my own son and what kind of education I would want him to have as he

gets older. Overall, I think this poses the question of what is more important for children to have.

I LOVED this documentary. The whole concept behind this was really eye opening and

not something that I really had thought about. As a parent, you really do have to think about what

you want for your child and how you want them to grow up. There really is a fine line between

wanting them to be smart people who get into the best colleges, and wanting them to be happy,

functioning, reliable members of society. I think there are huge differences between the two

types of education that were mentioned in the film. It's amazing to see some of the results of both

of them. I do have to agree with Mr. Whiteley that we do need to rethink our education system.

We have such an outdated system that is it not really funny. I love the point that one of the

people being interviewed had said about numbers. We are teaching kids to remember things, then

giving them multiple choice tests that tell us nothing about work, learning, or citizenship

readiness. We are a nation obsessed with numbers and as long as those numbers are not dropping
then we do not see a reason to change. We see students as statistics and not as people. We don't

take into account what they want, or even think. Teachers are told what to drill into student's

head and that is what they do. I think overall, we are so stuck in our ways that we find it hard to

make a change.

From the very first scene I loved the first quote: “If we teach today as we taught

yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow. - John Dewey.” I cannot think of a better statement

that could describe the way that we teach in our nation. We are so worried about tomorrow that I

think we stay in the past too much. We are always looking in the rearview mirror instead of

through the great big windshield in front of us. I think that this hinders a lot of children and that

is why many of them do not go on after high school or even finish. In today’s society, just

because you go to college does not mean that you will always find your dream job or even a

good job anymore. When I listened to the part where it said the U.S. economy is able to acquire

more wealth while being able to hire less people, I was completely taken aback by that statement

and how true it actually is. The shift in technology is causing the need for human jobs to decline.

There are many things now that are replaced by computers and soon, we will be completely

taken over by them. I think for students this means that they would need to learn new skills that

make them better people while in school. I think more jobs that revolve around technology,

engineering, science, and artificial intelligence will be in high demand. Anything else will soon

be forgotten.

I think it was also very opening to hear that we have not truly changed the basis of the

U.S. education system in almost one hundred and twenty-five years! Every inch of this country

has changed multiple times since then so why is education the only thing that has not? In the

times the education system was created the country needed nothing but factory workers. There
was a way to make a good living with only a 7th grade education. All you needed to do was learn

to follow directions and work hard. Now there are so many other skills that are required to not

only make a good living but to have a good life along with it. A lot of those skills are not taught

in basic schools today and now we are pumping out students who are not anywhere near ready

for adult life or responsibilities. I like the approach that High Tech High came up with. They are

teaching content but also some of those soft skills and life experiences that they will need as they

get older. Even though it was mentioned that there is no real data that their approach was better, I

agree with it way more than I do with the way we are doing things now. I loved the fact that they

brought up about memorization and retention. As young students, we forget a lot of what we are

told to memorize. Schools cram information into students and then within months they forget

everything. I know personally, there are a lot of things that I had learned in high school and even

in some of my classes here at Chesapeake, that I do not remember a lot of the content that I was

taught. It is all about life skills and how we are going to use them properly. Schools now are all

about passing tests in order to take more tests. We are all about numbers and how those students

fit into those numbers. This is such a disservice to the students, I think. I loved the examples

from the play the most that was given by the little girl Samantha. She had shown such

improvement in her confidence and just overall demeanor. I was super impressed without ever

having met her. All of those students in that class grew as people and walked out of that school

as young, functioning members of society. I do not see how we could do it any other way.

I also found it interesting that the children that were in normal high school were more

worried about getting good grades and passing those tests in order to get into colleges. We are

programming students to believe that they need to do all of that in order to thrive and have a

good happy life. We have programmed them to believe that money is the everything and that
without that college degree, you have no other way of getting it. I think that his blindfolds kids

and does not really let them see the bigger picture. They have no idea that there are other people

in the world who have no education at all and are happier than most people could ever be here in

this country. I think we force kids to make life altering decisions without ever having made a

truly important decision in their lives. How are they supposed to do that without having proper

life skills? I think that there is definitely a fine line between the two concepts of education but I

also think that we need to really sit and think about what is more important. We need to put

ourselves in all different points of views when we think about the question and truly think of

nothing else but the children. They are out future after all and if we don’t help them now, then

the future will truly be a miserable ending.