Race to Nowhere

Tonight, I had the opportunity to see the film "Race to Nowhere" (directed by Vicki Abeles).  After hearing about it in class earlier this year as well as watching the trailer before, I was excited to finally get to see it.

Without giving away the documentary, the basic premise is that it shows the pressures many American students and teachers face in this culture that is so obsessed with "achievement", and thus very competitive.  The film features stories of young people across the nation who have been pushed to their limits, teachers who worried that the students aren't developing the "proper" skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what they think is best.

Some of my thoughts after watching the film were the following:

What exactly is achievement?  And how can that really be measured?  What does it mean to be successful in this country?  Is it making a lot of money?  Or shouldn't it really be about a person's overall happiness?

I was curious to see how "success" was defined in the Oxford English Dictionary.  The definition was:

The prosperous achievement of something attempted; the attainment of an object according to one's desire: now often with particular reference to the attainment of wealth or position

Even in the dictionary "wealth" is put under the definition of success.  The film mentioned how our "system" seems to stress the importance of money as a baseline for achievement.  Not only this, but grades and test scores in the current education system seem to be the main factors measuring "smartness".  And these tests and education system as a whole are measuring more what a student can cram in and remember, as opposed to encouraging students to really think, and gain the passion for learning that comes with that.

The viewpoint of the "Race to Nowhere" documentary is that there needs to be a change in our education system.  The film "points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired."  Do you agree or disagree with the main points of the video regarding the education system in America?