The Value of a Semicolon

I've just come home from the screening (presented along with Lewis & Clark's Graduate School of Education) of the acclaimed edu-documentary Race to Nowhere.

My mind is racing a bit, so I thought I'd knock out some thoughts to continue what was a vibrant, impassioned, and thoughtful dialogue begun after the closing credits. (The three Riverdale High School students who participated in the panel dialogue were especially impressive. I was also very proud to see at least four RGS-ers in the crowd.)

In sum, and before I begin, I should share that while about 60% of the film spoke to places deep within me, another 40% was troubling and turned me off.

The documentary begins and ends with the stirring story of a beautiful young lady whose life ended with her suicide, which her mother attributes to the pressures she felt associated with school. Clearly, listening to the anguish of this mother bemoan the meaninglessness of the anxieties her daughter faced is excruciating. I can think of no worse situation. Too, much of the research mentioned in the film is gratefully presented here, on the website. The professors featured, many of them out of Stanford University, were especially thoughtful in their critiques of American schooling. The film's final frames exhort the viewers to advocate for reforms in the way we approach education in our nation. These recommendations really resonated with me, especially because they rolled back some of the more rhetorically exasperated content sprinkled throughout. For these reasons I really recommend you find a showing and set aside the 90 minutes to watch the documentary.

But there are a few things I find disturbing about what is, at times, a reductionist view of an incredibly complex social issue -- that is to say, the film seems to simultaneously pit the viewer against the vagaries of: teachers, homework, conservatives, involved and motivated parents, etc., all in the name of highlighting the truism that our current model of educating children quite often exacerbates social ills like illegal drug use and cheating. Early on, for instance, an English teacher tosses out a comment about the relative lack of importance she places on the semicolon. It's in relation to something quite important, like knowing about her students' lives, but still, she throws the semicolon under the proverbial bus with surprisingly detached contempt.

I have a special fondness for the semicolon; it allows us to go in more than one direction nearly simultaneously, and to hold sometimes paradoxical thoughts together with grace.

Homework, especially, became a hot topic in the panel discussion period. But homework was not the central theme of the film at all. Getting rid of homework is not the message of the film. I personally believe in developing an ethos of practice and patient focus. At the same time, I freely acknowledge that we don't always assign practice work that is worthy of your family's precious time. We, like many school communities, need to work on that.

The value of a documentary like Race to Nowhere, much like Waiting for Superman, is not in the solutions it offers, but in the mirror it provides. I'm very grateful to Dr. MacNamara, Jody Haagenson, and the folks at L&C for giving us a forum for reflection. Practice, reflection, and improvement are what school ought to be, and what it most often is in our little school. And, thanks to our wonderful faculty, our kids know well how to use a semicolon.