Name of event: Movie Screening and Discussion of "American Teacher"
Organizer: MSUNER
Location: MSU
On Friday night, Lin and I attended a movie screening of the documentary "American Teacher" narrated by Matt Damon. The movie itself was VERY depressing! Honestly, it scared me and I would not recommend it for people thinking about becoming teachers. The movie focuses on the low salaries of teachers - or more succinctly, as the moderator described it - the exploitation of teachers. The movie does not offer solutions to the problem, and only offers one very competative charter school in Washington Heights, NYC as a high-paying alternative for educators.
The discussion after the movie became politcally charged in terms of how to award teachers and keep them accountable. Lin and I described the pilot program that McKinley is becoming involved with - which will evaluate teachers based on the progress of their students in one year. Most of the teachers seemed to not like that idea because it was too close to merit pay.
As a future teacher, the movie did spark my curiousity in charter alternatives - and as much as we talk about not wanting the privatization of public schools, they seem to offer a competative alternative for students and teachers.
No comments:
Post a Comment