Ok...really...if your child can't read....whose fault is that??? Barring mental issues, if your child is capable of learning then teach your child at home as well as in school.
LIZ 10:"I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule."Dr.Who
That annoys the bejeesus out of me. You don't need money for your kid to read. Go to the public library, it's free. Go outside and use the street signs to teach your kid. Use those phone books that sit outside for a week before somebody gets around to throwing them away.
shareI HATE that, too! People actually are like that and makes the scene worse. She's what, 5 or 6 and looks terrified in the classroom. I think if a kid has someone looking in their care, but they can't read by age three it should be a federal crime.
~~VO~~Lap Up All Of My Sugary Badness.
Her child can't read because the state cut funding for public schools, and the class is overcrowded, and the teacher can't give one on one attention to every student, and the parent doesn't read with their child at home.
Life's a bitch and then you die...deal with it!
The parent not reading at home is the prob, because school comes after the age at which a child is supposed to read.
~~VO~~Lap Up All Of My Sugary Badness.
I already cannot have sympathy for the characters in this movie after seeing that preview....TEACH YOUR CHILD TO READ AT HOME! Why do some parents figure they don't need to teach and just wait for teachers to do it?? Ofcourse a child won't learn anything if you plop them down in front of a television...Parents should start reading to their kids soon as they bring them home from the hospital. I've known quite a few 3 and 4 year olds who can read...Stop making it everyone else's problem and take responsibility for your child's education, BEFORE they even enter K4.
sharewhat? no it doesn't!
share[deleted]
It's easier to blame all the failings of public education on the teachers or their unions.
Truth is, there's enough blame to go around. Politicians, parents, teachers,unions, community leaders, religious organizations, they all need to stop pointing fingers and step up.
But it won't happen because it's too easy to politicize the issue and blame everything on supposedly lazy, greedy, incompetent, teachers. Everything that's wrong is their fault.
I don't know if it's intentional, but all Viola Davis' movie choices as of late seem to be controversial.
Ummm.... "my kid can't do calculus." Is that the parent's fault, too? Or what about if the kid can't name all the levels in the taxonomic hierarchy? Oh, the parents are to blame!
Teachers are paid professionals in the business of education. Their job is to properly educate students. And school systems (at least in my state) are funded on the backs of the homeowners of their towns. As citizens, we pay into a system that is expected to product an end product--education.
Of course basic skills such as reading and writing can be reinforced at home, however it is a complete cop out to blame the parents for expecting the experts to do their jobs.
That's like me hiring an electrician to fix the faulty wiring in my house, then having folks blame me for not going behind him and finishing the wiring myself.
[deleted]
Ummm.... "my kid can't do calculus." Is that the parent's fault, too? Or what about if the kid can't name all the levels in the taxonomic hierarchy? Oh, the parents are to blame!
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YES if as a teacher I have tutoring classes or anything that can help the kid learn and the PARENTS refuse to allow the kids to attend. Whose fault is that?
I am in the education system-you have no idea how much parents fight back when we try to help their kid. I have seen teacher have to fight for their jobs because they encouraged a kid to do their best. In other words they were doing their jobs.
I deal with parents who don't care about education. That kid is in school to make sure that government check comes in. Or kids that are only at school because the sports team is good.
Part of the issues in education is parents not caring. They don't come to school to check on their kid's grades, attendance or anything except when they get in trouble. They don't vote in school board elections or general elections.
Schools are held hostage by folks who are in local/state government. They make up the rules and we have to obey them. SO as long as folk who can send their kids to private schools (where they can pick and choose kids and not be held hostage by state laws) are making the rule for the rest. We will have these issue.
Everybody wants to blame teachers but no one is willing to look at the reasons our schools are messed up. How about showing the movie where the school is trash and the parents don't care? But the staff do? Lets see both sides.
Double standards are proper in this case. It is their kids, they have a right to neglect them. It is not the kids of the teachers, the teachers don't have a right to neglect them.
It is sad, but some parents are crap. This doesn't give the Union a right to abuse the kids of decent parents. So, we morally fault one side more than the other. Even though both are at fault.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've seen the trailer a bunch of times (and, OK, I'm an extra in this movie so I hope it'll turn out to be a pretty good flick).
Yes, I completely agree that parents need to read to their kids and should try to teach their kids to read at home. The really stupid belief that "you can teach your kids to read the wrong way" was always bull and seems to be going away. I taught myself to read, with my parents' help, when I was in kindergarten. We read a lot to our daughter, but she didn't quite catch on until she was in first grade. Now, as an adult, she's a voracious reader. Kids develop at different rates, so not all of them learn to read instantly at the age of six.
The impression the trailer gives about Malia's reading problems is that she's having reading trouble AND her teacher was punishing her inappropriately. If someone is being punished for having trouble learning something, they need more help to learn, not to make learning a painful experience.
The other issue from the movie is that while Malia's mother wants what's best for her, she's not the world's best-educated person herself. Many people with money issues don't buy books and don't read to their kids. Yes, of course they should, but many don't get it. And that's sad.
Laurie Mann
http://www.dpsinfo.com
How well a child does in school can also be traced to how much emphasis the parents place on studying and trying hard.
Attitudes that value education are reinforced at home.
Nobody's saying a teacher isn't responsible for teaching.
[deleted]
That must have been fun! Did you get to talk to any of the cast? I hope for your sake that this film is better than it is reputed to be.
We are not huskies, we are mermaids.
If we're going to argue about this bit in the film, it would help if it were viewed in the context of the whole picture and not just the trailer, particularly since I sense most of the folks commenting haven't seem the movie.
Jamie Fitzpatrick, Maggie Gyllenhall's character in the film, has an eight-year-old daughter, Malia, with severe dyslexia. Jamie is holding down two jobs to support the household (her deadbeat ex-husband is out of the picture), and she doesn't have the money to send Malia to private school. Jamie's been unable to find a public school with programs for children with learning disabilities that has room for Malia, and the public school in her neighborhood has no resources for dyslexic kids, in addition to being poorly run.
While Jamie isn't any intellectual heavyweight in the film, the problem is more complicated than the mother not sitting down with her child and a copy of FUN WITH DICK AND JANE -- her daughter needs special educational programs that Jamie has been unable to access, so when she says "My kid can't read," it's not for lack of effort or concern on the character's part.
Thank you! I saw the movie the other night, and get annoyed when people make snap judgements about a film's story and characters based entirely on a 2-minute preview. There are many touchy subjects in the film, especially regarding the teachers' union. One of the main characters, a teacher, is adamantly pro-union, yet still agrees that something needs to be done about their failing school. Different sides are portrayed, and yes, some of them are a bit cartoony, but I found the film to be quite thought provoking with no easy answers. Like "Waiting for Superman", it gives lots of food for thought.
shareTHANK YOU! People like to skirt around and simplify these issues because it's easier for them to blame a parent who needs two jobs so her and her daughter can EAT, than to admit that the system that is paid through their tax dollars to educate is broken. That way they don't have to think about why THEY aren't out picketing and doing something about it.
it's the same way people deal with issues like racism or sexism. You're innocent as long as you can still say "oh, I didn't know"; but once you know, you're responsible from there.
also, it's revealed(did any of you even watch the movie?) that the mother is dyslexic and got humiliated and passed along by her teachers as well. Sure she eventually learned to read, but do you really think that she would be able to provide the special education her daughter needed? And hell, it's not like she didn't try. The beginning sequence is her trying to teach her daughter road signs and stuff.
Why can't Maggie Gyllenhaal's character help her daughter read? Well, if you watch all the way through to the end of the movie, they do answer that question. To be fair, they did show scenes in this movie where Jamie tried having her daughter practice reading street signs on the way to school, and it was mentioned that the teacher at her previous school used to help the child after class was over. So, it's not as if Jamie did absolutely nothing.
That said, I do agree that there's a lot parents can do, even in difficult situations like Jamie's. She could at least take her to the library, and if she can't hire a professional tutor, maybe find a high school kid who can help the child out for an hour once or twice a week. It was pretty clear, though, that in this movie, the mother did not spend much time with her child. You never questioned that she loved her, but she had so much going on personally that she didn't stop to spend some necessary time with Malia. Again, though, the answer to that becomes clear by the end of the film.
While I agree with you - most of these posters clearly did not see the movie.
You missed an even bigger reason - Jamie (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has dyslexia herself. While she can read, it would be much harder to teach your child to read when you also suffer from a reading disability. And as Jamie also mentions in the movie, the public education system failed her too.
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I don't see why Ms Gyllenhaal's character decides it's best to hand over the whole school to private enterprise rather than agitating for better resources for children with dyslexia.
We are not huskies, we are mermaids.
Obviously written by a clueless fool who didn't see the movie and thusly is unaware of the fact that the Maggie Gyllenhaal character admits to also being dyslexic and having real trouble reading.
Jules Winnfield: "I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?"
I haven't seen the movie yet, but did it explain why the school had no special ed program to help kids with learning difficulties? Surely, that one girl couldn't have been the only one in the school who required extra help?
shareThe first scene where she is struggling with reading what's written on the board shows the teacher texting on her cell, while on her computer monitor is a screen where she's shopping for shoes.
That pretty much spells out the school's approach to quality education as well as dealing with special needs kids in a poorly funded public school.
Jules Winnfield: "I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?"
Exactly, this "big government save me and gimme gimme gimme" mentality is what's wrong with education and society in general. It's NOT the teachers fault.
share^not exactly "gimmie gimmie" when your tax dollars are paying their salaries. Teachers like that sadistic b!tch are protected all the time, while special ed and other programs are being slashed. Would YOU want your tax dollars spent that way?
In fact, they actually discussed this issue in the film. About how unions protect good teachers, but also leave the horrible ones to ruin kids' lives. Believe it or not, they are ones like her out there.
"It's NOT the teachers (sic) fault."
So we shouldn't blame the teacher who didn't teach you how to properly punctuate possessives? Sorry, too easy and a cheap shot. I take it back.
Instead let us focus on the teachers who are at fault. Those who don't do their job. Those who don't teach kids the required material and just pass them on to the next grade level. Those who phone in their performance and don't care about the kids they are charged with educating.
It is indeed THEIR fault.
Jules Winnfield: "I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?"