Saturday, June 6, 2009

"Race to Nowhere" screening in San Francisco 6/11/09

I'm one of the advisors on Vicki Abeles' film "Race to Nowhere." This film examines stress on adolescents due to school, family and society. The 1st San Francisco screening of “RACE TO NOWHERE" will be Thursday, June 11, 2009 at Dolby Laboratories Theater, 100 Potrero Ave., San Francisco at 7:00 PM. Please RSVP to vicki@reellinkfilms.com
Space is limited. Visit the website to view the trailer and join the conversation http://www.reellinkfilms.com .
The trailer can also be viewed on You Tube .
Or, join the film's Facebook Group .

3 comments:

  1. "I greatly respect and appreciate your efforts with regard to homework. I, too, have a very simple schedule and don't overbook my family.
    As teacher in your district, I just want to say that we do our very best to serve ALL the children in our classes. They each have different abilities, learning styles, schedules, expectations, motivation,behavior, and level of desire. I wish that we could set up homework to serve ALL those kids by providing more for the MANY who ask for it, and less for those who don't. We are not able to do that and our hands are tied. We have a great deal of mandated material that needs to be covered and comprehended throughout the year and with the many distractions that behavior issues cause in the classroom, it is often impossible to get into the material for a deep and meaningful understanding...resulting in the need for homework. W/O all the distractions, and more parental support for behavior issues, maybe we could all be satisfied. We'll just keep trying..."

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  2. I appreciate the teacher's comments above. I think that it takes both a commitment from parents and teachers to see all the dimensions of these issues and to work on multi-faceted solutions.

    Educating parents is important. I think that most parents who want more homework for their children are mistakenly thinking that it will help their child do better in school. They might be surprised to know that reading more at home and having family meals together are proven ways to improve achievement at school.

    Parents also need to understand the importance of dealing with behavior issues and given the resources to learn how to make meaningful changes. On the other hand excessive homework causes stress at home, and a lack of sleep that can contribute to behavior problems at school.

    I hope that this blog will become an important resource for parents and teachers alike as we keep on trying...

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  3. Hi I am a part-time pre-school teacher and used to be a tuition teacher. Through some years I found many of my students were not happy going to school, dreadful of countless homeworks and their lives were fully-occupied with many tuition classes and learning programmes and most importantly, they are extremely in living skills, thinking skills, poor perception skills with bad learning attitudes. Thus, I started my own centre, taking the pre-school as my temporary base - a creative-learning centre where no homeworks are given and any topics , anything from arts, films, books, articles, outdoor visits, free-chatting, sports, gardening, producing garbage enzyme and anything you name it may be of our learning subject. Students are assessed in many skills, degree of perception and the courage to change. These would be written in a full-length reports and parental-meetings would be carried out 4 times every year with different issues to be discussed and many things ahead...I thought my idea would not be accepted by many but to my surprise, many parents gave me their positive feedbacks and supports, which strengthen my conviction that it's time for us to change or re-define how the world should it be. I do hope that no more homework for our next generation. Our children are already losing their land due to urbanization and further more their space & time to enjoy their world.

    All the best and appreciate your great effort.

    Lee,
    Malaysia

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