“The Race to Nowhere” is a 2009 documentary created by Vicki Abeles.

The film

focuses largely on the american education system, and is influenced by the 2008 suicide of

middle schooler Devon Marvin. It talks largely about the increasing amount of stress put on

students by homework and activities, as well as the flawed methods of teaching employed by the

state. Before I start out I want to say that this movie really resonated with me. Personally I

believe that this movie shows a very accurate depiction of the problems facing students today

despite it being nearly a decade old at this point. The movie takes testimony from both students

and educators to express the problems with the american school system, leading to a wide variety

of people giving their thoughts on the subject.

One of the points it illustrates very well is how torn students are between different

activities. Students in today's schools are absolutely overloaded by activities. For one there is the

actual time of school, 7 hours a day already. Then there is homework, which varies greatly

depending on student. In a ​2016 article​ by Business Insider the average load of homework is

quoted as being around 6 hours per week. However, I don’t believe this metric is fair as I have

known students that have had upwards of 3 to 4 hours of homework per night due to advanced

classes. However just taking the average, 8 hours per day seems like a very fair work week. The

problem comes with the activities. So often are kids pressured into doing extracurricular

activities during the year, such as music, sports, and others. The problem is that these activities

are extremely time consuming, with some of the more lax programs only asking for 2-3 hour

rehearsals 2 times a week, while many more programs demand multi hour rehearsals sometimes

5 times a week plus things like meets and performances. This problem becomes compounded
when you realize that many of those who enroll in sports do it primarily to boost their transcripts,

so you have students that already have the pressure of honors and AP classes having to dedicate

copious amounts of time to other things in addition. To add onto this many of these activities will

drop members based on attendance. This means that many students will miss have to miss out on

other events or even ignore their health so that they can attend practices.

Another good point the movie brings up is the ineffective nature of schools in america.

One of the fundamental problems with the US education system is how learning is presented.

Learning is presented as a task to do, as a chore you must complete. For many classes, learning is

not fun. Of course this isn’t true for every class, I have had classes before that I genuinely looked

forward too. However I do believe that if you ask a high school senior how they felt about their

language class, the majority would say their glad they don’t need to speak it again. The emphasis

in the classroom is not on understanding, it’s about memorization. Teachers are told to teach a

curriculum provided by the state, and they are paid for their students test scores. As a teacher

recounts in the documentary, “Our bonuses depend on our students grades”. What incentive does

the average teacher have to make sure their students understand the material beyond their own

passion? They don’t, so instead many just try to boost their students test scores. This creates this

environment where most of the time students only try to get a surface level understanding of

what is taught, as there is no advantage to a deeper understanding in our current system. Students

only care about getting high grades, and their actions reflect this. According to the “2010 Report

Card on the Ethics of American Youth” about 94% of students admitted to cheating, with 54%

admitting to doing it on tests. Our classrooms need to move away from teaching our students
how to fill in the correct bubble on a sheet and instead encourage students to gain a real concrete

understanding of what they are taught.

In addition people need to be aware of how they influence this, both parents and teachers.

Often times much pressure is put on parents to make sure that their child is prepared, that their

student is ready for the challenges ahead of them. This is a completely normal feeling and often

is sprung from good intentions, but adults also need to realize when it’s too much. Tutoring,

while sometimes a boon when a student is legitimately struggling, can turn a child off of a

subject if overused. In addition, enrolling a child in other activities really only serves to cause

undeaded stress and worry if they don’t genuinely enjoy it. As well everyone needs to be more

aware of students mental states. You can’t merely attribute a child's struggle to puberty or some

other things. Kids need to be made to feel like their problems matter, and it isn't fair to them to

just ignore it. All in all everyone needs to be more conscious about the mental state of students.

America today is facing a great problem. All it takes is one look at ​national rankings​ to

see how far behind we have fallen. As a nation we are creating a generation that hates learning.

Students are looking at learning as a number on a screen that they need to get above 90. In our

rush to get the kids of america prepared, we have created a generation that is not ready for the

worlds challenges. Immediate changes need to come to the US school system, students need to

be encouraged to absorb and process knowledge rather than just spew it back out. If the United

States ever seeks to fix any of its problems, the changes need to start at education.