Hacker Cinema
Class Dismissed
2010 · Film · documentary · 34 min
Directed by Adam Ellick
This is a 2009 New York Times documentary by Adam B. Ellick profiled Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl whose school was shut down by the Taliban. Ms. Yousafzai was shot by a gunman on Oct. 9, 2012.
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Over the past decade, new tools and technologies have changed how we think about education and family life. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have expanded access to free learning opportunities. In 2006, Sir Ken Robinson’s “Do Schools Kill Creativity?”, the most popular TED Talk of all time, inspired many families and teachers to start rethinking their views on the effectiveness of the traditional school model. Founded in 2008, Khan Academy made it easier for any family to homeschool than ever before. Documentary films like Class Dismissed gave families an inside look at what modular learning can look like at its best (highly personalized, intellectually challenging, socially rich, diverse and eclectic) inspiring a new generation of families to start homeschooling.
But, the trend toward modular learning was supercharged in March 2020 when 300 million families around the world were forced into homeschooling overnight. A plethora of Edtech startups emerged to support the new wave of modular learners: marketplaces for learning pods, adaptive learning apps, and online classes.
While most families returned to school post-pandemic, many chose to keep going. They experienced that homeschooling gave their family greater flexibility and improved their children’s learning.
The internet is full of statistics and studies on homeschooling run by organizations with private interests on one side of the debate or the other.
We decided to sift through all the research and take an in-depth look at scholarly, peer-reviewed statistics and forecasts on homeschooling to determine if there are key indicators that prove homeschooling is really on the rise, what research suggests homeschooling can impact learning for the better, and how trends in other industries such as remote work and travel might point to a global shift towards decentralized K12 education.
Here’s what we found
Exactly. One out of five students report being bullied at school. https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/stats.asp
Also a great piece in the Atlantic about how Black families are opting out of school due to institutionalized racism. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/02/the-rise-of-homeschooling-among-black-families/385543/
A film I really like on this topic is Class Dismissed. It shows the journey of two girls who leave school and it's really amazing to watch them relax, get more at ease with themselves and make friends over the course of the film.
Did you have any luck with digital apps or youtube videos? I've found that some tools are much more effective for personalized, independent learning than others - whereas others require much more parent or teacher involvement. The more they resemble tools used in school, the more work the parent has to do to understand them because they utilize specific methods that have been standardized as teaching methods for group classes to benefit the maximum number of students well (but not necessarily individual students well). Then, in addition to knowing the material, the person facilitating has to understand that specific teaching method (like common core teaching techniques).
As a teacher, I've found that most kids either respond best to digital apps , videos or building stuff for independent learning.
If your kids like TV, they might respond really well to Khan Academy or some of the extraordinarily wonderful educational youtube videos out there. I myself used to be resistant to TV, but then I saw how much vocabulary and science especially our 3 year old was learning from his videos, and I started to change my opinion. I also find that if I let him watch as many shows as he wants, he'll eventually get bored and want to do something else.
If it's of interest to you I've spent the last couple months curating a list of my all-time favorite educational youtube channels for kids. The factors I used for vetting them were that they were 1) secular 2) mastery-based 3) fun and engaging for kids 4) scientifically accurate
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x3VzF6ifPzFJARuqMulSQ/channels?
You might be interested to know there's a whole group of homeschoolers that do their entire schooling around youtube videos and documentaries and are really happy with the results they're seeing in their kids. It's often called "documentary schooling"
In the film, class dismissed, the mom gets really frustrated because she feels like her kids are "just watching youtube" all day. Then she goes upstairs and finds out her younger daughter has taught herself sign language. I think sometimes don't give our kids enough credit for the natural curiosity and where it can take them!
Here's a few other groups focused on documentary or youtube schooling:
Homeschooling with Netflix and other secular media https://www.facebook.com/groups/267905676686095/
homeschooling with Netflix https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeschoolingwithnetflix/
Also check out "Gameschooling" if your kids like video games or board games:) https://www.facebook.com/groups/GameschoolMyLittlePoppies/
Also, I agree with you - teachers are incredible. A 15k education is well worth the price.