Coming to a Theater Near You

It’s not often that my work at IREX intersects with the Sundance Film Festival. Yet on September 24th, “Waiting for Superman,” a film about problems plaguing the American education system will hit theatres. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film garnered the Audience Choice award at Sundance this year. Notably, it situates American schools in an international context. 

Most of the international statistics cited in the film’s trailer are grimly familiar: “In almost every category, (the United States has) fallen behind. Among 30 developed countries, we rank 25th in math and 21st in science.” But I had never heard this: “Kids from the USA rank number one in confidence.”

I have been thinking a lot about the value of student confidence over the last year, as I transitioned from teaching in a small Muslim village in Malaysia, where many of my students were shy and withdrawn, to working at IREX on programs that empower teacher leaders. Our work with international teachers indirectly hinges upon student confidence. We support teachers from Bangladesh, Senegal, Haiti, and other countries as they work to shift their schools away from lectured-based “chalk and talk” methodologies to project-based learning, student discussions, and critical thinking. If these methodologies are going to succeed, students have to learn to speak up, come to the front of the class, and take charge of their own learning.

When I taught in Malaysia, it was a huge victory when I got my students to push their desks together and play English language board games independently. For once, they weren’t looking to me to lead the lesson. Yet I never managed to get some of my cowering female students to read a role play aloud. I remembered being a fifth grader myself and feeling gutsy enough to put a creative spin on a book report project or recite a poem in front of a school assembly. These experiences were terrifying and gratifying simultaneously. I wanted my own students to take risks to advance their learning.

Of course, an overweening sense of self-importance and intellectual hubris can have ugly consequences (think imperialism). But when confidence is cultivated appropriately, it can lead to classrooms that positively vibrate with the sound of math games, collaborative projects and reading circles. Maybe confidence doesn’t just lead American kids to do risky things such as careening over jumps on bicycles, as Guggenheim shows in his film. Confidence is also integral to the viability of student-centered pedagogy.

I got a Facebook message from one of my students recently: “Teacher, I play the Scrabble by myself today.” Knowing that his English learning continues in my absence is perhaps more gratifying than anything I ever achieved from the front of the classroom.

Amy Ahearn is a program associate at IREX.