|
Race To Nowhere
''Race to Nowhere'' is a 2009 documentary film written by Maimone Attia and directed by Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon. Background Director Vicki Abeles made this movie after the pressures of school, homework, tutoring and extracurricular activities made her middle-school daughter physically sick. Abeles started to make major changes at home, but the problem seemed more systemic. She heard similar stories about the unintended consequences upon kids of today’s education system and culture. The difficulty at first seemed to center on one critical issue: the plight of students driven to acquire the strong performance requirements for selection by top universities for enrollment to ensure rewarding careers. The film recounts the story of a local high school girl who committed suicide under fear of academic failure. Synopsis ''Race to Nowhere'' is a film containing stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Adler (composer)
Mark Adler (born 1959) is an American software engineer. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author together with Jean-loup Gailly of the zlib compression Library (computing), library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit rover, Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. Early life and education Adler was born in Miami, Florida and raised as the only child of David and Bertha Adler. Adler earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and Master of Science in electrical engineering degrees from the University of Florida in 1981 and 1985, respectively. In 1990, Adler earned his Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. Career Post-doctoral After his doctorate, Adler worked for Hughes Aircraft in their Space and Communications Group, worki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waiting For "Superman"
''Waiting for "Superman"'' is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Lesley Chilcott. The film criticizes the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into competitive charter schools such as KIPP LA Schools, Harlem Success Academy and Summit Preparatory Charter High School. Synopsis Geoffrey Canada describes his journey as an educator and recounts the story of his devastation when, as a child, he discovers that Superman is fictional, that "there is no one coming with enough power to save us." Throughout the documentary, different aspects of the American public education system are examined. Things such as the ease in which a public school teacher achieves tenure, the inability to fire a teacher who is tenured, and how the system attempts to reprimand poorly performing teachers are shown to affect the educational environment. Teaching standards are called into question as t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Documentary Films
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2009 Documentary Films
9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and Gupta started curving the bottom vertical line coming up with a -look-alike. The Nagari continued the bottom stroke to make a circle and enclose the 3-look-alike, in much the same way that the sign @ encircles a lowercase ''a''. As time went on, the enclosing circle became bigger and its line continued beyond the circle downwards, as the 3-look-alike became smaller. Soon, all that was left of the 3-look-alike was a squiggle. The Arabs simply connected that squiggle to the downward stroke at the middle and subsequent European change was purely cosmetic. While the shape of the glyph for the digit 9 has an ascender in most modern typefaces, in typefaces with text figures the character usually has a descender, as, for example, in . The mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2009 Films
The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films. Also in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of that year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five (the first time since the 1943 awards). Evaluation of the year Film critic Philip French of ''The Guardian'' said that 2009 "began with the usual flurry of serious major movies given late December screenings in Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars. They're now forgotten or vaguely regarded as semi-classics: ''The Reader'', '' Che'', '' Slumdog Millionaire'', '' Frost/Nixon'', ''Revolutionary Road'', '' The Wrestler'', '' Gran Torino'', '' The Curious Case of Benjamin Button''. It soon became apparent that horror movies would be the dominant genre once again, with vampires the pre-eminent sub-species, the most profitable inevitably being ''New Moon'', the latest in Stephenie Meyer's '' Twilight'' saga, the best th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Overachievers
''The Overachievers'' or ''The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids'' is a non-fiction book written by Alexandra Robbins. Using the example of some American teenagers, it centers upon overachievement in high school, emphasizing its negative effect in modern American society. It specifically examines the belief that being successful depends on attaining the perfect GPA and being accepted by the "right" college. Throughout the work, the author follows eight students who have a lifestyle where overachieving takes priority. She occasionally interrupts to address issues that affect one of the teens and explains its negative effect on an international scale. She discusses how social pressure from parents and friends, drugs, drinking, and suicide play a part in high school teenager's lives. Robbins puts the No Child Left Behind Act in a negative light by placing an emphasis on standardized tests and claims the college admissions process in the United States to be corrupt and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Happiness
''Project Happiness'' is a 2011 documentary film created, narrated, and produced by Randy Taran and directed by John Sorenson. The documentary follows students on three continents as they search for the meaning of "lasting happiness". Background ''Project Happiness'' started as personal story. The film came into being after creator Randy Taran discovered that her daughter was stressed, saying "I want to be happy, I just don't know how". Randy, after speaking with experts, discovered that this situation was more widespread than she had known. Determined to find a way for her and other parents to speak to their children about happiness, she decided to make a film to educate and initiate the conversation for youth, families and the communities to which they belong. Film context The film connects students from three continents – North America, Africa and Asia – and throughout their senior year, they students discuss amongst themselves with several notable individuals one central ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Teacher
''American Teacher'' is a 2011 documentary film co-directed by Vanessa Roth and Brian McGinn and produced by The Teacher Salary Project. It follows the format of the book ''Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers''. Synopsis ''American Teacher'' uses a large collection of teacher testimonies and contrasts the demands of the teaching profession alongside interviews with education experts and education reform news from around the country. There are four principal characters in the film whose lives and careers are closely portrayed over the course of several years. Alongside the stories of these four characters is interwoven a mixture of interviews with teachers, students, families, and education leaders, as well as animation conveying startling facts surrounding the teaching profession. Production The film is a compilation of over three years of collecting footage from hundreds of teachers across the country. Outside of the main characte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academically Adrift
''Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses'' is a book written by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, published by the University of Chicago Press in January 2011. The book examines the current state of higher education in the United States. The book and its findings received extensive national media coverage and sparked a debate about what undergraduate students learn once they get into college. The research draws on transcript data, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, and survey responses from more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions in their first semester and again at the end of their second year. The analysis reveals that 45 percent of these students demonstrated no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college. See also *''In the Basement of the Ivory Tower'' *'' Real Education'' *UnCollege Reviews * * * * *The New Yorker ''The N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mill Valley Film Festival
The Mill Valley Film Festival is an annual American film festival founded in 1977. History In October 1977, Mark Fishkin, Rita Cahill and Lois Cole organized a three-day film festival. It featured three film tributes, Francis Ford Coppola's ''The Rain People'' and George Lucas' ''Filmmaker''. The first official festival took place in August 1978. About the Festival The San Francisco Bay Area continues to be a significant market for independent and international film, and MVFF provides a forum for introducing new films to West coast audiences. Presented by the California Film Institute, the Mill Valley Film Festival takes place in early October. With a reputation for launching new films and creating awards season buzz, MVFF has earned a reputation as a 'filmmakers' festival" by celebrating the best in American independent and world cinema alongside high profile and prestigious award contenders. Notable attendees have included Robin Williams, Jim Jarmusch, Kevin Smith, Jon Voight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
