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ACTOR
Randy CassinghamLaurie A. Couture
DIRECTOR
Cevin Soling
SYNOPSICS
The War on Kids (2009) is a English movie. Cevin Soling has directed this movie. Randy Cassingham,Laurie A. Couture are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. The War on Kids (2009) is considered one of the best Documentary movie in India and around the world.
THE WAR ON KIDS shows how American public schools continue to become more dangerously authoritarian. In addition to failing in their mission to provide education, they erode the country's democratic foundation by denying the most basic civil rights to youth and often resemble prisons.
Same Director
The War on Kids (2009) Reviews
A very upsetting look at what we do to our children
I can very much relate to these children. If the zero tolerance policy was in effect just 2 years earlier, I would have been kicked out of my middle school for drawing a picture of a knife. I got called to the counselor's office and was interrogated, but I got to go back to class and stare down my teacher who sent me there instead of being put in handcuffs. This documentary depicts the things we do to our children. Letting K9s bark in their faces, and kicking their belongings, putting them in jail for a pushing match, expelling them for drawing a weapon, playing cops and robbers, and worse of all, we drug our children. And then we tell them not to do "drugs" and we call in the ARMY to recruit them. I repeatedly broke down in tears, because I was drugged up as a teen for ADD and Depression ( a side effect of ADD medication aka DRUGS!) I can't imagination my own children having to deal with these horrible things in school. Makes me consider homeschooling, and having them participate in community activities as a social alternative.
If it wasn't so shocking...
Documentaries set out to show a point of view. Michael Moore, whoever, have a point to prove. So, with this documentary I wanted to see the point that was being put forward. However, if even one half of 1 percent of this movie is 'fact' not film-makers putting forward their views it is bad enough. While 'law enforcement' may be necessary, prosecuting children for 'bad' behavior is insane. This film shows time after time how schools are prisons (in all but name), administration has abrogated responsibility, and how police revel in brutal authority over those weaker than them (why exactly are police in schools?). This is truly a documentary, showing the reality of failures at all levels in the education system - except for the kids who are energetic, vibrant, alive and curious.
Great Film
Everyone who has children, or plan on having any need to see this great film. It makes a great case for Home schooling, and shutting down the Department of Education and giving control back to the parents. As a filmmaker I can see the finished product as a fantastic project. Also the flow of the story keeps your attention, and really makes one think. having endured Parochial Schools in the 50's when teachers Taught, I am thankful for the education I received. I did a spanking or two-but deserved each for sure, got one when I got home as well. I learned not to repeat my actions very quick-Thank God they did not use mind altering drugs back then.
If you're a parent of a teenager, watch this film
If there was ever a film that would make a parent of an overachieving teenager find the low-life, they normally wouldn't let their child be with for being a low-life, and feel sorry for that low-life or embrace that person, then it did a job well done. That's what 'The War on Kids' is that kind of film that'll cause the CEO of a household take a second look at a child's low-life looking friends and realizes there was something they all have in common, victims of bullying in the hands of teachers. The film does what every kid wants to do any cruel teachers but is tortured into silence that even parents ends up being the last to know, which it's too late. We all seen shows like i-Carly that show the heroes fighting back in hilarious ways with results in a success. However, in real, it's not a funny matter, even if the crackdown is successful. Cevin Soling finally breaks the social taboo that few are willing to admit and points out the flaws in the bullying by teachers. No wait, bully is to kind of a word, torture sounds and some why. Soling explain the use of 'zero-tolerance' is a modern day version of corporal punishment had lead to more forms of turning schools into prisons, even if classes are smaller, teachers are better trained, and additional funding was given. Schools have become a symbol of destroying free-thought, and even medicine to control that so-call disorders like oppositional defiance disorder increased the adultism the school are guilty of and refused to like it be known. The film focuses on teenagers, mainly but points pre-teens aren't safe either. Now, what is this worst than corporal punishment? For one thing, corporal "physical" punishment will land a school official in jail in some US states and secondly, it's rarely used. However, corporal punishment is still unacceptable because school official aren't allow to touch students, except for a hand shake. Yet, it was only used as a last resort in an alternate to suspension since a student's education had to be done. On the other hand, in the times before zero-tolerance and the Orwellian society, common sense was used and was more effective. During the times before zero-tolerance, if you had a classmate who harassed to the point to have enough and revolt by punching back, it would get the bully so much in shock rather hurt, the bully would learn a lesson and that was it. In modern times, criminal changes would be filed even if your reason was understand to the point the police would leave you alone. Teachers would simply work on reason when it comes to discipline, for minor crimes were let go or a warning was enough. Now, drugs and violence has created a new breed of trouble in the school. Soling really points out the issue, head-on. If schools were going to teach how to be responsible adults, why not teach the rights they have. Soling points how students are basically wroth nothing. They are denied their rights, forced to be drugged or tested for drugs, forced to snitch, and are constant watch, even a serial killer with no soul would think that is outrageous. Schools claim that are trying to keep a second Columbine from happening where it's doing the exact opposite since it was the formula of that tragic shooting. If you're a parent of a teenager, watch this film!
Valid argument, questionable delivery.
Last night, upon the recommendation of a friend, my wife and I watched the documentary "The War on Kids." I was planning on writing some sort of detailed response to the film, but it's not necessary. In short, it is a deeply cynical and poorly-constructed film with a rambling message concerning the state of public schools in America. Some of the arguments in the film are valid, albeit neither new nor novel, but the film's producers make no effort to ferret out fact from anecdotal re-tellings, and the discussion falls flat of actually achieving productive discourse. I could go on and on (and on). In one of the film's more egregious missteps, a lengthy discussion about ADHD and its related pharmacological treatments is erroneously and surreptitiously paired with a historical montage of school shootings. In the same segment, viewers are seamlessly shepherded from an intense conversation about ADHD to a discussion of school shootings and the fact that most school shooters were on psychiatric medication. The point fails (miserably) because each of the shooters in question was being treated for depression using powerful psychoactive drugs. Not ADHD. Not Ritalin or Adderall. The conversation then continues, focusing exclusively on ADHD and the marketing of pharmacological treatments for ADHD. Although both of these points have validity independent of the other, to clumsily pair them only serves to weaken both arguments. Quite frankly, it's also condescending to the viewer to assume that we wouldn't notice (or care enough to comment on) this misleading presentation of information. So it is with The War on Kids; a bunch of legitimate concerns clouded with so much cynicism and sarcasm that it's hard to imagine that anything productive will come of it.