Grizzly Man

The film Grizzly Man tells the story of Timothy Treadwell's thirteen years living among the grizzly bears.  From the clips I saw of Timothy, I could tell that he loved the bears and felt at home with them. He lasked to the grizzlies as if they were other humans and he acted like they could do him no harm. Werner Herzog, the writer and director of the film, seemed to have a different image of Timothy. The clips that Werner chose to show portrayed Timothy as a crazy man. One clip showed Timothy in his tent yelling at the Gods to bring rain. Timothy even yells at what he calls the "Hindu floaty thing." Werner also shared his opinion that the bears should be left alone because they are wild animals and have no connection with humans. The link below leads to a clip of the documentary that shows the intensity of Timothy's crazy side.

Timothy calling for rain

The book Documentary Film a Very Short Introduction said that most documentaries, even though based on fact, are somewhat altered to give the audience the perspective the narrator wanted them to have. In the case of Grizzly Man, Werner had years of film, yet he was very selective in what was shown. He shared clips of Timothy that portrayed him as childish and more specifically that he was bad with women.

On the journey on which Timothy was killed, his girlfriend had come along at his side. At one point in the film I got the impression that Werner thought Timothy had been killed because he was stupid enough to bring another human with him. This may have meant that Werner believed that Timothy was becoming to confident and careless. Timothy was very confident with the bears and other animals, but in one of his film clips he said that he was not at all confident with women. This may have been what brought him down in the end. Having a woman with him lowered his confidence and shifted the balance that he had with the bears just enough that it was too much.

Waiting for "Superman"

When I began this documentary I didn't know what to expect, but the film quickly grabbed my interest. As i watched, I became more informed about a life that I have fortunately never had to experience. I spent most of my education career in a small charter school in which every student was helped and challenged and became successful in their own way. When I did finally attend a public high school, I was lucky and was sent to a school that gave me lots of opportunities and helped me succeed. The film Waiting for "superman" told about the lives of children whose entire future was dependent on the school they got into. Even the smartest children would have trouble succeeding if they got sent to a bad public school. One girl, Daisy, wanted to be a doctor or a vet, but she did get into the school she wanted making it so her dreams will be harder to achieve. Learning about the life of these children caused me to put my own life in perspective. I have been very fortunate and lucky my entire life. The schools I attended helped me to push myself and do better and better and now they have made it possible for me to get accepted to a high quality college. The chart below shows dropout rates in the USA and even though the percents might not seem huge, the US has such a large population that that is a scary number of students not even completing high school.

Status dropout rates of 16- through 24-year-olds in the civilian, noninstitutionalized population, by race/ethnicity: Selected years, 1990-2010
Year	Total1	Race/ethnicity
		White	Black	Hispanic	Asian/Pacific Islander	American Indian/Alaska Native
1990	12.1	9.0	13.2	32.4	4.9!	16.4!
1995	12.0	8.6	12.1	30.0	3.9	13.4!
1998	11.8	7.7	13.8	29.5	4.1	11.8
1999	11.2	7.3	12.6	28.6	4.3	‡
2000	10.9	6.9	13.1	27.8	3.8	14.0
2001	10.7	7.3	10.9	27.0	3.6	13.1
2002	10.5	6.5	11.3	25.7	3.9	16.8
2003	9.9	6.3	10.9	23.5	3.9	15.0
2004	10.3	6.8	11.8	23.8	3.6	17.0
2005	9.4	6.0	10.4	22.4	2.9	14.0
2006	9.3	5.8	10.7	22.1	3.6	14.7
2007	8.7	5.3	8.4	21.4	6.1	19.3
2008	8.0	4.8	9.9	18.3	4.4	14.6
2009	8.1	5.2	9.3	17.6	3.4	13.2
2010	7.4	5.1	8.0	15.1	4.2	12.4

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=16

Many People after completing high school go straight into the work force and get a job instead of a career. One of the parents in the documentary, who had only ever had a job, had learned from her own experience and found it very important for her child to go to college and get a career. When parents encourage their children to get a higher education, the children will usually want to, but then the menacing problem is what public school the child is sent to, because this is what determines their educational fate. About 50 to 60 percent of US students go to college. This means that the other 40 to 50 percent most likely get low paying jobs right out of high school, or don't even graduate high school in the first place. 

Seeing families suffer the way they did in the film and then learning more about the horrors of our public education system makes me feel very lucky that i have made it all the way to school and makes me want to help change the system that we have in America.