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Content

Issues in Education


Issues in Education



DAY ONE

Directed by Lori Miller

Traumatized Middle Eastern and African teen refugees are guided through a program of healing by devoted educators at a unique St. Louis public school for refugees only.

DAY ONE follows a group of teenage refugees from war-torn countries who are enrolled at a unique public school for refugees and immigrants-only in St. Louis, MO, where they are guided through an inspirational program of education, healing and trauma intervention by devoted educators, some of whom have chosen to relocate to the inner city to support their students.

Over the course of a year, we watch the kids progress through layers of grief and loss as they attend school, forge new friendships, and prepare to be mainstreamed into local public high schools. Their triumphs and tribulations all unfold with St. Louis as the backdrop: a rust-belt city that has taken the bold step of welcoming immigrants as a solution for their growing socio-economic problems.


DVD / 2019 / (Grades 6-12, College, Adults) / 82 minutes

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KOSHIEN: JAPAN'S FIELD OF DREAMS

Director: Ema Ryan Yamazaki

Baseball is life for the die-hard competitors in the 100th annual Koshien, Japan's wildly popular national high school baseball championship, whose alumni include U.S. baseball star Shohei Ohtani and former Yankee Hideki Matsui. But for Coach Mizutani and his players, cleaning the grounds and greeting their guests are equally important as honing their baseball skills. In director Ema Ryan Yamazaki's dramatic and intimate journey to the heart of the Japanese national character, will those acts add up to victory or prove a relic of the past?


DVD (English, Japanese, With English Subtitles) / 2019 / 94 minutes

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LET THEM EAT DIRT: THE HUNT FOR OUR KIDS' MISSING MICROBES

Directed by Rivkah Beth Medow, Brad Marshland

Looks at the role microbes play in the development, physical and mental health of our children, and argues that good health begins with kids playing in the dirt.

Allergies, obesity, asthma, diabetes, auto-immune and intestinal disorders are all on the rise, with the incidence of some diseases doubling every ten years. New research points to changes in the ecosystem of microbes that live on and inside every one of us -- our microbiomes -- as a major cause. But how could one's gut microbes increase the odds of developing conditions as radically different as asthma and diabetes?

Hosted by Good Morning America's Becky Worley, and based on the book of the same name by B. Brett Finlay, PhD and Marie-Claire Arrieta, PhD, LET THEM EAT DIRT features families, doctors, and researchers who are sleuthing out what's harming our microbes -- and what we can do to reverse this dangerous trend.


DVD / 2019 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 58 minutes

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MONTESSORI: LET THE CHILD BE THE GUIDE

Director: Alexandre Mourot

"Education should not limit itself to seeking new methods for a mostly arid transmission of knowledge: its aim must be to give the necessary aid to human development." - Maria Montessori

Inherited from Maria Montessori in 1907, the Montessori Method is a child-centered educational philosophy that celebrates and nurtures each child's desire to learn - an approach valuing the human spirit and full development: physical, social, emotional and cognitive. The Montessori Method is increasing in popularity both in the U.S. and abroad.

Curious to see how the Method works first hand, filmmaker Alexandre Mourot sets his camera up in the oldest Montessori school in France (with kids from 3 to 6) and observes. He meets happy children, free to move around, working alone or in small groups. Some read, others make bread, do divisions, laugh or sleep. The teacher remains discreet. Children guide the filmmaker through the whole school year, helping him understand the magic of their autonomy and self-esteem - the seeds of a new society of peace and freedom, which Maria Montessori dedicated her life work to.


DVD (English & French w/English subtitles) / 2018 / 100 minutes

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EARTH SEASONED, GAPYEAR

Directed by Molly Kreuzman

Diagnosed with learning difficulties, Tori finds her greatest teacher in nature, spending a "gap year" living semi-primitively with four other young women in Oregon's Cascade Mountains.

Earth Seasoned...#GapYear is the inspiring story of five young urban women who spend a gap year between high school and college living semi-primitively in a remote mountainside wilderness in Oregon. Told mainly through the story of Tori Davis, a teenager with learning difficulties, the film chronicles the group's four seasons in the woods as part of the Caretaker nature program. As the seasons succeed, the group has to adapt to what the wilderness provides and to what it withholds.

Through lyrical live action footage and smartly paced animation, the film reveals how separately and together the girls learn ancient skills of craftsmanship and teamwork and forge deep powers of resilience and self-reliance. Earth Seasoned has essential messages about talent, compassion and community and about the real conditions for human flourishing.


DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 75 minutes

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G IS FOR GUN: THE ARMING OF TEACHERS IN AMERICA

Directed by Kate Way, Julie Akeret

Explores both sides of the highly controversial trend of arming teachers and staff in America's K-12 schools.

G IS FOR GUN explores the highly controversial trend of armed faculty and staff in K-12 schools. Only five years ago this practice was practically unheard of, but since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, it has spread to as many as a dozen states. Often without public knowledge, there are teachers, administrators, custodians, nurses, and bus drivers carrying guns in America's schools.

G IS FOR GUN documents a growing program in Ohio that is training school staff to respond to active shooter situations with guns, and follows the story of one Ohio community divided over arming its teachers.


DVD / 2017 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 27 minutes

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STILL WATERS

Directed by Peter Gordon

In his tiny, one-room, after hours, free school in Brooklyn, Stephen Haff teaches forty Hispanic kids reading, creative writing and Latin.

A remarkable one-room school in Brooklyn is facing a tough year. It's the run up to the US presidential election and anti-Latino rhetoric is ramped up--an extra source of tension for a hard-pressed Hispanic community already threatened by gentrification and eviction.

The school, Still Waters in a Storm, is the creation of Yale grad Stephen Haff. A passionate critic of mainstream education, he believes in the joy of learning without tests and the innate creativity of children and insists that the school is free. It survives precariously on the thinnest of shoestrings.

When regular school finishes, Still Waters starts working. Stephen and his group of children explore, with the help of illustrious guest writers like twice Booker Prizewinner Peter Carey, the power of storytelling, creativity and community. And along the way they discuss Donald Trump and gentrification with humor and passion.

Filmed over a year STILL WATERS follows this compelling man, his philosophy, the spirit of the children who attend, and the dreams and fears of their immigrant Hispanic community.


DVD / 2017 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 79 minutes

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CULTIVATING KIDS

Directed by Melissa Young, Mark Dworkin

On South Whidbey Island, WA, a school farm shows that a garden can be a valuable addition to the curriculum while encouraging a healthy diet.

On South Whidbey Island in the state of Washington, a school farm involves children from kindergarten through high school in every phase of raising organic vegetables as part of their school experience. Supported by local non-profits, community volunteers, and the school district, it shows that a garden can be a valuable addition to a school curriculum, while encouraging children to eat healthy food. The school farm sells local, organic produce to the school cafeterias and also supplies the local food bank and community nutrition programs with fresh organic produce throughout the growing season.


DVD / 2016 / (Grades 4-12, College, Adults) / 23 minutes

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DAUGHTERS OF THE FOREST

Directed by Samantha Grant

A group of girls in a remote forest in Paraguay are transformed at an experimental high school where they learn to protect the threatened forest and build a future for themselves.

DAUGHTERS of the FOREST tells the powerful, uplifting story of a small group of girls in one of the most remote forests left on earth who attend a radical high school where they learn to protect the threatened forest and forge a better future for themselves.

Set in the untamed wilds of the Mbaracayu Reserve in rural Paraguay, this intimate verite documentary offers a rare glimpse of a disappearing world where timid girls grow into brave young women even as they are transformed by their unlikely friendships with one another. Filmed over the course of five years, we follow the girls from their humble homes in indigenous villages through the year after their graduation to see exactly how their revolutionary education has and will continue to impact their future lives.


DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2016 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 56 minutes

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MISS KIET'S CHILDREN

By Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster

Kiet Engels is the kind of teacher one wishes every schoolchild could have. She is strict but never harsh. She is loving but never soft. Her patience in endless.

Many of Miss Kiet's pupils are refugees who have just arrived in Holland. Everything is new and confusing. Some are quarrelsome and headstrong. But Miss Kiet's firm but loving hand brings calm and awakens interest. She not only teaches her pupils to read and write Dutch, but also helps them learn to solve problems together and respect one another. Slowly the children gain skills and confidence.

Haya is at first impetuous, yet fearful. Little by little, Miss Kiet helps her to find her friendly side. Leanne is quiet and lonely. But after a few months she able to tell everyone, in Dutch, that she loves Branche. Jorj has trouble sleeping and is unruly. His little brother Maksim has terrible nightmares. Miss Kiet's tenacity helps Jorj discover that learning can be worthwhile and even fun.

By observation alone, without interviews or voice-over, the film focuses on four refugee children of different nationalities. Pursuing their perspective, the camera follows at close hand their struggles to learn a new language, their fights, their friendships and their first loves.

By the end of the documentary, an affectionate community has grown-the fruit of a teacher's patience and dedication. A film of many touching moments, some of them hilarious, MISS KIET'S CHILDREN chronicles changes that are small yet at the same time immense.


DVD (English, Dutch, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 113 minutes

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EAST OF SALINAS

Directed by Laura Pacheco, Jackie Mow

Jose Anzaldo is an excellent student with a bright future except that he is undocumented, the child of migrant farm laborers in California's Salinas Valley.

EAST OF SALINAS begins with 3rd grader Jose Anzaldo telling us what he wants to be when he grows up. His parents work from sun up to sun down in the heart of California's "Steinbeck Country," the Salinas Valley. With little support available at home, Jose often turns to his teacher, Oscar Ramos, once a migrant farm kid himself. In fourth grade his teacher told him if he worked hard he could have a different life. Oscar won a scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley. The day he earned his degree, he bought a car and drove home to the fields. He's been teaching ever since.

Jose is Oscar's most gifted student. But how do you teach students like Jose who have no place to do their homework? How do you teach a kid who moves every few months? This is what Oscar is up against every day. Oscar not only teaches his students reading, math and science, he gives them access to a world beyond their reach.

But Jose was born in Mexico--and he's on the cusp of understanding the implications of that. As we watch this play out over three years, we begin to understand the cruelty of circumstance--for Jose and the many millions of undocumented kids like him.

EAST OF SALINAS asks, What is lost when kids like Jose are denied opportunities?


DVD / 2015 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adults) / 53 minutes

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DIE BEFORE BLOSSOM

By Ariani Djalal

Almost 70 years after independence and 10 years after the installation of the first democratically elected president, the educational system in Indonesia is increasingly being influenced by Islamic values. This observational documentary follows two girls and their families during a crucial period in their school careers: their last year at public elementary school in the city of Jogyakarta in central Java.

Kiki and Dila are modern city girls from a middle-class background: they like to listen to pop music, are very interested in their appearance and giggle about girl stuff. At school, all the children wear uniforms, everyone prays together, the national anthem is sung and the girls learn how to behave now that they are approaching puberty. Although Islam isn't a state religion, its influence on the once secular school system is growing. The educational system is underpinned by three moral principles: piety, patriotism and discipline.

The strictness of the school regime doesn't seem so bad-for example, Kiki is able to talk her way out of studying the Koran. But once the final exams start to loom, things suddenly get very serious, both for the girls and for their parents. A lot is riding on their exam results, for the popular schools in the city only take those children who get the highest scores.


DVD (Color) / 2014 / 89 minutes

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LUNCH LOVE COMMUNITY

Directed by Helen De Michiel

Passion, creative energy and persistence come together when Berkeley advocates and educators tackle food reform and food justice in the schools and in the neighborhoods.

How are citizens transforming local food systems? How are innovators changing the way children eat in schools? How do we talk about culture, identity and responsibility through the lens of food and health?

LUNCH LOVE COMMUNITY is a beautiful and engaging story of how a diverse group of pioneering parents and food advocates came together to tackle food reform and food justice in the schools and neighborhoods of Berkeley, CA.

Through a mosaic of twelve interconnecting short documentaries, the film explores food and education, children and health, and citizens making democratic change. This is a rich and multi-dimensional story of passion, creative energy, and idealism -- a project linking the ways we teach our children to eat and understand food to the traditional passing of powerful values from one generation to the next.

LUNCH LOVE COMMUNITY is divided into three thematic programs - Heart, Body, Mind - each containing four short films.


DVD ( Closed Captioned) / 2014 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 78 minutes

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NATIONAL DIPLOMA

By Dieudo Hamadi

Joel loads a stack of boxes onto a hand truck and weaves his way through a crowded outdoor market in Kisangani, one of the largest cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. An orphan who lives with his aunt, Joel doesn't want to be a courier forever. But if he is to have any hope of a brighter future, he must first pass the national exam-the key to better employment and a post-secondary education. And to take the exam, he needs money.

NATIONAL DIPLOMA follows Joel and a group of his classmates in the two months leading up to their taking the national exam. Things start off badly, when the high school principal walks into a class full of students preparing to take a mock exam and expels Joel and more than a dozen others for unpaid school fees. Undaunted, the students rent an unfinished house across the river. The floors are covered in debris, there is no furniture, and live wires snake down interior walls. But the teens hammer a blackboard into a brick wall, set a cookstove on the floor, and set about teaching each other algebra, philosophy, and the other subjects they will need to pass.

What makes this verite documentary exceptional is its ability to capture telling details: the sign above the principal's desk saying anything is possible with hard work, just before he expels students over fees; girls brushing each other's hair in the downtime between studying sessions; the ecstatic and intimate moments in church and visiting a faith healer, as the students seek any help they can get.

As the exam date approaches, the principal visits the students and implores them to return so he can pay the school's staff. Meanwhile, the young scholars have discovered that the key to passing the exam may not lie in studying, but in finding a trusted source who can leak them the answers.

Director Dieudo Hamadi grew up in Kisangani and was one of the half a million Congolese students who took the national exam each year. NATIONAL DIPLOMA is a closely observed film that offers no overt political commentary as it chronicles the hypocrisy, anxiety and distortion in a deeply colonial system.


DVD (Color) / 2014 / 92 minutes

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SCHOOL OF BABEL

By Julie Bertuccelli

Welcome to a one-of-a-kind Paris education program for immigrant children from around the globe. In her feature documentary debut, director Julie Bertucelli (SINCE OTAR LEFT, THE TREE) follows one class of students ranging from 11 to 15 years of age as they begin life in a new land.

Hailing from countries across the globe including Ireland, Brazil, China, Ukraine, Tunisia, Venezuela, Guinea and Libya, many of the students at 'La Grange aux Belles,' a school in the diverse 10th district of Paris, are asylum seekers. They must learn French as they combat homesickness, juggle weighty familial responsibilities and recover from the trauma of previous lives of social and economic devastation.

Their teacher, Ms. Cervoni, must exercise as much patience and skill in instructing the students as in her interactions with their parents. As she guides them through a rigorous school year and attempts to prepare them for the transition to mainstream classes, she is a key negotiator in schoolyard conflicts and cultural clashes and navigating complicated dynamics both inside and outside the classroom.


DVD (Color) / 2013 / 89 minutes

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SCHOOL'S OUT: LESSONS FROM A FOREST KINDERGARTEN

Directed by Lisa Molomot

A year in the life of a forest kindergarten in Switzerland where being outdoors and unstructured play are the main components.

No classroom for these kindergarteners. In Switzerland's Langnau am Albis, a suburb of Zurich, children 4 to 7 years of age, go to kindergarten in the woods every day, no matter what the weatherman says. This eye-opening film follows the forest kindergarten through the seasons of one school year and looks into the important question of what it is that children need at that age. There is laughter, beauty and amazement in the process of finding out.

The documentary is a combination of pure observational footage of the children at kindergarten in the forest, paired with interviews with parents, teachers, child development experts, and alumni, offering the viewers a genuine look into the forest kindergarten. There are also scenes of a traditional kindergarten in the United States to show the contrast between the different approaches.


DVD / 2013 / (Grades K-12, College, Adult) / 36 minutes

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VALENTINE ROAD

Directed by Marta Cunningham

In 2008, eighth-grader Brandon McInerney shot classmate Larry King at point blank range. Unraveling this tragedy, the film reveals the heartbreaking circumstances that led to the shocking crime as well as the aftermath.

On February 12, 2008, in an Oxnard, California, classroom, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot classmate Larry King twice; Larry died of the wounds two days later. Larry (Leticia), a gender-variant youth of color, had liked to wear makeup and heels to school, and had publicly announced a crush on McInerney. For this reason, some of McInerney's defenders say the victim had "embarrassed" the shooter--and was therefore at least partly to blame for his own murder.

VALENTINE ROAD is about an outrageous crime and an even more outrageous defense of it, but the film goes much deeper than mere outrage. In the end, it's the story of two victims of homophobia. Larry was killed because of it, but Brandon's life was horribly twisted by it as well. And it's the story of a community's response--sometimes inspirational and sometimes cruel--to a terrible tragedy.

Filmmaker Marta Cunningham deftly looks beyond the sensational aspects of the murder, introducing us to Larry's friends, teachers and guardians, as well as Brandon's loved ones--both children had led difficult lives. In examining Brandon's prosecution and defense, the documentary poses difficult questions about punishing juveniles for serious crimes, while exposing society's pervasive and deadly intolerance of young people who don't conform to its gender "norms."

VALENTINE ROAD brilliantly focuses on how bigotry and prejudice are community-wide problems, rather than only the acts of individuals. It asks how schools can respond to the the full complexity of students' lives, and support students in crisis before tragedy strikes.


DVD / 2013 / (Grades 8-12, College, Adult) / 88 minutes

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EARLY LIFE 2: IN THE MAYOR'S FOOTSTEPS - BRAZIL

Directed by Steve Bradshaw

Mayor Amilcar Huancahuari visits Brazil to assess efforts to promote early childhood development there.

Every year, the Mina congregation in Sao Luis, Brazil, choose a child Emperor and Empress. Watching this year in the tropical heat is Mayor Amilcar Huancahuari. With the new Brazilian government emphasizing Early Child Development, Amilcar wants to know whether Latin America's richest country can follow the Mina example - or whether violence and poverty are still hindering children's chances of fulfilling their potential.

Outside Sao Luis, Amilcar finds the sons and daughters of shrimp fishermen learning ballet. In the hills beyond Fortaleza he learns how the playground can become a classroom. In the drug favelas of Rio, he sees the classroom turned into a playground for learning.

Mayor Amilcar also journeys to the Modernist capital, Brasilia, to discuss his trip with the Minister for Human Rights. Will he find enough exciting ideas to help the kids back home in Peru?


DVD / 2011 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 26 minutes

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EARLY LIFE 2: IN THE MAYOR'S FOOTSTEPS - PERU

Directed by Steve Bradshaw

Mayor Amilcar Huancahuari is trying to convert his native Peru to his optimistic philosophy of promoting early childhood development.

Warned that the child he's talked to will grow up poor and violent, Mayor Amilcar Huancahuari sighs. If only we could start young, he believes, we'd have a better chance of a peaceful and prosperous world. We need to keep young children away from violence, and develop their brains from birth.

But is that just the Mayor's dream? In this episode of Early Life, the Mayor tours his native Peru to discover how kids are being shortchanged: from the jungle city of Iquitos to the Andes mountains once wracked by political violence. Amilcar visits children who live in a floating favela - where he needs a police bodyguard - finds kids working city streets at midnight, and meets victims of a war over before they were born.

How much poverty, stress and violence can kids be exposed to without incurring real mental damage?


DVD / 2011 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 26 minutes

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ORIGINAL MINDS

Directed by Tom Weidlinger

Inspirational film that shows a way to bring out the individual talents of five teenagers normally classified as learning disabled.

Wounded by the stigma of being in "special ed" the five teenage protagonists of ORIGINAL MINDS struggle to articulate how their brains work.

Kerrigan is a deep thinker, often seeing connections between disparate ideas and concepts, but when it comes to telling you what you've just said he hasn't a clue.

When Nee Nee writes her fingers have a hard time keeping up with her thoughts.

People often get annoyed with Nattie because she doesn't know when to stop teasing and kidding around.

Marshall spends a lot of time in the bathroom, where his parents can't bug him about homework. He says he wants to "turn over a new leaf" but he's lost nine of his last fifteen math assignments.

Members of Deandre's family tell him he is not college material. He's determined to prove them wrong.

Parents, teachers, friends, therapists, and coaches all weigh in, sometimes with conflicting views, but it's the kids who become the experts in this film, as they work intensively with the filmmaker to tell their stories and discover that they are smarter than they thought. Their narratives reveal the unique approach to learning that each must discern and claim as his or her own if they are to succeed in the world. ORIGINAL MINDS eschews the confusing thicket of labels for learning disorders and reveals universal truths about how we all acquire and process information.


DVD (Closed Captioned) / 2011 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 57 minutes

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PLAY AGAIN (NEW EDITION)

Directed by Tonje Hessen Schei

What are the consequences of a childhood removed from nature? Six screen-addicted teens take their first wilderness adventure.

One generation from now most people in the U.S. will have spent more time in the virtual world than in nature. New media technologies have improved our lives in countless ways. Information now appears with a click. Overseas friends are part of our daily lives. And even grandma loves Wii.

But what are we missing when we are behind screens? And how will this impact our children, our society, and eventually, our planet?

At a time when children play more behind screens than outside, PLAY AGAIN explores the changing balance between the virtual and natural worlds. Is our connection to nature disappearing down the digital rabbit hole?

This emotionally moving and humorous documentary follows six teenagers who, like the "average American child," spend five to fifteen hours a day behind screens. PLAY AGAIN unplugs these teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure - no electricity, no cell phone coverage, no virtual reality.

Through the voices of children and leading experts including journalist Richard Louv, sociologist Juliet Schor, environmental writer Bill McKibben, educators Diane Levin and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, neuroscientist Gary Small, parks advocate Charles Jordan, and geneticist David Suzuki, PLAY AGAIN investigates the consequences of a childhood removed from nature and encourages action for a sustainable future.


DVD / 2010 / (Grades 6-12, College, Adult) / 80 minutes

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EARLY LIFE: MY FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL

Three children prepare to enter primary school in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Thailand's Festival of Water: Songkran. A chance for adults to behave like kids. And for some kids a last chance to misbehave before the first day of school. The third program in the Early Life series follows three children preparing to enter primary school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. But are their lives already set on different courses? Scientists suggest that how the brain develops in the first years of life may affect a child's ability to prosper at school.

Sita is looking forward to her first day, Best is wary, and Tha Na Korn doesn't even have a school to go to yet. Their dilemmas reflect those of Thailand as a whole: how should a country with its own traditions of childhood prepare their kids for a new, globalized society? Thailand is now developing an education policy to meet the needs of a globalized economy.

Child rights might have guaranteed Tha Na Korn local schooling. But many experts who say culture should guide early child development don't like talk of "child rights". They say it could lead to the West imposing its own views of childhood on the world.

Can Thailand achieve child rights without sacrificing its culture? Child rights will mean more kids like Tha Na Korn go to school. But Tha's school has a different language and culture. He could become "unrecognizable to his parents." Child rights and respect for culture need to be combined.


DVD / 2009 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 25 minutes

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EARLY LIFE: THE MAYOR'S DREAM

The Mayor's dream is simple: a better world because every child gets a better start.

What goes on inside the brains of babies-and how much are we shaped by the first few years of our lives? Scientists have new insights into how children think, and some claim that by not acting on these discoveries, lives are being wasted.

We visit the Andes where Mayor Amilcar Huanchuari believes that stimulating children's brains early on can make for a more prosperous-and less violent-society. We visit the labs of Boston, MA, where Harvard scientists are trying to determine whether science really is on the Mayor's side. We see how some Kenyan mums have realized that their traditional parenting ways have to change in today's world. And we talk to a young architect in Turkey who believes that her own life proves the Mayor's dream can be a reality.

"I have a dream," says Amilcar Huanchuari. "We know that poverty is a product of malnutrition, poor education and poor stimulation. And from this we believe that investment in education, health and nutrition is important, and we believe in the early stimulation of our children. We're convinced we should work with children from the earliest age and we're going to form a new society of children. We'll build a new generation of children. They'll be more successful and prosperous children and they'll contribute effectively towards a peaceful future for our country."

The Mayor's dream is simple: a better world because every child gets a better start. But does science support his dream? Across the world, evidence on both sides of the debate is mounting up.


DVD / 2009 / (Grades 9-12, College, Adult) / 25 minutes

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STORYTELLING CLASS, THE

Directed by John Paskievich and John Whiteway

An after-school storytelling project in a diverse, but divided, city school breaks cultural boundaries and creates community.

Located in Winnipeg's downtown core, Gordon Bell High School is probably the most culturally varied school in the city, with 58 different languages spoken by the student body. Many students are children who have arrived as refugees from various war torn areas of the world.

In an effort to build bridges of friendship and belonging across cultures and histories, teacher Marc Kuly initiated an after-school storytelling project whereby the immigrant students would share stories with their Canadian peers.

The catalyst for this cross-cultural interaction was the students' reading of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, a memoir of Beah's horrific time as a child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war.

These voluntary after-school meetings take dramatic turns and reach their climax when Ishmael Beah and professional storyteller Laura Simms travel from New York to work with them. With their help the students learn to listen to each other and find the commonality that so long eluded them.


DVD / 2009 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adult) / 59 minutes

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LIFE 5: SCHOOL'S OUT!

Directed by Dick Bower

The private school option in a Lagos shantytown.

Makoko is a shantytown on the edge of Lagos, the largest city in West Africa. Space is precious, so Makoko stretches out into the lagoon, where many of the houses are built on stilts. Average income in Makoko is about fifty dollars a month. In Nigeria ninety per cent of people live on less than two dollars a day. According to UNICEF, less than half the children of primary school age get an education, with school fees as high as ten dollars. However, new research reveals that parents here are prepared to pay to get their children educated.

The people of Makoko appear to have a choice: Children can go to the free state school, or they can pay at one of a growing number of small, private schools that have opened there. Research into how and why these private schools have emerged in such unlikely circumstances has been organized by a team from the University of Newcastle-upon- Tyne. Their research reveals that in communities like Makoko, parents are voting with their feet. They think the state system has failed, and a new and interesting grass roots movement in education seems to be the result.


DVD (Color) / 2005 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 23 minutes

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LIFE 4: EDUCATING YAPRAK

Turkey's ambitious campaign to reduce poverty includes convincing reluctant parents to send their daughters to school.

At the crossroads of Asia and Europe, Turkey is a country with a large, young population. But literacy rates have traditionally lagged behind neighboring Greece and Bulgaria. With its sights firmly set on future EU membership, Turkey has identified education as key to reducing poverty. So Turkey has embarked on an ambitious campaign, targeting those most deprived of education-young teenage girls-especially from the poor rural areas. Life visits Turkey's eastern Province of Van and meets 13-year-old Yaprak, just one of the many targeted by this massive education drive. She, for one, is sure of the benefits. "I want to study until the end. I want to finish university. I want to have a job."


DVD (Color) / 2004 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 26 minutes

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LIFE: EDUCATING LUCIA

The odds are against girls getting an education in Zimbabwe and throughout much of Africa.

Twelve-year old Lucia's dream is to be able to graduate to secondary school, and stay there-to finish the 12th grade and go on to train as a pilot. Her older sister Barita wants to do computer studies. And Portia, the youngest in the family, wants to be a dressmaker.

But tragically for these three sisters from one of Zimbabwe's large scale commercial farms, in tobacco country 50 miles outside Harare, they're more likely to end up -- as their mothers before them -- with no formal education, working as seasonal laborers on the farm. The three sisters are AIDS orphans being brought up by their grandmother. She can only afford school fees for one girl, Lucia, to attend primary school.

Across Africa, the odds are dramatically against girls getting an education. And even if they do attend primary school, they're often withdrawn before they finish -- to work as unpaid laborers for their extended family, to be married off or to have children. Only one in four school age girls in Burkina Faso ever attends school.

Across the continent only 24 percent of girls actually complete primary school, compared to 65-70% for boys. As Harry Sawyer, Minister for Education in Ghana, wrote in a recent UNICEF report, the obstacles to girls' education are the same as those that undermine economic and social development everywhere "but in the end, all the reasons add up to one: insufficient will."


DVD (Color) / 2000 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 24 minutes

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SMALL WONDERS

Director: Allan Miller

This inspirational documentary deservedly earned a 1995 Academy Award nomination. Divorced mother Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras taught music in the New York City school system until the budget ax eliminated her job. Dedicated to music and her students, she established a foundation and raised money to create her own violin program in three East Harlem schools. The film follows Guaspari-Tzavaras as she lugs her equipment from school to school, teaching students who range from young beginners to high-school students. The students' recitals include performing for an auditorium full of parents, playing the "Star-Spangled Banner" before a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, and finally making a Carnegie Hall appearance accompanied by world renown violinists Isaac Stern and Itzhak Perlman.


DVD / 1995 / 77 minutes

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