Let the Child Be the Guide

As a young father, watching his daughter go through her life experiences, film director Alexandre Mourot discovered the Montessori approach and decided to set his camera up in a children's house (3 to 6 years of age) in the oldest Montessori school in France. Alexandre was warmly welcomed in a surprisingly calm and peaceful environment, filled with flowers, fruits and Montessori materials. He met happy children, who were free to move about, working alone or in small groups. The teacher remained very discreet. Some children were reading, others were making bread, doing division, laughing or sleeping. The children guided the film director throughout the whole school year, helping him to 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.

To Be and to Have

The documentary's title translates as "to be and to have", the two auxiliary verbs in the French language. It is about a primary school in the commune of Saint-Étienne-sur-Usson, Puy-de-Dôme, France, the population of which is just over 200. The school has one small class of mixed ages (from four to twelve years), with a dedicated teacher, Georges Lopez, who shows patience and respect for the children as we follow their story through a single school year.

First Case, Second Case

A documentary about a teacher who sends a group of pupils out of the classroom when one of them does not own up to talking behind the master's back.

Rise Above the Mark

The purpose of Rise Above the Mark, narrated by Peter Coyote, is to educate the general public about the “corporate takeover” of Indiana public schools and what parents, community members and educators can do to protect their local public schools. Legislators are calling the shots and putting public schools in an ever-shrinking box. WLCSC Board of School Trustees and Superintendent of Schools, Rocky Killion, want to secure resources and legislative relief necessary to achieve the school district’s mission of creating a world-class educational system for all children. The school district’s strategic plan will introduce a model of education that puts decision making back into the hands of local communities and public school teachers, rather than leaving it in the hands of legislators and ultimately lining the pockets of corporations.

Teaching War

This episode from the Czech Journal series examines how a military spirit is slowly returning to our society. Attempts to renew military training or compulsory military service and in general to prepare the nation for the next big war go hand in hand with society’s fear of the Russians, the Muslims, or whatever other “enemies”. This observational flight over the machine gun nest of Czech militarism becomes a grotesque, unsettling military parade. It can be considered not only to be a message about how easily people allow themselves to be manipulated into a state of paranoia by the media, but also a warning against the possibility that extremism will become a part of the regular school curriculum.

Eine geschlossene Gesellschaft

Follows the lives of students and their teachers based on the director's childhood memories. The events of the film take places in the actual boarding school called "Gymnasium Canisianum", founded in 1946 by a German catholic priest.

Kindergarten

One day in a kindergarten classroom at Van Horne Public School in Montreal. The teacher encourages children to turn their curiosity into questions and organizes group activities and play periods.

L'école de demain

Oyler

A Cincinnati public school fights to break the cycle of poverty in its Urban Appalachian neighborhood, where senior Raven Gribbins aims to become the first in her troubled family to graduate and go to college. When Principal Craig Hockenberry's job is threatened, it becomes clear it's a make-or-break year for both of them.

Elementary

In the Makarenko public elementary school in the Paris outskirts, children want to learn and to be cheered while teachers know they do not only teach, they also educate. With care, tenacity and efforts, children are trained to become not only responsible citizens but also human beings.

Education Week

Young scholars get busy for Newcastle-on-Tyne's 'Education Week' in the tour of Tyneside classrooms.

No Ordinary Protest

Ted Hughes's 1993 novel The Iron Woman is the springboard for this multi-media project by Mikhail Karikis. The video section of the installation features seven-year-olds from Mayflower Primary School in East London discussing the novel's environmental themes.

Deux Cancres

A father films the daily efforts and struggle of his son to do his homework. Completing the school tasks is an agony that oppresses the creative passion of a restless, imaginative boy. His father gets deeply involved so he can understand what the problem is, and spends an hour every day to help him with his homework. Days, weeks, years go by, and we observe how the eagerness to learn clashes with the ghost of school dropout. The endearing relationship between father and son, a real rollercoaster of emotions, reveals with a sense of humour the contradictions in the French education system.

Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students

A major figure in contemporary feminism and the first Frenchwoman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Annie Ernaux is seen by many as a source of individual and collective emancipation, blending the intimate with the universal. Filmmaker Claire Simon has devoted an original portrait to her, giving students and teachers a voice.

A Class Story

In Rome, Gianclaudio Lopez, a retired teacher, sets off in search of his former students who are now approaching their thirties. A Class Story mixes sequences of the video diary that the teenagers had filmed at the time and sequences shot now in which the protagonists, adults, remember this period and speak of their dreams, illusions and regrets.

We Are Columbine

The Columbine shootings were a tragic event in American history and have proved a lasting influence in continued acts of violence ever since. In this harrowing account, student and faculty survivors of Columbine, Amy, Gus, Jaimi, Zach, Mr. Leyba and Principal DeAngelis, reflect on the event that has both shaped them and created an unbreakable spirit shared between them. This is not the story of death, but of the process of healing in the face of the unspeakable.

The First Grader

The true story of an 84 year-old Kenyan villager and ex Mau Mau freedom fighter who fights for his right to go to school for the first time to get the education he could never afford.

Elementary Genocide

Elementary Genocide is a documentary executive produced by award winning journalist/filmmaker Rahiem Shabazz. The documentary appeals to a wide general viewership by addressing the social, cultural, political and personal ramifications of how the federal government allots money to each state, to build prions based on the failure rate of 4th and 5th graders. In America, where half of the 4th grade is reading below grade level and more African-American males are in jail than are in college, Elementary Genocide serves as a striking reminder of a flawed system in need of repair.

Elementary Genocide 2

Rahiem Shabazz continues the conscience-raising dialogue generated by his acclaimed documentary Elementary Genocide: The School To Prison Pipeline with his equally hard-hitting Elementary Genocide 2: The Board of Education vs The Board of Incarceration. The Board of Education vs The Board of Incarceration uncovers the true purpose of today’s educational system and how it’s failing the African child. Going beyond the school-to-prison pipeline headlines and conspiracy theories, The Board of Education Vs. The Board of Incarceration proves that something sinister is afloat by digging deep to explore its origin, its existence and how to plot its destruction to save every Black child.

Elementary Genocide 3

World renowned journalist, and award-winning filmmaker Rahiem Shabazz presents the third installment of his docu-series Elementary Genocide: Academic Holocaust. The first two documentaries in the series; The School To Prison Pipeline and Elementary Genocide 2: The Board Of Education vs. The Board of Incarceration received critical acclaim and launched Shabazz as a political pundit and academic ambassador for the African American community. Elementary Genocide: Academic Holocaust adds more statistical proof of the scholastic inequalities faced by Original people around the country. The documentary revisits the importance of education and its impact on self-image, family structure, financial freedom, and the collective future of African/indigenous people in America and abroad.