Here are two beautiful, moving and challenging movies about teachers who understand that kids can’t learn in school if everything’s going wrong at home and in the neighborhood. The first is about Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s work in Oakland, CA. All the videos on his site are worth checking out, but here’s one to get you intrigued:
This second one, Wright’s Law, seems very different, as it starts with some fun pyrotechnics, but its theme turns out to be the same: engage with the students’ own lives, and they will engage with what you are trying to teach. Its tagline is “A Physics teacher so extraordinary he can explain combustion and love.” The last part profiles Wright’s relationship with his very disabled son, and is a beautiful example of love in action.
And finally, don’t miss Yes! magazine’s current education issue, but especially Fania Davis’s profile of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, which combines the kinds of insights that teachers like Duncan-Andrade and Wright practice with a complete remake of schools’ approaches to discipline, suspensions, so we break the school-to-prison pipeline.
These approaches in schools are the things that give me more hope than anything for our collective future.