ITVS’s Community Classroom, along with over 150 Bay Area educators, gathered at Laney College for KQED’s town hall meeting about the dropout crisis.

Panelists included educators Cesar Cruz of ARISE High School, Dr. Kimberly Mayfield of Holy Names University, Dave Orphal of Skyline High School, Josue Diaz Jr. of Oakland Tech, and Betsy Shulz of Emiliano Zapata Street Academy.

Here are some startling facts:

• Every year, roughly 1.3 million students in the U.S. drop out of high school. That’s 7,000 students each day.
• More than 20 percent of California high school students drop out of school before graduation*
• In the City of Oakland, almost 40 percent of students don’t graduate*

ITVS Community Classroom attended the March 13th event at Laney College, sitting in an auditorium filled with passionate teachers, present to talk about the growing dropout crisis in American education. It is hard to grab headlines with this story in a news environment already saturated with reports about the sad state of the public education system in this country. But with their American Graduate initiative, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in partnership with America’s Promise Alliance and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is keeping the conversation alive. KQED is one of 20 “hub” public media radio and television stations across the country that CPB tapped to host public forums about the crisis.

Over 150 Bay Area educators gathered at Laney College for KQED's town hall meeting about the dropout crisis.

Over 150 committed educators came out on the rainy Tuesday evening, ready to listen to a group of experts dissect the problem and share their own ideas about how to tackle it. Opinions about the root causes for why so many young people – especially young people of color –  drop out of school before graduation varied. But everyone agreed that too many young people are being left behind and lack the skills and mentorship necessary to thrive as young adults.

One complaint that came up repeatedly was that school curriculum is rarely relevant or engaging for most students. Judging by the response of the teachers that swarmed around the Community Classroom table after the event, there is a hunger for meaningful content that uses the power of storytelling to connect students to vital issues in society. Teachers poured over the resources that ITVS has adapted from more than 20 award-winning documentaries, such as Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Sentenced Home, Waste Land, and many more. They were thrilled to learn that our standards-aligned lesson plans and short film modules are FREE online at www.itvs.org/educators. At a time when school budgets are being stripped bare and teachers are burdened with more responsibilities and less support than ever, these resources and events, like the one hosted by KQED, provide some much needed inspiration.

KQED will host a youth media festival in October which will be centered around the American Graduate initiative. More information will soon be available on KQED.org/education and @KQEDedspace.

*Based on 2009 California Department of Education data

This spring, the Education Department at Tribeca Film Institute is rethinking the way they share film with the community. In partnership with ITVS Community Classroom, and in conjunction with their Women and Girls Lead initiative, they will screen The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 on March 21st at 11am.

A film by Goran Hugo Olsson, The Black Power Mixtape brings together never before seen footage of Harlem, New York in the 1970s, and black power leaders like Stokely Carmichael and Angela Davis. Watch Davis discuss the film in an ITVS interview conducted earlier this year, after the jump.

Over 200 students from high schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx will come to Tribeca Cinemas to view the film. The screening will be followed by a workshop session with female African American community leaders and young artists around the major themes of black and minority empowerment, female leadership, and community activism.

Photo by Julie Wyman

Media mavens

My colleague, production coordinator N’Jeri Eaton, is an editing pro and an experienced youth media instructor — so that was a plus. Filmmakers Julie Wyman (Strong!) and Elizabeth Mandel (Pushing the Elephant), who were at the convention with us to present their films, were on hand to co-facilitate the sessions. We were also fortunate to have Houston media producer Linda Gibbs and her advanced media production students from Hightower Academy come help. Add to the mix local independent filmmaker Michelle Mower and Houston PBS’s Julie Coan and we were in pretty good shape.

As a result of these workshops, these girls are going back to their communities with the know-how to tell their stories and share them, and for some, with a growing interest in media making as a career!

Here are some of the participants, talking about the experience in their own words:

I wish I had been cool enough to be a Girl Scout way back when.

Join ITVS’s Women and Girls Lead Campaign on Facebook

At a time when school budgets are tight, it is rare for teachers to get treated to wine, gourmet treats, and free media content. But ITVS and four other leading Bay Area media organizations decided they deserved some pampering and inspiration.

This past month, over 100 media savvy educators attended the first Bay Area Media Innovators in Education event at the Lab art space, co-hosted by ITVS, KQED, BAVC and the San Francisco Film Society. The event was a showcase for educational resources from each organization, and featured a panel discussion with four teachers who are using media creatively to engage their students.

Joanne Parsont, Director of Education at SFFS, moderated a panel featuring kindergarten teacher Liza Mathews who won the PBS Teachers Innovation award; Elizabeth Jackson, a 4th grade teacher at Bacich Elementary School; David Maduli, a 9th grade English teacher at Oakland Charter School; and Toby Rugger, a teacher at Oakland International High School.

The panelists discussed how they overcame technical and administrative hurdles at their schools to integrate media and media literacy into their curriculum. They talked about harnessing the omnipresent technology in students’ lives to create meaning within a cluttered media landscape, and to provoke dialogue in new and interesting ways. As one audience member put it, teachers must stay current with new media tools or run the risk of losing relevance.

David Maduli, who uses ITVS Community Classroom film modules and lesson plans with his students, says he feels an obligation as a teacher interested in promoting social justice to also promote media literacy — both in terms of fostering critical thinking skills and thoughtful media making.

Teachers listened in rapt attention and circulated gathering resources, and also networked with one another. The consensus in the room was that the conversations were inspiring, and that this group should stay connected and plan similar events in the future.

The next day, Jessica Hadid from Oakland wrote: “I just want to let you know how inspired and invigorated I felt having attended your mixer in the Mission last night. It was a great success, and I very much look forward to any subsequent meetings we can scrape together. As a brand new teacher who recently visited Palestine and Israel, I came home last night with many ideas on how to facilitate meaningful communication amongst this conflict-torn region’s school population, as well as ways these students might be taught to empower themselves and bolden their voices with use of film, imagery, etc. Thank you so much for a wonderful evening!”

Find more creative educational resources for teachers at ITVS’s Community Classroom

Teacher:

Dr. Negussie Tirfessa, Ph.D., Best Teacher Ever!

Dr. Tirfessa was born in Ethiopia. He received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Physics at Addis Ababa University in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He taught Physics at the same university for six years and came to the U.S. to study at Ohio State University in 1995. Dr. Tirfessa graduated with Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Nuclear Physics in 2001 and joined MCC as an instructor of Physics in January 2002.  He currently lives in Manchester, CT with his wife and two children.

Student:

Cordelia Vahadji attended Smith College, majoring in biology. She completed internships at Smith, Yale, Princeton, the NIH, and the Association for Women in Science, as well as an NSF teaching fellowship. She worked as a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins. Recently she has switched her career focus to mechanical engineering.

1) Teaching is such a challenging profession, often without adequate compensation or recognition. What inspires you to keep at it?

What inspires me to keep at it is the difference you make in other’s life. Teaching gives you great opportunities to mentor, train, and help your students acquire various skills that they need to succeed in their future carrier. Seeing your student master the subject and actively involved in the learning process is a great joy. You are right about the compensation but these results are rewarding-something that I cannot assign monetary value to it.

2) You teach physics. What is it about this field that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about everything-physics.  Physics helps address the why questions about our everyday life phenomena and our universe. There are many physics principles at work behind all of our technological advances- GPS, cell phone, hybrid cars, medical imaging, laser, etc. I am passionate about sharing my excitement for physics with my students.

At introductory physics level we have a large number of “toys” (as physicists call them), computer simulations and animations that we can use to illustrate how physics (the laws of nature) works. I always try to emphasize and show that physics is not mathematics (Maths). This past spring semester I overheard a student in a hallway explaining different subjects to her friends and, of course, “Physics is just Maths” was the definition given for physics. I was with another physics colleague but I had to stop and explain why physics is not Maths.  Most of my students are future engineers and having solid foundation of physics is key to their success.

3) What advice do you have for someone thinking about pursuing a teaching career in science, especially young women?

I have never taught any other subject other than physics. So my answers would be geared toward teaching physics. Teaching is a rewarding experience but you have to be invested in it and fully committed to it. If you are not passionate about the field and your teaching, then most of your student would soon sense the absence of excitement and may not get actively involved or develop interest in learning what physics offers.

When we come out of school with our physics degrees, we know how to do physics well but many of us may not yet have the skill to get it across to our students. Developing a great teaching skill that works for you requires time. I think the most important part of teaching is learning how your students learn. It is about finding ways of actively engaging the student in their learning process so that they can learn the subject themselves.

The science area, especially physics, needs women educators. Having you in classrooms would inspire future young scientists and engineers. The science field needs you.

4) What do you do for fun?

I like spending time with my family, friends, and trying to answer the endless challenging why-questions of my three year old son. I also like playing soccer and listening to music.

The media industry is still largely a man’s world. In commercial film, only 7 percent of directors, 13 percent of writers, and 20 percent of producers are female. How will the next generation of women media-makers confront that reality? ITVS, POV, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and Youth Radio will partner to present a live chat on Monday, July 11 at 3 PM PT / 6 PM ET with talented young women from around the country who have won acclaim in the youth media world and beyond. The conversation will be moderated by independent producer Jen Gilomen (co-director of Deep Down).

This is the first in a regular series of online conversations about critical issues facing women and girls today, as part of the Women and Girls Lead public media initiative.

Participants:

Jen Gilomen (moderator): Jen Gilomen is a documentary filmmaker and D.P., as well as director of public media strategies at the Bay Area Video Coalition, where she directs the public-access television station and works in collaboration with public-media entities, community organizations, and producers to develop innovative social media programs and initiatives. She co-directed the Independent Lens film, Deep Down, about a community in rural Kentucky embroiled in a contentious battle over energy, and torn between the wealth and environmental destruction mountaintop-removal mining represents.

Denise Tejada (Youth Radio): Denise Tejada is a graduate of Youth Radio’s class of 2003. She has moved from student to peer teacher to news department assistant producer. Her video feature, Mission District Diversity, won the My City Now Future Filmmaker Contest as part of KQED’s Education Network. In 2009 Tejada received the Gracie Award for Outstanding Reporter/Correspondent. Tejada is part of the Youth Radio team recently recognized with a Peabody and Murrow Award for the two-part investigation, Trafficked, on child sex trafficking in Oakland, California. Tejada is currently attending Berkeley City College in Berkeley, CA.

Lauren Lindberg (Bay Area Video Coalition’s Factory Youth Program): Laura Lindberg is an 18-year old documentary filmmaker, whose films have screened in 17 national and international film festivals this year, including the San Francisco Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Paley Docujam, Cineyouth film festival, NFFTY, as well as an exhibition at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. Her awards include: Best Editing, Best Documentary, Best Youth Film, and Audience Choice Award. Lauren was recently chosen as one of five teens, out of 35,000 from across the country, as a Seventeen Magazine “Pretty Amazing” Teen. Lauren will attend Chapman University in Orange, CA in the fall, and will study documentary film. Her dream is to start a production company called “Voices to be Heard,” in which she tells the stories of those who are without a voice to tell their own. Lauren recently won the Jefferson Award from CBS San Francisco for her outstanding public service work. Find a sample of Lauren’s work here.

Zoe Salnave (Bay Area Video Coalition’s Factory Youth Program): Zoe is a filmmaker in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has produced multiple films, including Come to the Table about Alice Waters’s edible schoolyard. Her films have been accepted at film festivals such as the San Francisco International, Seattle International, National Film Festival for Talented Youth, Chicago International (Cineyouth), San Joaquin Teen Truth Film Festival, Spotlight FilmFest, Project YouthView in Alameda, Albany FilmFest, and she also had Come to the Table screened privately at the White House for the Obama family and was most recently requested by the New York International Film Festival. She will be studying film and journalism at Mills College in Fall 2011. Find a sample of Zoe’s work here.

Negesti Cantave (Project VoiceScape, POV): Negesti made Bed-Stuy: Do or Buy?, a piece examining gentrification in the Brooklyn neighborhood where she was raised. She plans to continue documentary filmmaking as her career.  She went to City-As-School in Brooklyn and attends Medgar Evers College. Find a sample of Zoe’s work here.

Morgan Wilcock (Project VoiceScape, POV): Morgan Wilcock is an aspiring young documentary filmmaker from Minneapolis.  She has enjoyed creating comedy digital shorts from a young age.  She is currently working on her premiere documentary, “This Gay and Age,” in conjunction with Project VoiceScape. Find a sample of Morgan’s work here.

About ITVS and Women and Girls Lead:

Women and girls everywhere are stepping into leadership roles, working to improve their communities, and innovating in science, the arts, business, and governance. Yet there is still much to do to deliver on the promise of equal access, freedom, and opportunity for women and girls worldwide. Women and Girls Lead is a strategic media initiative to support and sustain a growing movement to empower them, their communities, and future generations. Learn More about the initiative here.

About POV‘s Project VoiceScape:

The Adobe and PBS Foundations, together with the PBS series POV, are pleased to announce that 15 projects by 22 teen filmmakers will receive grants from Project VoiceScape, a collaboration between the Adobe Foundation’s global signature philanthropy program Adobe Youth Voices and POV, public television’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films.

Learn more about about BAVC and The Factory Youth Program here.

Learn more about Youth Radio here.

Well, it was not easy. We received moving stories from around the country about teachers who go the extra mile to illuminate young minds.

Teachers like Beatrice Pfaff, an American Sign Language Instructor in Indianapolis who inspires her students to overcome the isolation they can feel from being deaf, or P. Curry Leslie, Jr., a much-loved television production instructor in Raleigh, NC who has mentored hundreds of young people who have gone on to successful careers in journalism. Or elementary school teachers like Virginia E. Mahaney and Mary Causey Hamilton, from Wilbraham and Cambridge, Mass., who both reached out to a student in need of validation and helped her find her own strength.

Ultimately, we just couldn’t decide, and so we left it up to you, our audience, to choose the winner. And you chose Negussie Tirfessa, a physics professor in Manchester, Conn. Cordelia Vahadji, who nominated him, wrote that Professor Tirfessa inspires in his students “a passion and reverence for scientific investigation.” Next week we’ll feature a conversation between Cordelia and Professor Tirfessa and learn more about what makes him the Best. Teacher. Ever!

Thanks to all who participated in the contest and shared their stories of these life-changing educators. Now, go and relax … it’s summer break!

ITVS Education Manager Annelise Wunderlich decides she’s not afraid of teaching her son the F-word.

Annelise Wunderlich with her eight-month old baby boy Tiago.

When I told my husband about the title of this post, he raised a skeptical eyebrow. Really? Feminist? What did I mean by that, exactly? I think he envisioned me forcing our eight-month old son, Tiago, to wear pink leggings, read Betty Friedan before bed, and sing along to Ani DiFranco in the car. Was I proposing that we raise Tiago to feel guilty about his masculinity, or to resist patriarchy at the playground? Not that my husband isn’t a big supporter of women, but couldn’t we just let the baby learn how to chew first? Have I been in Northern California too long?

I did have to think about my intentions carefully. The F-word carries a lot of baggage, and I’ve tended to shy away from it since my undergraduate days when I was taking women’s studies classes and playing rugby. But I have decided to just go ahead and own it, since I’ve yet to hear a better word to describe a person who believes that women and girls are equal to men and boys and deserve the same opportunities in life. And I definitely want my son to be that kind of person. And there are plenty of forces around him from day one that make that harder than it sounds.

Since I work in media, and I’m a fervent believer in media literacy, that is where I’ll focus here. Let’s start with cartoons and kiddie entertainment. Even though women make up around 50 percent of the population, in G-rated movies there are 2.42 males to every female. Which is not that surprising, since only 7 percent of directors, 13 percent of writers, and 20 percent of producers are female. The females who do appear in kid movies tend to be young, beautiful, with anatomically impossible thin waists, and are scantily clad — in fact, nearly a quarter of them. Inevitably, if they are on a quest, it is for a prince, and love. And of course all of this just gets reinforced as movies go from G to PG to PG-13 and possibly the worst fictional place to be a feminist, R.

Older women don’t show up much in kid movies, unless they are witches of course. Certainly not a lot of women making decisions, taking action, much less ruling the kingdom. Sesame Street and Tiago’s beloved Elmo are an oasis of equity in the media landscape — but overall children’s media feels a lot like training wheels for the bigger, badder kind of sexism that awaits. I’m sorry Beyoncé, but Girls most certainly do not Rule the World, no matter how much money you spent on post-apocalyptic dominatrix costumes in your latest video.

Not that the picture is all that great for boys, either. Sure, they arguably get to have more fun onscreen…blowing things up, driving fast, seducing all those pretty girls with tiny waists. But like with most binaries, the scope of cool guy behavior is limited and creates an artificial set of choices that leaves very little room for complexity or imagination. In fact, statistics around achievement in life show that boys today are in serious trouble — there are far more of them than girls in jail, in the military, in special ed classes and far fewer of them in college and earning bachelor’s degrees.

The good news is that public media exists and dares to suggest that young people don’t have to fit themselves into that narrow binary of gender roles. With initiatives like Women and Girls Lead showcasing strong women and girls around the globe making waves, there is actually something good on TV (and more than ever before, the internet). Boys and girls alike will be inspired by these stories of ordinary women doing extraordinary things — if only there is an adult around to encourage them to watch.

So why worry so much about the media? I know my husband and I will be good role models, and Tiago comes from a long line of strong women who never let culture stand in their way. It’s not that I want to lock down the TV, or forbid him from seeing the latest Pixar flick. I just want to equip him with the facts, and let him decide what seems fair. I want to expose him to movies made by women, so that he knows gender has nothing to do with telling a good story. I want him to see media that features girls and women of all ages doing cool things to change their world — not just waiting passively for a kiss to transform them. And if he’s not seeing that stuff, I hope he might ask why.

So no pink leggings or Bedtime Betty Friedan, unless he wants them. But I may slip in an Ani DiFranco song now and then, and point out that she owns her own record company … in case he wonders.

Here is a startling fact: the number of women in prison in the United States has increased by 800percent over the last three decades. It’s a disturbing trend — but fortunately there are some inspiring individuals and organizations out there working to reverse it.

Adriana Escobar (photo by Van Nguyen-Stone)

Community Works, one of our educational partners for Community Classroom, is among them. When their youth programs manager Manijeh Fata invited me to see their theater ensemble Rising Voices last month, I knew it was a chance to see the life-changing potential of storytelling at work.

Rising Voices is a paid internship program for previously incarcerated young women ages 18 to 25, located at the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department Women’s Reentry Center.

Nakisha McDowell (photo by Van Nguyen-Stone)

In the program the women took their personal stories and transformed them into fictionalized one-act plays. They developed characters who are trying to break free from patterns that have put them in contact with the criminal justice system — like a young girl who runs away from home and her abusive father, or a woman who strives for independence from her destructive but loving family, or another who resists a tempting drug deal to keep her life on track.

I was blown away by the authentic dialogue and raw emotion of the women’s writing.  Afterwards, they shared with the audience how hard it was to open up and tell their stories, but ultimately how it helped them find their voice and find strength from one another.

ITVS Community Classroom is partnering with Community Works to produce a new collection of film modules and curriculum about women, girls, and the criminal justice system. Our material poses the provocative question: can young women “at risk” become leaders? This resource will be a part of our Women and Girls Lead initiative. Stay tuned for the online launch in early Fall 2011.

Watch this behind-the-scenes video interview with Rising Voices’s Program Director Michelle Torres.