RERC screening of "High School" (October 10th, 2009)

October 10, 2009 Nicole’s place

Documentary Film: High School

Attending: Nicole, Ben, Monique, David, Amber, Malcolm, Gabriel and Deanna

Watched the documentary High School (1968) by Frederick Wiseman.

The 1960s technology of hand-held 16mm cameras and portable sound recorders allowed documentary filmmakers to operate relatively unobtrusively to tell stories. Wiseman was an early practitioner of “direct cinema.”

High School was captured at Northeast High School, a large middle class, mostly white, school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

As an examination of how an educational institution works to transmit the dominant social values of a community, it is as relevant today as it was more than forty years ago. When High School was released, the relationship Wiseman had with school administrators deteriorated. To avoid a lawsuit the film was banned in Philadelphia.

Wiseman followed up High School 25 years later with High School II (1994) at a very different institution, the alternative school Central Park East Secondary School in Harlem, New York. This is the school that RERC discussed at an earlier meeting.

Alternative School Presentation and a Book Report (November 1st 2009)

Much happened at today's meeting. 


Amber introduced the collective to a unique tutoring concept that started at 826 Valencia in San Francisco and Malcolm presented on a book hot off the MIT Press called Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century.
 

I. 826 Valencia


Dave Eggers from McSweeney’s magazine wanted to create a tutoring space where youth saw writers in action. Used streetfront of their office space.  The literary journal is using the same space; kids see professionals at work. Retail component, required by zoning, a very playful pirate-supply shop. Other 826s springing up in other cities have retail spaces in the front -- a spy shop, a superhero shop -- and tutoring in the back. See his talk on TED. 




II. Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century - MIT Press

Malcolm presented the book (hot off the MIT Press) called Art School: Propositions for the 21st Century. He was reviewing it for BorderCrossings, so he took serious notes and liked the idea of some double duty, i.e., presenting to our RERCiness as well as reviewing it. Since it has a lot of essays, conversations and questionnaires, it may take two RERC meetings.