A Cheap Baker's Dozen Videos on Education Reform

Grab that popcorn and get ready to be schooled with the following edu-film festival. And don't forget to submit your own! Curtains!

1. Progressivism in Education Debate - c. 1940

This 1940’s newsreel offers a sobering reminder of how little the debate on “good teaching” has moved since then. Progressive John Dewey makes an appearance to argue the project-based approach, while a number of traditionalists line up to warn such an approach spelled the end of Greek civilization. I kid you not: it wasn’t the Peloponnesian War. It was project-based learning.

2 - 3. CBS News Education Overviews: A Couple of Quickies

Katie Couric’s Notebook: Standardized Tests

Couric’s one-minute overview of the uses and abuses of standardized testing in NCLB breaks it down for the mainstream. Especially resonant: the elimination of arts and civics classes for the sake of higher reading and math test scores. A hidden curriculum to read between the lines: “Creators and an informed citizenry are less important than workers for the economy.” The short version: “You work. We’ll rule.”

Pros and Cons of Charter Schools

Another mainstream overview of charter schools - the hype versus the lesser-known facts.

4. Obama on His Education Plan, March 2008

Candidate Obama on the main components of his education plan in less than 8 minutes. But this is a campaign moment, so it avoids controversies like charters and vouchers.

5 - 6. Obama’s Education Team: Linda Darling-Hammond and Arne Duncan - a Study in Contrasts

The pair of videos below are meant to introduce Linda Darling-Hammond, the progressive educator who advised Candidate Obama and led his transition team, and Arne Duncan, the more deregulatory privatizer and “C.E.O.” of Chicago Public Schools. Obama chose Duncan as his Secretary of Education.

Linda Darling-Hammond: Debate: Education and the Next President

This October 21, 2008 debate between Obama’s adviser Linda Darling-Hammond and McCain’s adviser Lisa Graham Keegan gives an idea of Candidate Obama’s education stances. Darling-Hammond was the favorite of many progressive educators for the post of Secretary of Education in the Obama administration. Her experience and expertise in the many factors that make up quality teaching and learning are evident in the debate below. (Full transcript here, more on Darling-Hammond here.)

Debate: Education and the Next President - Full Archived Webcast from Education Week on Vimeo.

Arne Duncan on “Improving Public Schools” Hearing at the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee on July 17, 2008.

Arne Duncan, “C.E.O.” (not “Superintendent” or “Chancellor,” perhaps tellingly) of Chicago Public Schools, is Secretary of Education nominee for the Obama Administration. Here, Duncan testifies on his “successes” as a reformer of Chicago’s schools. Many have contested his claims.

Part I:

Part II:

7. Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

Robinson’s TED Talk has become viral in educational circles. When more and more schools are eliminating arts programs to spend more time on test-prep for NCLB, it’s a timely talk indeed.

8. Ann Cooper: Reinventing the School Lunch

Ann Cooper forcefully argues that school lunches are a pressing issue in school reform, and her campaign to feed fresh-cooked, healthy foods to students in her school district is a strong reminder that “improving schools” means far, far more than improving math and reading scores.

9 - 10: “Did You Know?” and “Did You Ever Wonder?”: A Video Dialog on the Future - and the Purpose - of Education

Karl Fisch’s and Dr. Scott McLeod's “Did You Know?” is probably the most-watched education video on YouTube. It’s vision of the future of the world, and of how America must face up to that future with necessary changes in education, starkly shows that “our past is not their future” - so maybe our schools should not be either.

William Farren, an advocate of education reform focusing on well-being and the elephant in the edu-living room called environmental stewardship, produced “Did You Ever Wonder?” as a response to “Did You Know?” Pairing these videos brings out fundamental questions about the purpose of education.

BONUS: New American Schoolhouse

Filmmaker Danny Mydlack’s Voices from the New American Schoolhouse is a full-length documentary film - viewable in its entirety on YouTube - about an altogether different alternative to education exemplified by The Fairhaven School. From the trailer’s blurb:

Voices from the New American Schoolhouse explores life outside the usual educational box. Narrated exclusively by students, the film chronicles life and learning at the Fairhaven School in Upper Marlboro, MD which practices an undiluted form of freedom and democracy that turns mainstream education theory on its head. Filmmaker Danny Mydlack enjoyed unrestricted access over a two-year period to produce this candid and unblinking encounter with kid-powered learning.

View the whole film on Youtube.

Photo: Cinema Seats by mark lorch