A Place in the World

An annual curriculum of the CFI Education Program

Introduction to the Curriculum

Children and teens learn best from the images and attitudes of their peers. A Place in the World is an annual curriculum, in its third year this November 2008, that addresses not only the personal, individual problems of youth, but also their interaction with global issues and the many ways they cope and problem solve. Films and appropriate speakers including directors and documentary film subjects, will form the core of the lessons, relating everything to contemporary and local problems even when the films may be from other countries. Screenings and discussions are at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center.

The main events that form us as children will be addressed in this curriculum as discrete units, and are based on the principle events and structures in a child’s life that have the greatest influence on their development. Some, such as war and death are major external traumas; others such as sexuality and family are intimate and personal. All are as old as the first thinking human’s experience and as contemporary as today’s news.

The films are chosen from a wide range of genres, countries and time periods, representing an historical and cultural continuity and a timelessness of vision. It is primary in this curriculum that the students experience not only the emotions of the protagonists, but also their environment. In all films the main protagonist of a chosen film is a child or a youth. Through the curriculum, the student will hopefully realize that they are not alone in the world, not the only one thinking these thoughts or experiencing these joys and disappointments. The other important purpose of the films are to offer life alternatives as being either viable, or at least to create a sympathy for the alternatives.

The Program Details

A Place In the World is for grades 8-12. Participating schools are chosen from different Bay Area locations and with as much diversity in student make--up as possible. Currently Richmond Leadership High School, San Francisco Downtown Continuation High School and the TEAM program of Tamiscal High School are our participating groups. All schools have to commit to the full seven month/once a month program.

Curriculum study guides for all films are provided as well as DVD’s with clips to show in class preparations.

The program follows a schedule of: study guides sent to teachers two weeks before the event date; film shown at the Smith Rafael Film Center; discussion with director or principal speaker; small group break-out with adult discussion leaders for personal reflection. We provide each break-out group with a Flip video camera for them to record the group’s discussion and these are edited into a 5 minute recap.

The Films and Topics of Discussion

Previous years:
Previous year’s award winning films included: Ali Zaoua, a Moroccan film about three street children searching for some connection to “family”; Arna’s Children that chronicles ten years in the life of a school in occupied Palestine that used theater to help children deal with their fears and loss; Wild Boys of the Road, a depression-era film that explores the alienation of youth from society. In addition to the film’s director, guests included local professionals like Chandra Sivakumar with Larkin Street Youth Center; the Reverend Cheryl Elliott from Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland; Hosai Mojadidi, a young Afghan woman rediscovering her cultural roots; Ceclie Surasky from Jewish Voice for Peace and Amir Terkel a former Israeli IDF soldier and refusenik; and Eddy Joe Cotton who rode the rails as a wandering youth.

This year (2008-2009):

Orientation:

KIDS + MONEY

Photographer and social analyst Lauren Greenfield directed this incisive short film about a cross-section of kids in Los Angeles who spend all of their money (and a good deal of their parent’s) on clothes to conform to group pressure. This orientation is a chance for the participants to learn something about each other in groups, singly and with teachers, all around the theme of the film. Film is 32 min.

Topic: Family

MY FLESH AND BLOOD

East Bay mom Susan Tom is a remarkable woman. She has made a life commitment to adopt severely handicapped children into her household and care for them with an inspired “tough love”. The film spans four seasons with the Tom family of 11 special needs kids who are either mentally or severely physically handicapped and very individual people. While the film is a portrait of Tom herself, the focus is on family and how the word doesn’t necessarily mean blood ties. These kids relate to each other and the world like no other family you’ll ever see. Guest: Susan Tom. Film is 83 min

Topic: Racism

PROMISES

One of the longest regional conflicts, between the Palestinian people and the nation of Israel, has been stoked by racism. In President Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid he condemned Israel for pursuing a racist policy worse than South Africa’s. While that point may be debatable, the fact is that much of the violence between Palestinians and Israeli’s is based on racism born of misunderstandings of who each group “is”. Justine Shapiro, Carlos Bolado and BZ Goldberg’s 2001 Oscar-nominated film looks at the problem through children. With an incredible way of finding and talking to (not at) a sensitively balanced group of children from many backgrounds (Hassidic Jews, orthodox “settlers”, non-religious Israeli families, Palestinian orthodox Muslims, families of militants and non-political families), the filmmakers finally realize that if these wonderful kids could only meet… It’s a lesson in what can come from conversation. Guest: director Justine Shapiro. Film is 106 min.

Topic: Work

CHINA BLUE

Blue jeans may have started with the California Gold Rush days, but this incisive documentary turns Levis inside out. What we all take for granted in our clothing is revealed to be not so fashionable. For many teenage girls in China, putting zippers in jeans and snipping the loose thread is a mind numbing job that is necessary to leave school for—it pays for their family to eat. Millions of people have migrated from the countryside to cities to make a low wage of pennies an hour. While China Blue doesn’t paint a picture of horrifying proportions, the quiet desperation of the three teen workers the film focuses on is all the more moving. Overworked, underfed and misled—like their bosses—the young workers live by the order demands of Wal-Mart and Levi’s. The three girls remain simply themselves which makes their plight all the more heart-breaking. Try not to think of them every time you pull a pair of jeans on. Guest: Director Micha Peled. Film is 87 min.

Topic: Activism

THE EDUCATION OF SHELBY KNOX

When then 16yo Shelby Knox came in conflict with her Lubbock Texas High School’s abstinence only sex education program, no one—least of all herself—knew that it would be an inspiration for a life-long commitment to activism. Her stance against abstinence only and against students who discriminated against the gay teen population in the school, brought her into the eye of a storm that rocked the town and her family. This documentary portrait proves that even conservative values can sometimes bow to smart argument. Shelby, now 22, has attended our screenings for four years through her years in college and now out in the world working in the political non-profit sector in New York City. Guest: Shelby Knox will be joining us again this year. Film is 76 min.

Topic: Sexuality

BELLYFRUIT

The rate of teen pregnancy in the US is the highest in the Western World. Add to that, teen mothers often have to cope with a sometimes catastrophic interruption in their education (making them unable to support their new family without help from the father or parents), physical abuse from angry sex partners and banishment from their families. This dramatic film about three teen mothers from entirely different social/racial/geographic circumstances is based on stories written in a women’s workshop for teen moms. It is a rich portrait of three young women-- one African-American, one Latina, one Caucasian-- who make difficult decisions, sometimes wisely and sometimes very unwisely. Guests: Co-director Kerri Lee Green and co-director and actor Bonnie Dickerson. Film is 87 min.

Topic: School

THE WAVE

This acclaimed German film dramatizes the true story of a teacher and his class in 1967’s Cubberley High School in Palo Alto. World History teacher Ron Jones designed a two week course, an experiment in dictatorships. The class (which grew in size from 30 to 200) and simulated the rise of Fascism replete with salutes (the Wave), informers, racial and ethnic hysteria and exclusion and a rise of violence. To his dismay and alarm, the experiment was so blindly embraced by the students, that he cut the project short. "Initially I just wanted to show my students how powerful the pressure to belong can be, but the exercise got out of control.” Re-cast as a German school the dramatic film takes on even more immediacy. The story of the Wave experiment is required reading in German schools. Guest: Ron Jones. Film is 106 min.