Penn GSE Social Justice Documentary Series

03/29/2016

Tonight's film screening is rescheduled for next Tuesday at 7pm. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused! –Penn GSE Social Justice Documentary Series

03/21/2016

02/09/2016

Join us for a screening of 'A Class Divided' tonight at 7:30 in Room 200!

01/19/2016

Join us tonight for the screening of The Graduates (Los Graduos)! 7:30, GSE 007. Refreshments provided.

11/20/2015

Precious Knowledge will be screening on November 30th at 7PM. More info about this groundbreaking documentary below!

Precious Knowledge interweaves the stories of students in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School. While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with 100 percent of enrolled students graduating from high school and 85 percent going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming this innovative social-justice curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who become engaged, informed, and active in their communities.

Refreshments will be served!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ExJ2gly0m4

09/11/2015

This semester, the Penn GSE Social Justice Documentary Series will screen 4 films: American Promise, Waiting for Superman, The Lottery, and MALALA: A Girl from Paradise. Dates and locations TBA.

American Promise: Filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson follow their son and his best friend through the U.S. educational system for 13 years. Though both boys start out at the prestigious Dalton School, circumstances later force one into a public high school.

Waiting for Superman: This film by director Davis Guggenheim investigates the public school system in the United States, and uncovers the many ways in which education in America has declined. Rather than relying largely on statistics and expert opinions, Guggenheim focuses on five students -- Anthony, Bianca, Daisy, Emily and Francisco -- portraying their own individual struggles and triumphs within problem-plagued academic settings where there are no easy solutions to the myriad issues that affect them.

The Lottery: This documentary, directed by Madeleine Sackler, shows the tough choices that face inner-city parents regarding their children's education. With public schools, especially in poor areas, often failing to effectively educate children, many parents have turned to charter schools. The film examines the issue and chronicles the journey of four families from Harlem and the Bronx in New York City attempting to overcome the long odds and gain entrance for their children in a successful charter school.

MALALA: A Girl From Paradise: Sixteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban for being outspoken about her country’s education system. The Pakistani government spends seven times more on its military than on education. The Taliban banned girls from attending school. Pakistan’s literacy rate is among the lowest in the world, with the number of school aged children who don’t attend school being the second highest globally. Malala survived and is now the youngest person to ever be awarded the Nobel peace Prize for her activism for female education. This is the story of Malala’s fight for a right to education and freedom.