Daily Archives: October 22, 2018

3 posts

Game Changers

Amidst the debate over fixing the country’s ailing education system, THE GAME CHANGERS tells of a bold initiative designed to transform American classrooms. In 2009, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation launched an innovative pilot program to identify high-ability people in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), fund their training at four universities and create new teacher-preparation programs that focus on the skills and knowledge needed in the Information Age. Each student would receive a $30,000 stipend in exchange for completing the newly created master’s degree program. Then, they would go to work in Indiana’s high-need rural and urban schools. Sixty individuals from different walks of life, from recent college graduates to career-changers, took the daunting challenge. THE GAME CHANGERS follows the Fellows for two years, from university preparation through their first year heading their own classrooms. How do the teachers fare in their new roles? Can they make the difference in the lives of students? Can they make a difference in improving American schools?

Airs on WXXI-TV October 29, 2018 at 2:00 am
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Or watch online here.

Slow Way Home

The way children travel to school structures daily life for families around the world-but the means differs dramatically. In Japan 98 percent of children walk to school every day, unaccompanied by a parent. In the United States just 13 percent of children walk or bike to school, and most are driven to school by a parent. The Slow Way Home explores this divergence, examining how American families have largely given up on keeping our streets and public spaces safe enough for children, while Japanese communities have mobilized to keep their streets safe and walkable, not only for children but for everyone in society. Seen through both a historical and contemporary framing, The Slow Way Home is an uplifting examination of differences in culture that provides both insight into a distressing trend in American society and simultaneously offers hope for change.

Airs on WXXI-TV October 29, 2018 at 1:00 am
REQUEST THIS RECORDING

View the trailer here.