The students in the Lights, Camera...Activism! class took their final exam at Champlain College's Alumni Auditorium in front of an audience of about 50 guests. This "exam" was the presentation of their class documentary, entitled "Waterlines: Stories from New Orleans' Schools," which they shot over their spring vacation in and around New Orleans, Louisiana.
In order to fully understand the impact that Katrina has had on the culture of New
Orleans, we met with local high school students and faculty. We were hosted by a creative
writing class at New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA | Riverfront).
NOCCA is a state‐funded arts conservatory open free‐of‐charge to all students in the New
Orleans school system and other nearby districts.
The group of 16 seniors ended up making 5 different movies about their experiences in New Orleans. Last year we looked at refugee resettlement in Chittenden County, and it was very difficult for the 16 students to actively participate in the making of just one movie, and the "too many cooks in the kitchen" phenomenon created a challenge to structuring the film. So this year, we divided into four groups of four, and each group selected an "essential question" that had surfaced in our study of the current situation in New Orleans. The group aimed to answer these questions with their movies:
1. How has the New Orleans school system changed following Hurricane
Katrina?
2. How did students’ individual experiences during and after Hurricane
Katrina impact their lives both in and out of school?
3. What is the value of the arts to a community?
4. What are the challenges and rewards of video production as a route to
learning?
It was an intense, exhausting, exciting and fun week that gave these students unforgettable learning opportunities. To hear more about the trip and the movies, take a look at the LCA blog (http://lca2008.edublogs.org) In conclusion, we honor the voices of those whose lives and educations were so powerfully impacted by
the destruction of Hurricane Katrina.
-Jim Shields, June 2008
(Burlington Free Press, June 10, 2008)
Video Students win state awards
South Burlington High School recently won the first- and second-place prizes in the Youth at Work video contest, sponsored this spring by the Civil Rights Unit of the Attorney General's Office.
Attorney General William Sorrell on Tuesday congratulated teacher Jim Shields and the students for creating vignettes that depict several common types of employment discrimination young workers may face in the workplace and are reluctant to report.
The video was developed by students who took the “Lights, Camera...Activism!” class. The video will be used by the Civil Rights Unit next year in Youth at Work presentations at high schools around Vermont.
