Empowering Children: Independent Lens’ The Revolutionary Optimists

On Monday, June 17, at 10pm WGBY airs the documentary The Revolutionary Optimists about some of the poorest slums of Kolkata.  Amlan Ganguly, a lawyer-turned social entrepreneur, sows hope in the poorest neighborhoods of Calcutta by empowering children to become leaders in improving health and transforming their communities.  Preview.

Inspired by The Revolutionary Optimists, which profiles “The Daredevils” in one of Kolkata’s most notorious squatters’ colonies, Map Your World is a multi-platform project in development that puts the power of new technologies into the hands of young change agents, enabling them to map, track, and improve the health of their own communities and share their stories.

When you search subjects like  “children in poverty” on PBS LearningMedia, you’ll find hundreds of resources.  Here are just a few:

Protect Your Health and Environment  (Grades 3 – 4) In this media-rich self-paced lesson, students explore health hazards in their environment and learn how to make their environment safer.

Poverty (Grades: 6-12) shows children in unclean conditions and asks students to write a description of what they think life is like for these children.

Teens Fight for Toxic Waste Cleanup (Grades 9-12) Meet a student who successfully lobbied her state legislature about waste sites in her neighborhood in this video adapted from Earth Island Institute’s New Leaders Initiative.

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NOVA Special Report: Manhunt – Boston Bombers” + Classroom Resources

This Wednesday, May 29, WGBY airs A NOVA Night of Special Reports: “Manhunt- Boston Bombers” at 9:00pm & “Oklahoma’s Deadliest Tornadoes” at 10:00pm.  Watch preview. 

 On May 24 we posted some of the teacher resources available to you for “Oklahaoma’s Deadliest Tornadoes.”  (See previous post below.)  The special new one-hour NOVA documentary “Manhunt-Boston Bombers,” follows quickly unfolding events, step by step, and examines the role of modern technology—combined with old-fashioned detective work in cracking the case. And in a special collaboration, producer Miles O’Brien is also re­porting a special broadcast that same evening prior to NOVA for PBS NewsHour.

Searching under “terrorism” at PBS LearningMedia, you’ll find various classroom resources, such as the lesson plan Breaking Up is Hard to Do for grades 9-12 about Russian/Chechen relations with the focus on nationalism, separatism, and terrorism.  You’ll also want to check out PBS NewsHour Extra, news for kids and resources for teachers, including free lesson plans, news videos, articles and original student-generated reports.

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DonorsChoose.org for Support & Supplies for Schools

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with other organizations, donates to DonorsChoose.org  to support teachers from math and science to the humanities with resources for their specific ideas. In the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Melinda Gates writes her first Spotlight on this organization that provides support and supplies to American schools, saying it’s “such a smart, simple concept.  Every student deserves a great education, and DonorsChoose helps teachers deliver on that promise.’

DonorsChoose.org lets you share the needs of your classroom with a generous community eager to help.   According to the site, supporters have brought teachers’ ideas to life in more than half of all U.S. public schools. The site provides information about how DonorsChoose works and how teachers can get started, asking “What change do you want in your classroom?”

A great question –We hope you’ll check out DonorsChoose.org and let us know what you think!

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Hispanic History, Culture & Spanish Speaking Skills

Expand  students’ understanding of Hispanic history and culture while helping to develop their Spanish language skills with resources from PBS Learning Media.   These  featured interactive games, video clips, and lesson plans  are designed to engage learners and enhance curriculum.  If you’ve  yet to do so, you can  create a free account on PBS LearningMedia to search, save, and share your favorite resources.

The Storm that Swept Mexico: Revolutionary Art
Grades 9-12 | Video | Visual Art and History
Explore the Mexican Muralist Movement and consider the role of art as social commentary using this video resource from Latino Public Broadcasting.

Rough Riders
Grads 6-12 | Video | Spanish American War
Use this resource to enhance lessons on the Spanish American War, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and New Mexico’s path toward statehood.

Baseball and Social Change: The Story of Roberto Clemente
Grades: 5-8 | Blended Lesson | Literacy Skill Development
Invite students to examine the relationship between culture and identity through the story of baseball legend Roberto Clemente.

Hispanic Exploration in America
Grades: 4-12 | Media Gallery | Teaching with Primary Resources
Gain insight into the Hispanic exploration, colonization, and conquests in North America by examining a collection of primary sources from the Library of Congress.
*If you like this resource – you might like this online course.

The Red Balloon
Grades K-2 | Lesson Plan, Games | Spanish Vocabulary
¡Pruébalo! Develop your students’ Spanish language skills using this collection of videos and interactive games from “Oh Noah!”

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Frontline: The Holocaust’s Last Living Survivors

In the most recent of his critically-lauded autobiographical films, Never Forget to Lie,  Marian Marzynski explores for the first time his own wartime childhood and the experiences of other child survivors.  The filmmaker teases out their feelings about Poland, the Catholic Church, and the ramifications of identities forged under circumstances where survival began with the directive “never forget to lie.”

Airing on WGBY on Tuesday, May 14 at 10:00pm, Never Forget to Lie chronicles the poignant, painful recollections of other child survivors. The film rescues haunting pieces of the past while exploring the conflicting feelings about national, cultural, and religious identity that mark many survivors.

Watch a preview, where you can also learn the latest about Marzynski’s documentary.  At the Frontline Teacher Center you’ll find new classroom activities with streaming video, downloadable lesson plans, and web-exclusive resources to accompany FRONTLINE programs in the classroom.

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Constitution USA

On Tuesdays on WGBY at 9:00pm, starting May 7,  you can breathe new life into the traditional civics lesson with Constitution USA with Peter Segal.  Traveling across the country on a Harley Davidson to find out where the U.S. Constitution lives, Peter Segal looks at how it works and doesn’t work, how it unites us as a nation, and how it has nearly torn us apart.  Watch a preview.

A vast digital library of classroom resources, PBS LearningMedia is continuing to add new content from Constitution USA.  Here are just a few highlights for grades 9-12:

Separation of Powers The framers of the Constitution feared too much centralized power, adopting the philosophy of divide and conquer.

Federalism Federalism is one of the most important and innovative concepts in the U.S. Constitution, although the word never appears there. Federalism is the sharing of power between national and state governments

Rights What is a right, and where does it come from? A right is a power or privilege that is recognized by tradition or law.

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Compelling Classroom Film Modules & More from Independent Lens

The Emmy-winning Independent Lens series on PBS features independent documentary films from around the country and the world.  Here are several examples of powerful classroom modules from recent films that you can integrate into your own lessons:

• Human Dignity – Waste Land (9.32 mins.) portrays the lives of two women working in the world’s largest landfill in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• First Day of School (5.45 mins.) – Pushing the Elephant follows Congolese refuge Nanzabire as she attends her first day of school in the U. S.
• First Woman Leader of a Muslim Nation  (6.59 mins.) focuses on Benazir Bhutto, the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan.

As well as film modules such as these, the Independent Lens educator site also offers lesson plans with standards-based curricula to accompany documentaries on a broad range of topics: immigration, civil rights, women’s rights, religion, the environment and more.

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Lesson Plan Feature: Women on the Rise in Afghanistan

For International Peace Month here’s a powerful lesson for grades 9-12 using videos from the PBS documentary series Women, War & Peace. Students learn about the life of women in Afghanistan, including progress they have made and obstacles and dangers they face. The lesson highlights Afghan women’s efforts to play an active role in Afghanistan’s peace process and to empower other women in their country.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

• Explain what the Taliban is and how the lives of women were restricted under its rule;
• Describe progress women have made since Taliban rule;
• Describe dangers women currently face in Afghanistan;
• Discuss steps individual Afghan women are taking to empower other women in their country;
• Describe why Afghan women felt it was critical to be involved in Afghanistan’s peace process and steps they took to make sure they would be part of the process;
• Explain ways in which the United States has supported the efforts of the women of Afghanistan;
• Describe efforts by women in other countries to advocate for human rights.

This comprehensive lesson includes media resources and websites for each detailed section of activities as well as related resources.

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Inspiring Interviews and Inspiring Educator Award Nominations

Especially since March is Women’s History, MAKERS.com  is a great site to visit.  Part of the unprecedented digital video and broadcast initiative responsible for the documentary “MAKERS: Women Who Make America,” which aired on WGBY in February, MAKERS.com has numerous interviews that the New York Times described as “often fascinating.”

Whether for you or students, these short, inspiring videos include each woman sharing the most meaningful advice she every received.  Among the many interviews are those of Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children’s Defense Fund, which includes her experiences surrounding the death of MLKing, and Ophelia Neal, World Health Care Advocate and daughter of actress Partricia Neal and children’s author  Raul Dahl, discussing her mother’s strength during great adversity and her own work in Haiti.

And at MAKERS.com you can also help honor women who are innovating the classroom and developing the next generation of MAKERS by nominating a teacher for a $10,000 grant!

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Lesson Plan Feature: They’re Coming to America: Immigrants Past and Present

March’s celebration of Irish heritage be a good introduction to this lesson  where grades 5-7 explore the history of our nation of immigrants.  In the Introductory Activity, they identify their own and classmates’ countries of heritage.  Then they identify ethnic groups that migrated to the United States during various historic waves of immigration. In the Learning Activities, students watch video segments from Faces of America to develop an understanding of key motivations for immigration and explore online resources to examine specific immigrant experiences from various points in American history. The Culminating Activity asks students to use their historical knowledge and examination of case studies to develop a brief narrative summarizing the experiences, aspirations, and emotions of an hypothetical immigrant from the past or present.

In three 45-minute periods, students:

• Articulate that the United States is a nation of immigrants, and that America’s immigrant past is reflected in our language, culture, and traditions
• Identify their own countries of heritage on a world map
• Describe the historic waves of immigration to the U. S. and the countries related to those waves
• Explain motivations and rationale for immigration to the U. S.  at various points through its history
• Provide specific examples of historic and contemporary immigrant experiences
• Compare the experiences of historic and contemporary immigrants to the U. S.

The comprehensive lesson provides rich media resources, class materials, websites and more!

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