Film as History/History as Film

Background

According to co-teachers Mark Wheeler (Social Studies) and Thato Mwosa (Visual Arts), “History’s lessons are as important now as they ever were, as we look to our screens for answers to the world’s toughest questions.” Students in their collaborative course, Film as History/History as Film, learn about history and one of the most powerful ways in which it is remembered: the documentary film. “To be truly effective communicators and participants in the 21st century,” say Wheeler and Mwosa, “students need the skills to maneuver both word and image.”

In this full-year senior elective, students address issues of academic research, writing, media literacy, and perspective. Decision-making and ethics are central themes. Students use textbooks, articles, and primary source material to study historical eras and events; they also view documentary films depicting the same eras and events. Analyzing the films for content and technique, students learn to critique the films and the filmmaking choices: including and omitting information, showing both sides of a story, the effects of camera angles and lighting, etc. They also explore in depth the opportunities presented by and limitations imposed by both written and filmed formats.

In addition to written papers, students produce small media projects such as interviews and PSAs. Through these exercises they learn to operate cameras, gain editing skills, practice writing and interviewing, explore elements of cinematography, and generally improve their media literacy. For the culminating project, students research, plan, and produce a film on an era, event, or person of their choice. Final projects are peer reviewed and screened as part of a BHS film festival. Students also have the opportunity to submit their films to national contests, such as C-SPAN’s Student Cam documentary competition. In 2018, BHS students won third place! Read the press release here and watch their video here.

Racial Awareness Seminar

Background

The Racial Awareness Seminar, a year-long Social Studies elective originally taught by Malcolm Cawthorne and Kate Leslie, gives students an opportunity to explore the complexities of race within their national and local communities. Offered to sophomores, the class aims to educate students about racial identity early in their high school careers so that they can use this knowledge as they move through BHS to create a safer, more welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds.

The class is uniquely structured and purposefully planned to foster conversations across race and identity lines and to build community among students of different racial backgrounds. It is made up of an equal number of students of color and white students, and an effort has been made to balance gender identities to ensure a diversity of experience. The seminar-style class fosters students’ reflection about their own identities and the identities of others. Students share their experiences and learn from their classmates to develop a greater understanding across racial identification lines.

The Racial Awareness Seminar does not teach a specific history or a new language; it does not teach activism. The class looks inward and focuses on the students, giving them the vocabulary to engage with difficult racial issues and the skills needed to have fruitful discussions about these issues. The focus is on listening, and on the use of protocols to allow for inclusive, balanced and productive conversations. The aim is to foster a learning community where students embrace and are empowered by the rich diversity of identities and perspectives at BHS.

African-American and Latino Scholarship Program

Supporting students of color to achieve academic success and fostering a culture of serious, invigorating scholarship.

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, the African-American and Latino Scholarship Program is now fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum.

This Program was designed to address the issue of minority student isolation impeding academic performance. AALSP has developed a corps of academically excellent African-American and Latino students who have become role models in the BHS community and has greatly raised the bar for academic and personal achievement among African-American and Latino students. Students in all four grades, each with a GPA of 2.7 or higher, participate in the program. These students have become part of a culture of achievement.

Although AALSP does not deserve sole credit, the performance improvement for this student population within BHS has been impressive:

99% of Scholars take at least one honor or AP class. The majority takes two or more.

The graduating Scholar class of 2012 earned more than 2 million dollars in scholarships for college. The graduating class of 2013 is on pace to earn even more.

One-third of all the Scholars in the graduating class of 2013 earned admission into the National Honor Society. This is a 233% increase over just 4 years ago.

Since its inception in January 2003, the AALSP has evolved from a club meeting once a week to mentoring a dozen juniors, to a comprehensive four-year program of full-credit courses for seventy-five Brookline High 9th through 12th graders. The courses meet four times a week: twice a week, students attend African-American & Latino history seminars, taught by the AALSP’s director, Stephanie Hunt; the other two periods per week are led by a math teacher and an English teacher and these sessions focus on vital academic issues — on enhancing the skills necessary to succeed in core classes, to perform well on high-stakes tests such as the SAT and the MCAS, and to prepare for applying to college.

The program’s influence is already reaching beyond the Brookline district to attract national interest; it is quickly becoming a model of how to bolster the achievement of Black and Latino students. The AALSP’s 2.7 GPA requirement makes it unique among the nation’s academic programs for students of color. Districts throughout the country have established academic support programs for students of color, but none meets Brookline’s standard of rigor and commitment. The underlying principle of the AALSP is quite simple: in order to truly become scholars, members of the program must have access to enriching activities designed to foster both knowledge of self and to bolster their hardcore academic skills. The AALSP has turned the minority achievement paradigm on its head; instead of focusing on the achievement gap and on what students of color are not doing well, the program honors academic commitment and fosters a culture of high scholastic achievement among students of color at BHS.

In order to develop this academic culture, the AALSP has three central aims:

1. To increase the number of students of color taking AP and honors classes,
2. To increase the average SAT and MCAS scores among this same group, and
3. To enable more students of color to earn admission into the National Honor Society.

Data collected from previous graduating classes of scholars indicate that the program is making firm inroads into all three goals. In the last two years, eleven of the AALSP’s participating students have been admitted into the National Honor Society. Moreover, the list of colleges that the two most recent graduating classes of the AASP are currently attending proves that the program works. These students are now attending: Bennett College, Boston University, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Denison University, Fordham University, Harvard University, Howard University, The University of Massachusetts, New York University, Skidmore College, Spelman College, The University of Southern California, Stanford University, Yale University, and Williams College. 

AALSP members have been able to excel in large part due to the efforts and intervention of the African-American and Latino Scholars Program at BHS. The AALSP inspires all students — not just those accepted into the program. It is sending the message to all students that to be smart — to be a scholar — is cool.

From AALSP Students, Class of 2013:

“I enjoy being part of AALSP because of the high expectations that push me to do my best. I want to be proud of the other members of AALSP and I also want them to be proud of me.”

“AALSP is a catalyst to me. It facilitates basically everything I do in school.”

“Moving up into AALSP was a goal for me last year. I’m glad I accomplished that goal.”

“Having the Scholars Program allows me to feel more confident about my academic work. I am able to meet with my peers and focus on school work. I can also seek help from the teacher any time I need it. The program gives me a real sense of academic community.”

“Being in Scholars means that being black is something great.”

The underlying principle of the AALSP is quite simple: in order to truly become scholars, members of the program must have access to enriching activities designed to foster both knowledge of self and to bolster their hardcore academic skills.

African-American Latino Scholars Program Expected Outcomes and Objectives

Grade 9 Students will:

• Begin reading and analyzing the scholarly works of author of color including Langston Hughes, Booker T. Washington, Juan Williams, and Martin Luther King Jr.
• Develop a functional definition of scholarship
• Analyze how their identity as a scholar overlaps with their identity as a person of color
• Construct a mission statement which will speak to their goals both during and after high school
• Discuss the AALSP summer reading
• Identify supports available to pupils in need of academic assistance
• Practice the skills needed to marshal additional academic supports
• Discuss W.E.B Dubois’ ideas about the “talented tenth” and analyze the ramifications of this concept.
• Participate in seminars related to the history of people of color in the media
• Learn about the civilizations of ancient Africa, most specifically Egypt
• Learn about the geography and history of nations in Central and South America
• Study and debate the history and causes of immigration to the United States
• Examine the under-development of Africa and the Caribbean
• Examine United States intervention in various nations in Latin America
• Be introduced to “Garveyism” as a response to colonization in Africa
• Study the American Civil Rights Movement and the critical figures which helped make it possible
• Investigate the Farm Workers movement as led by Caesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta
• Work with Mr. Fischer to edify public speaking and critical reading skills

Grade 10 Students will:

• Continue to examine the scholarly works of authors of color including, Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, Carter G. Woodson, Dr. W.E.B. Dubois, Dr. Beverly Tatum, Dr. Theresa Perry, and Lalo Alcarez
• Prepare for the MCAS using events in African-American and Latino history as jumping off points for writing
• Participate in local college visits
• Examine health disparities affecting Black and Latino people
• Develop an awareness of Black and Latino leaders in the business and art communities
• Familiarize themselves with prominent alumni of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU’s)
• Examine the idea of “code-switching” and its relationship with academic success
• Study the history of the voting rights struggle
• Examine the historical relationship between African-Americans and Native Americans
• Learn about African-American and Latino luminaries in the fields of math and science
• Investigate the concept of wealth creation by way of their simulated investment in the Stock Market
• Receive academic content support by way of bi-weekly class sessions with Ms. Kennedy-Justice

Grade 11 Students will:

• Continue to analyze the writings of authors of color including Dr. Juwanza Kunjufu, Nikki Giovanni, and Paul Dunbar
• Develop an understanding of the “flat world” particularly as it relates to global competition
• Examine the history of medical racism in this country, particularly as it affected poor women of color
• Learn about, compare, and contrast various methods of African resistance to enslavement
• Receive academic content support by way of bi-weekly class sessions with Ms. Kennedy-Justice
• Begin to prepare, in earnest, for the SAT by way of intensive writing and math support
• Participate in visits to local colleges
• Examine and develop a keen understanding of the college financial aid process
• Create and refine college lists
• Continue to explore Historically Black Colleges and Universities as viable college options
• Identify factors which are most important in their individual college selection process
• Fortify their awareness of various college application options, including early action and early decision
• Complete their college application essays
• Participate in “student professional development” workshops designed to give them the skills required to dress for success and interview effectively

Grade 12 Students will:

• Finalize their college lists
• Complete college applications
• Participate in student financial aid workshops
• Complete requisite college financial aid forms such as the FAFSA, CSS Profile, and Brookline High School Scholarship application
• Take part in “life on campus workshops” designed to facilitate the transition into college and bolster their financial literacy
• Assist in the recruitment and selection of new Scholars
• Support 8th grade students and their families as they begin the process of transitioning into Brookline High School

AALSP Parents will:

• Have the achievement of their children celebrated during annual AALSP opening and closing ceremonies
• Interface with other AALSP parents to identify supports and opportunities available to students
• Have the chance to participate in workshops designed to support them and their children as they begin the transitions to high school and college
• Receive support from the AALSP Teacher/Leader in identifying supplemental educational opportunities for their children

Arts Infusion Lab

Building confidence and expressive capacity among under-involved students through art activities.

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, Arts Infusion Lab is now fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum.

This three-year project is an innovative arts program directed at drawing Brookline’s under-involved students into more active participation in expressive art activities.  Many students are currently supported by specialized, individualized academic programs at the high school, including:

• Opportunity for Change (OFC): OFC is committed to the idea that changed behavior is valid proof of learning. In a compact, structured, nurturing environment, students experience a change from the mainstream daily schedule. The program provides a college preparatory curriculum for students who have not found success in the mainstream. Instead of taking multiple classes at once, students take one academic class per two-week cycle and receive a report card at the end of each cycle.



• Winthrop House: The Winthrop House helps students break the cycle of difficulties they have experienced in traditional education. Winthrop House provides a small setting — an emotionally and physically safe environment, a structured behavioral program, and therapeutic interventions — to support students who are not succeeding on BHS’s mainstream campus. The program’s academics parallel the BHS core curriculum. Like their peers at the main campus, Winthrop House students receive BHS diplomas at graduation, then go on to college, transition-year programs, or the workplace.
• Community-Based Classroom: The Community-Based Classroom is a program within Brookline High School for students with mild to severe cognitive and physical disabilities.

Students in these programs often miss out on BHS arts offerings due to geographic isolation from the main campus or extreme self-consciousness within larger classes of their peers. The Arts Infusion Lab is providing these students with a variety of arts-oriented opportunities tailored to be delivered within their existing specialized programs. The goal of the Arts Infusion Lab is to enhance students’ expressive skills and to build confidence and a passion for learning. This year, the Arts Infusion Lab teacher-leader is collaborating with the staffs of OFC, Winthrop House, and Community-Based Classroom to integrate art activities into their existing academic curricula, benefiting students who have been inhibited by behavioral and/or psychological issues.

The goals of this collaborative program are multifaceted:

• to enhance student self-identity,
• to increase self-expression skills,
• to develop new communication tools through a wide range of activities such as dance/movement, theater/storytelling, music/singing, as well as painting, ceramics and other visual arts.

Arts Infusion Lab’s long-term goals reach beyond the perimeters of the specialized programs it serves. The Arts Infusion teachers intend to create curriculum units and structures that can also be integrated into mainstream academic courses, thereby extending the potential impact of the program to a much larger number of students and teachers over time.

Ultimately, the Arts Infusion Lab hopes to build sufficient confidence and capacity to enable at-risk students to transition comfortably into the traditional arts and performances classes offered at BHS — affecting the reciprocal benefits of exposing mainstreamed students to the perspectives, passions, and talents of those with whom they seldom interact in their daily classes.

BHS Tutorial

Providing individualized, content-based support to enhance the academic performance of students with mild learning difficulties.

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, BHS Tutorial is fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum.

By Federal and State law, school districts are required to provide children with special educational needs a “free appropriate public education.” Due to advances in medical technology, an increase in the number of children living in poverty, and the requirement to educate children in their local schools rather than in outside institutions, more children with special needs are entering and being served in the public schools. As a result, special education (SPED) expenditures nationally and across Massachusetts have risen dramatically in the last decade. Exemplifying this, Brookline’s expenditures on SPED programs have increased about 70% since fiscal year 2001 — the cost of SPED services has grown by close to 30% per year. As a result, SPED now accounts for more than 25% of Brookline’s overall school budget with approximately 20% of enrolled students receiving services (the statewide average in Massachusetts in approximately 17% of enrolled students).

Given constraints on state and local budgets, these mandated increases in SPED spending mean that school districts are increasingly forced to cut other services (e.g., honors programs, arts and music curriculum, athletics, and early childhood programs) in order to sustain balanced budgets.

This exceptional growth in special education expenditures is a national issue. The Innovation Fund introduced three programs to address this issue directly: Tutorial (for students in grades 10–12), Freshman Tutorial, and Enhanced Tutorial. These programs have not only reduced the cost of special education within Brookline High School by approximately $240,000, but they have also met the needs of students with less serious yet notable learning issues within the mainstream of the school community and without having to provide them with costly SPED services.

The Tutorial Program represents a radical change in the structure and organization of the school. With increasing interest in educating students with disabilities in inclusive settings, and with federal requirements mandating that all students achieve high academic standards, BHS identified an opportunity to restructure its approach to special education.

The BHS Tutorial Program began as a pilot program in 2002 involving eight teachers and 40 students to test the theory that individualized academic support would enhance the academic performance of students challenged by mild learning difficulties with the same success as a more expensive special education alternative.

BHS Tutorial now serves students with any of the following academic profiles:

• Students needing assistance to meet the course expectations of an Honors or Advanced Placement class;
• Students with organizational difficulties;
• Students needing additional review of course content to gain mastery of material;
• Students operating “under the radar” who could benefit from individual support.

In collaboration with their Tutorial teachers, students identify specific focus areas for improving academic performance and receive individual content-based tutoring. Class time is divided between personalized consultation in content areas and independent practice (where the student implements recommended strategies).

A two-year evaluation study was completed in 2004, led by Thomas Hehir of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It concluded that the program was equally as effective as special education services for students with mild learning disabilities with regard to standardized test scores, and slightly more effective in improving course grades. The report praised the Innovation Fund’s Tutorial Program as an innovative and impressive alternative to traditional special education programs for these students. 

In 2006, Watertown High School launched its own Tutorial Program based on the BHS Innovation Fund model. Lexington High School has also reviewed our program and is examining ways to incorporate many of the program elements into their curriculum. Detailing the Tutorial’s support of special needs students, a professional paper authored by BHS Headmaster Dr. Robert Weintraub and Fund Co-Chair Julie Joyal Mowschenson entitled “Beyond Special Education: A New Vision of Academic Support in the 21st Century” will be published in the winter of 2009 by the Phi Delta Kappan, the country’s leading educational journal.

Engineering By Design

After initial funding from the BHS Innovation Fund, Engineering by Design is fully integrated into the Brookline High School curriculum. See the classroom space and hear from Mr. Aubrey Love about the course here.

Engineering by Design was launched in the fall of 2006. The Program was designed to address a major national issue:

• Fewer college students, particularly females, are majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) despite the technology boom.
• Massachusetts had been ranked second to last of New England states among Science and Technology majors.
• Future economic growth nationally depends upon STEM talent.

Engineering by Design was developed by teachers from all areas of the BHS Science Department in collaboration with the Tufts University School of Engineering. Together, they created a curriculum challenging students to identify problems, design, build, and test their solutions. The program offers students a look at the fundamentals of engineering, allowing them to take on the roles of engineers as they design solutions to real world problems. Projects are interdisciplinary in nature and draw from the fields of Biomedical, Chemical, Electrical, Civil, Environmental, Mechanical, and Materials Science Engineering. Projects include building and programming robots, designing clean energy storage devices, and modeling real-time biosensors. Students explore the cutting edge of biomedical engineering as well as examining the accomplishments and failures of important projects throughout history.

Students who take this course at BHS are more prepared to make an informed career decision regarding engineering. Furthermore, students should discover that engineering is fun, interesting, and intellectually rewarding. These students:

• Learn the range of engineering disciplines by surveying several areas of this profession;
• Develop problem-solving skills;
• Collaborate as part of a team on long-term projects;
• Learn that design is a structured process; and
• Apply the principles of design to projects with practical and useful benefits to society.

The Program was successfully launched in 2006. Since its inception, teachers of the course have observed a trend that every year students produce new and more sophisticated designs than the year before and the class data as a whole improves.

“I chose to take Engineering by Design because I learn a lot more through hands on activities,” said one Engineering by Design student. “I have a hard time keeping focused when I am just lectured to all day. This program taught me all of the things necessary to do if you want to be a good engineer. It takes time, designing, planning and patience. It also showed me how fun engineering can be. After doing this program I feel like I can fix, design, or build anything. My favorite part of this program has been to put my creative mind into physical things. My other classes don’t allow me to express my creative ideas.”

BHS Writes

Putting writing at the center of the BHS culture.

Currently over 300 students (Semester 1) / Over 600 students (Writing Center) / 18 teachers / 30 student writing coaches

Launched in 2010, this program makes writing central to the culture of BHS by focusing on both students and faculty as active and evolving writers. The program offers teachers across all disciplines the incentive and the support to reflect on their own experience as educators and to publish their writing. The Writing Center provides peer support for less confident student writers through a student-staffed writing center (the student version of Teachers Mentoring Teachers).

BHS Writes is oriented around three core goals:

1. Nurture a writing culture at BHS that reaches all levels of its community — students and staff alike.
2. Encourage BHS educators to write and publish their stories and to support them in doing so.
3. Identify students in the school who are adept writers and train them to be compassionate and effective coaches for other students who are less confident as writers.

Why This Program is so Important for Brookline Students
The College Board’s National Commission on Writing has acknowledged the widespread and pressing need to create stronger culture of writing in American schools. The Commission’s 2003 report asserts, “American education will never realize its potential as an engine of opportunity and economic growth until a writing revolution puts language and communication in the proper place in the classroom.” The report observes that the “always time-consuming” process of writing — both the teaching and the practice of it — has become “increasingly shortchanged throughout the school and college years in America. … Of the three ‘R’s, writing is clearly the most neglected.” We are in the Information Age, and in this complex, “high-technology world,” writing is no longer strictly “thought on the page”; it is also “thought on the screen.” Yet even in this text-saturated culture of the twenty-first century, writing “whether on paper or on screen, … is an overlooked key to transforming learning in the United States.”

To address this problem, writing centers and Writing Fellows programs have been established at many schools, particularly at the university level: Brown University, Barnard College, Boston College, Brigham Young, California State Universities, CUNY schools, Lafayette College, Providence College, Swarthmore, Texas A & M, and Tufts University, to name just few. The principle behind these initiatives is that “Writers at all levels benefit from good feedback, and that’s why the Writing Fellows Program recruits undergraduate students to work with their peers in courses across the curriculum. Writing Fellows are chosen for their strength as writers and their interest in helping others to improve their writing… Writing Fellows do not grade papers. As peers, Fellows serve as sympathetic readers, providing informed, constructive criticism directed toward the argumentation, analysis, organization, clarity and style of papers. Writing Fellows work in a spirit of collegiality, helping to extend intellectual discourse beyond the classroom. Mutually engaged, Fellows and Fellows ultimately do more than focus on writing; they shape their own and each other’s education.” (www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Writing_Fellows).

At the high school level, writing centers and Writing Fellows programs have not been so widely or successfully established, largely because of schedule and budget limitations. Some public school ventures have taken root: Mountain Valley High School in Rumford, Maine, and Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois, have both established writing centers that use peer tutors. Locally, Newton North High School has instituted a writing center, which was originally staffed by teaching aides. Budget cuts, which tightened staffing, required that they rework their model this year into a peer-tutoring system. All of these centers reinforce “writing as a process” and create “a low-risk environment … with its goal to make students better writers and thinkers beyond the paper they are working on”. Because they welcome writing from all subjects, they reinforce the Writing Across the Curriculum principle that writing is a “method of learning” and “produces better thinkers” (T. Tierney and Shanahan, [1991]).

What distinguishes the BHS Writes program from these others initiatives is its three-tiered approach (as outlined in Program Abstract). It embraces both students and faculty as active and evolving writers, equally engaged in learning and communication that reaches beyond the classroom and into the community. Students and teachers alike will be encouraged—and provided the support — to think of themselves as writers. For too many, writing is something assigned and assessed. This program aims to change that view of writing and to cultivate a culture in which writing is an integral part of who we are, how we interact, and how we contribute to society.