Filmmakers Gordon, Kallas on the Importance of Emotional Education
There are many incidents recently that have made me stop and wonder ‘what’s wrong with people?’ Why don’t we know how to connect? It seems that we haven’t been taught.
Two excellent filmmakers I know, Peter Gordon and Christina Kallas, have turned their cameras to the question of what can be done, with examples of real humans, with real emotions, making every effort to connect in real time, in real space, against the odds.
Peter, who gave voice to the poor in the breadlines of Britain back in 2012, has turned his lens to the loathsome test-focused emotion-ignoring education practices in America with a new documentary on a small storefront after-school program in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn that proposes a revolutionary alternative: listen to the children.
In Still Waters, which debuts this Sunday and again next Wednesday as part of DOC NYC, Peter’s camera rests uncomfortably long on Kimberly, a little girl sitting on the couch in the living room of her Ecuadoran immigrant family’s apartment sobbing about her poor treatment at school.
She gets respite from the meanness at Still Waters in a Storm, the oasis created by former high school teacher Stephen Haff, where she and nearly 40 other school-age children gather to read and hear great literature from the mouths of great authors, learn Latin and to share openly through writing and discussion about the difficult emotions that might hold them back from learning.
Stephen is unequivocal about having allowed Peter to capture such a raw moment.
“A child’s emotional life is the first, most important thing that schools must contend with, and right now in our education system they only care about one thing, and that’s test scores,” he says.
In the film, he tells the children before they write to “Be brave, say something that takes some courage to say, something that comes from your heart.” His directive is in stark opposition to what he saw in the New York City public school system, where any outpouring of feelings and struggles was discouraged in service to ‘managing’ children and keeping order. In his room, the most important thing is that the children feel cared for, and heard.
It is that “truly revolutionary” approach to let children speak, and to listen to them rather than to measure them that drew Peter Gordon’s attention and stirred him to make the documentary film.
“Stephen is asking the basic question, ‘what is education for?’” he says. “Though there is so much political rhetoric about reforms that are compassionate, test scores are still what matters. With this film, I hope people can see how the government could work on creating a model where kids and teachers are caring for each other, where schools are the place to bring the village together.”
While Still Waters caters to children of mostly Hispanic immigrants in the gentrifying area of Bushwick whose families are grappling with Trump-fueled fears of deportation and anti-immigrant sentiment, Stephen is clear that “anywhere you go, there are emotional needs of children that can be met with some sort of expressive practice, be it meditation, writing, yoga, group therapy…” That, he said, is “the starting point of education, then everything else will make sense.”
The danger to individuals and society when emotional expression is not learned is certainly well documented in 42 Seconds of Happiness, a riveting film written and directed by Christina Kallas about a group of people at a wedding staging an intervention with a couple who have been going through a bitter divorce and custody battle.
Focusing her camera for long periods on her actors in various states of distress and terribly uncomfortable interactions (as Peter does in Still Waters) allows the viewer to viscerally understand the difficulties inherent in building and sustaining relationships and resolving conflict. People are not connecting well, she suggests.
The situation is exacerbated by the looming threat of Hurricane Sandy and a gun brandished by an injured party, both events that she uses to great affect to show how when bigger things happen, suddenly what seemed important doesn’t seem nearly as important as helping one another.
Christina has recently completed a new yet-to-premiere feature film called The Rainbow Experiment, which is set in a New York City public high school the day after an explosion in the chemistry lab. She explores the metaphor of how much pressure is being placed on everyone involved in the system, from students to teachers to outside investigators. Dealing with the situation requires emotional expression that, she says, is largely absent from schools.
“Our whole education system is so rational, so emotion-less,” she says, “but logic alone is not going to solve our problems. It’s a systemic failure that shows how our concepts of education and success are not working for us.”
Although her films are certainly entertaining, Christina, the author of Creative Screenwriting, Understanding Emotional Structure and a film professor in New York, sees cinema as more than just entertainment.
“The reason ancient Greeks made theater and the way the audience perceived it was not as a distraction or entertainment, but as an absolute necessity. The goal was emotional education, which ultimately allows people to live in society together. It’s the Poets’ Solution,’ she said. “Perhaps we need to aspire toward a new Poets’ Solution that allows for that emotional education.”
The need for such an education has been eerily underlined in my interactions with Christina, who I first met at a dinner party of a friend’s. At the end of the New York City premiere of 42 Seconds of Happiness last September, one of the audience members made the announcement that there had been a bombing in Chelsea and much of the crowd — including me — scattered in fear.
This last week, as we sat together near that screening room in Harlem, I got a call from my husband about a violent incident outside my son’s school, a driver who had run people down and been shot. My son was safe, on lockdown inside, but the message was clear: educating people on how to live peaceably together is crucial now, and emotions — the real ones people are grappling with — clearly have to be put front and center.
These great filmmakers are giving us a start. See the Still Waters documentary Sunday, November 12 at 11:15 at School of Visual Arts Theater, NYC; Wednesday, November 15 at 10:00 at IFC Center, NYC. http://www.docnyc.net/film/still-waters.
See 42 Seconds of Happiness on Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/42-Seconds-Happiness-John-Concado/dp/B076Q5WNK2
Thanks for the inspiration Peter, Stephen and Christina!
Shalom. Inshallah. Peace be with You.
Read Steph Thompson’s blog, The Spark, at inspirecorps.wixsite.com.
