Embedded Files
Welcome to Independent Lens: Equity and Inclusion. This series can be utilized by families, or educators who are seeking a broader understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Educators can utilize these films for recertification points (please use this link for further information). This series is done through FACE FWD Films in partnership with CCPS educator, Lauren Diggs, who created the series to "start the conversation" and create professional development about equity in her school.
Equity and Inclusion
Overview
Education has commonly been referenced as the "key to success". What happens when a student's race, culture, gender, disability, socio-economic status, and social class are barriers to obtaining that "key"?
As the student demographic population in many schools becomes more diverse, the demographics of those who teach students remains heavily populated by white females. Teachers in rural, urban, and suburban school districts are facing challenges with student engagement, appropriate delivery of curriculum content and overall student achievement.
Professional learning opportunities and needed to increase teachers' cultural awareness, multicultural education, and address the issues facing our youth. Our goal is to empower teachers to meet the needs of our diverse student population.
This site provides access to selected movies that help guide difficult conversations around race, biases, and the social and educational systems that impact our minority learners. We would like you to view these films through the lens of an educator in efforts to improve outcomes for the students we serve. - Lauren Diggs
2021 Movie Chat Series
Movies are selected to target specific topics of academia, biases and perceptions, social justice, and inequities in society and/or our educational systems
Participants should watch the movie(s) prior to attending the session. Chat dates are listed by the film.
All movies are available for free or purchase on:
Netflix, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime: Video
American Skin
American Skin
Amazon Prime Movies & AppleTV
Ages 15+
Language, Violence, Positive Role Models & Representations, Positive Messages
This movie explores systematic issues of racial profiling and the criminal justice system through the lens of a Marine veteran working as a school janitor. His son is killed by a police officer found innocent without standing trial, he takes matters into his own hands.
MOVIE CHAT DATE: April 26, 2021, 3:30 PM
Freedom Writers
Freedom Writers
YouTube & AppleTV
Ages 13+
Language, Violence, Positive Role Models & Representations, Positive Messages, Sex, Drinking, Drugs, Smoking
In FREEDOM WRITERS, enthusiastic and innocent teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) arrives at a high school in Long Beach just after the L.A. uprising in 1992, aiming to follow in her civil rights activist father's footsteps. Erin is also discouraged by her cynical colleagues but she persists, seeking ways to connect with her students. Finally, one of them -- distrustful Eva (April Lee Hernandez) -- explains her rage: "White people running this world," she says. "I saw white cops shoot my friend in the back for reaching into his pocket. They can because they're white. I hate white people on sight." Erin realizes that since her students self-segregate by race, they never learn one another's stories. So, she has them stand together in the classroom when they've shared an experience, like losing a friend to violence. They begin to recognize their similarities. As the students write about their lives in a "war zone," Erin also has them visit L.A.'s Holocaust museum and read Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. Moved by Frank's story, the kids raise money to bring Miep Gies (Pat Carroll), the woman who hid Frank from the Nazis, to campus.
MOVIE CHAT DATE: April 29, 2021, 3:30 pm
Akeelah and the Bee
Akeelah and the Bee
YouTube, AppleTV, or Amazon Prime Movies
Ages 13+
Educational Value, Language, Violence, Positive Role Models & Representations, Positive Messages, Sexy Stuff, Drinking, Drugs, Smoking
Akeelah, an 11-year-old girl living in South Los Angeles, discovers she has a talent for spelling, which she hopes will take her to the National Spelling Bee. Despite her mother's objections, Akeelah doesn't give up on her goal. She finds help in the form of a mysterious teacher, and along with overwhelming support from her community, Akeelah might just have what it takes to make her dream come true.
MOVIE CHAT DATE: May 13, 2021,5:30 PM
Short Term 12
Short Term 12
Amazon Prime Movies
Ages 16+
Language, Violence, Positive Role Models & Representations, Positive Messages, Sexy, Drinking, Drugs
Short Term 12 follows group home workers Grace (Brie Larson) and Mason (John Gallagher Jr. ) as they do their best to help the children they work with, as well as deal with their own personal traumas. Short Term 12 is an emotional and empathetic ode to children who live in group homes, and those who make it their life’s work to help them. —Andy Herrera
MOVIE CHAT DATE: May 20, 2021, 5:30 pm
Precious Knowledge
Precious Knowledge
Kanopy (Chesterfield County Public Library)
Ages 15+
Educational Value, Language, Positive Role Models & Representations, Positive Messages
Precious Knowledge reports from the frontlines of one of the most contentious battles in public education in recent memory, the fight over Mexican American studies programs in Arizona public schools. The film interweaves the stories of several students enrolled in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School with interviews with teachers, parents, school officials, and the lawmakers who wish to outlaw the classes.
While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson High's Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with 93 percent of enrolled students, on average, graduating from high school and 85 percent going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming this innovative curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who became engaged, informed, and active in their communities.
MOVIE CHAT DATE: May 24, 2021, 5:30 pm
Meet The Film Curator & Moderator
Lauren Diggs
Lauren Diggs
As a leader in education, my focus is on providing students with the tools, resources, and pathways necessary to achieve their goals. Teaching students with disabilities for 10 years opened my eyes to the disproportionate identification, the widening gap of academic achievement, and unfavorable disciplinary outcomes for minority students.
Through observation and data collection on school populations, student achievement, and discipline I began to have a better understanding of the need for professional learning opportunities for teachers who serve diverse students.
In today's climate of civil unrest and social injustices, teachers require professional learning opportunities that are centered around multiculturalism and social justice education. Providing teachers with unique and innovative ways to connect and learn from each other is important to identifying biases, gaining knowledge, and understanding perspectives. My aim is to build teachers' funds of knowledge so they are able to improve instructional practices and provide minority students and diverse learners an opportunity at "the key to success"!
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