Part of the mission of FERA is to promote the idea of cinematic education, which can be briefly defined as teaching and learning infused with the moving image. Project Citizen represents an attempt to move that idea into the public sphere by the staging of high profile, intellectually challenging talk show productions within a large venue on Columbia University's campus. That the project is called
"Citizen" speaks to our intention to raise public awareness of our belief in the importance of national and global citizenship, the obligations to oneself and to others which adhere to this concept, and the responsibilities we have in the privileged West to critically engage issues of social importance both at home and abroad.
Project Citizen has received many accolades since its inception, and we intend to maintain our momentum into the future to the extent that our support continues to broaden. As a result, we have recently extended project Citizen into the high school area, piloting a unique cinematic education program in East Harlem's innovative Heritage School. The two branches of Project Citizen, which we denote as Citizen-TC, which recognizes Teachers College, Columbia University as an integral part of the production, and Citizen/HS, which places the cinematic education focus on students in grades 9-12.
FERA argues that cinematic education - teaching and learning infused with the moving image - represents a valid pedagogy beside didactic, Socratic, consensus, group, adult and other teaching and learning models advocated by theorists of education. Cinematic education, we believe, has the added benefit
of reaching out to young people where they spend their physical and imaginary time: within the output and elements of popular visual culture. FERA does not necessarily advocate the use of entire films within the classroom environment, although we do not argue against this either. Cinematic education concerns the use of cinematic elements, literally parts of films or videos, beside existing
pedagogy. Extending this, we alsobelieve that many of the concepts developed within film theory for how and why we make and view film can have relevance to educational theory and practice. Psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, Marxist theory, and some cultural theories, together with audience studies, genre studies and other elements of cinema studies, bear a first or second look by educators. But we are primarily interested in how educators may use visual images extracted from popular film, often out of the context of the stories in which they were made, can aid in pedagogy. Empirical work on the benefits of this education has yet to be completed to any significant degree.
We also believe that there are educational benefits to making film, both the process of execution and the critique and experience of its output. Taken together - the use of popular film in the classroom and the construction of personal film - FERA believes there is wide opportunity for educators to join their pedagogy with the cinematic for the benefit of teaching and learning.
Project Citizen is FERA's attempt to engage in public dialog within the pop concept of the talk show: studio audience, host, celebrity guests, polite dialog and banter. Citizen is the name FERA's founders have given to this talk show, which has been produced twice on Columbia University's campus to positive effect. Citizen does not intend to reproduce the casual nature of most popular talk shows, but to upgrade standard talk show dialog intellectually by ensuring that socially engaged celebrity guests help interrogate critical social issues rather than merely spread gossip. The name given to the show is merely a manifestation of our desire to bring greater popular scrutiny to the notion of world citizenship: responsibility to the self, the state and to others here and around the world. We feel this concept is under undue stress at this juncture in
history, and must be brought to greater public scrutiny if we are to preserve and build upon the best contemporary social structures our ancestors bequeathed us: community, democracy and the social contract.
Blending the Citizen format with FERA's stated aim of disseminating the notion of cinematic education, each Citizen show
utilizes film clips from popular film tohighlight critical ideas, providing visual/cinematic references to the discussion on the stage. Film appears above the stage as host and speakers sit on the stage below. At key moments, either the host or speakers can refer to short film clips cued and prepared before the beginning of the show and projected on screen for the audience. The responses past audience members have made, as measured by post-show interviews and the use of online survey data gathering instruments, suggests that this format has intriguing potential for maintaining audience interest and connecting them to images with which they are familiar. Film thus catalyzes discussion, acts as an aid to memory, to understanding and hopefully, to learning. This is one of many examples of cinematic education FERA wishes to see more broadly imitated in educational life.
Citizen/HS is FERA's attempt to bring cinematic education to the level of high school students. Our idea is to replicate the production of a talk show witnessed in the college model above, but to have that production taken on by the high school students themselves. The wider student body in the chosen high school then becomes the audience for the show, while a subset of students, who both produce the show and take an after school cinematic education course, become the shows actual producers. Further, the show can be produced either in the high school itself, or, more intriguingly, on a college campus. This movement from high school to college thus turns what might be an imaginary notion to high school students (going to college) into a reality (being in college) for all
students involved, producers and audience members. The development of Citizen/HS will appeal to high school educators and to funding sources interestedin supporting work within this age group. While we intend to begin the Citizen/HS program at Heritage as a pilot, without the greatest possible mix of opportunities, a large scale Citizen/HS could contain:
A mentoring program, combining graduate, undergraduate, high school learners in a unique team-building setting to design, coordinate and produce miniature Citizen talk shows for other high school students and their parents;
A job skills development program, giving young people in participating school districts the opportunity to learn first hand the skills necessary to produce a quality, professional talk show;
A part-time employment opportunity, utilizing young student workers whose financial needs are partially met by salary payments covered by public and private grants;
An after-school program, during which time some portion of our high school learner/participants spend time in the design and implementation phase of running their Citizen show;
A media literacy training program, based on a parallel media class youth participants will be required to take as a necessary part of their on-the-job training.
Taking into account the many possible components above, the multiple objectives for the pilot Heritage School cinematic education program will include our desire to:
Design and integrate a film and education curriculum into the existing after-school program of a New York City public high school, with that curriculum co-designed and implemented by the students themselves.
Infuse the curriculum with elements of film studies, study of the aesthetics of film, critical thinking exercises, hands-on video and film production, literary review and deconstruction (particularly for filming of videotaping chapters or scenes), and interrogation, through film, of critical social issues;
Introduce students to a variety of educators who, as guests, will present aspects of all of the above to the class;
Produce and stage a Citizen/HS show for their school-mates in May of 2005, with the staging to take place at Teachers College in the Milbank Chapel;
Record, critique and review the entire process of building this program, as it evolves, in order to extract and understand the most productive and least productive components. This self-analysis will not only aid in the design of future programs at Heritage, but also those to be placed in other school in New York City and beyond. Students will be made to know of this plan from the outset, giving them reason to believe that they are part of a project that is not just about them, but about teaching and learning generally. It is my intention to give them knowledge about what their agency in this program can mean to young people all throughout the city and beyond. Indeed, I can envision having current participants in the program aid in the development of other programs in schools nearby, with mentoring taking place inter-school and well as intra-school. It will be interesting to see how students feel about this aspect of the program.
