We are happy to announce that our first three short films, TEACHED Vol. I, are now available for streaming on Vimeo-on-Demand! We made these films because we believe that more people need to understand how and why we still have a race-based "achievement gap" in the U.S. More people to understand the consequences of inaction especially for low-income urban youth who are hit hard by our failure to provide every student with an excellent educational experience.
Fatima Speaks: Meeting David Johns
At the beginning of February, the Loudspeaker Team had the great joy and honor to fly out to Washington, D.C. to hold an interview with David Johns, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans! I could tell from his Twitter page that I was going to enjoy meeting him, but those tweets did not prepare me fully for how much of an inspiration Mr. Johns truly is.
Code Oakland at Solano Community College
We are excited to announce that the Math Educators of Solano County, along with Solano Community College and UC Davis Caltech Math and Science Teachers program, will be hosting a screening of our short film Code Oakland on January 28, 2016 at the Vallejo Center of Solano Community College!
Kalimah Priforce, founder of Qeyno Labs and featured in the film, will do a Q&A after the screening.
If you are interested in hosting a Code Oakland screening to engage your community in a discussion about diversity in the tech industry, please contact us at info@teached.org
Zachary Speaks: Parent Power
The area in which a child lives should not determine where he/she goes to school. After watching the our new video entitled "Because They Can: A Parent's View", I realized that the methods of teaching carried out in the area that a child lives may not match his/her learning style or satisfy their desire to learn different things.
Fatima Speaks: Access to the “Teaching Zone”
By Fatima Nasiyr
In Every Child Should Have Access to the “Teaching Zone”, TEACHED director and producer Kelly Amis interviews Carlet Harris, a young woman featured in our upcoming short film Think of Calvin, to gain perspective from a parent on the struggles of trying to ensure your child receives a decent education when you live in a low-income community. Why should anyone's child have to attend under-funded and under-resourced schools? And why should any child have to cope with a lackluster education just because of their zip code? How does this affect the student's, even the entire family's, future?
We are very grateful for our partnership with Education Post, which helps us share diverse voices On the Loudspeaker and encourage others to engage in critical dialogue on issues of equality and education.
To read our full piece featured on Education Post, go here. You can also listen to other voices we have featured On the Loudspeaker here, which includes interviews with prominent figures such as CNN correspondent Van Jones, performer and equal rights advocate John Legend, and --coming soon--Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp.
2015: Our Year in Review
Some of the highlights from the TEACHED film series in 2015 include:
An Interview with DeRay Mckesson
New Team Members
The Atlantic's Race & Justice Summit
Sharing the Code of Oakland
Introducing the Future of Tech
Kelly Speaks: Time to End Default Thinking on Race
As this year comes to a close, my heart breaks for Tamir Rice's family and to all the many others who have lost children to such senseless and violent acts with little to no accountability or justice to follow.
How could anyone watch the video of police driving up directly in front of Tamir and instantly shooting him without feeling the force of that bullet in one’s own chest?
A Creative Solution to Getting More Girls into STEM
We have entered and are gaining equality in many fields that were male-dominated just a few decades ago—medicine, law, business and economics to name a few—and we are now earning more college degrees than men, but we remain behind in attaining careers in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs in America.
Girls may bring natural ability and curiosity to math and science, but somewhere between Kindergarten and high school they lose their enthusiasm and leave the more advanced classes to the boys. Research suggests that even teachers may unconsciously discourage them.
Angelica Speaks: How I Became Who I Am Today
I believe there should be more public schools for the arts. For students, like me, can have a school they can go to. A school to show off their talent and help them expand it more to go further with it. It could be located in urban areas for children of color to have somewhere to go.
Writing is an artistic way to get to know a person or to get people to listen. When I write, I try to make the reader stay engaged and feel what I’m experiencing:
Loudspeaker Films and TEACHED Join the Global #GivingTuesday Movement
Occurring this year on December 1, #GivingTuesday helps to kick-off the holiday giving season and inspire people to collaborate in improving their local communities and to give back in impactful ways to the charities and causes they support.
TEACHED’s mission is to highlight the multifaceted experience of underrepresented communities through film. Through this campaign we hope to increase our outreach of those we are able to put on the loudspeaker. We believe that these underrepresented stories are important and wish to share them across wide audiences of parents, students, and policy makers to facilitate discussion among community members on these demanding issues.
Those who are interested in joining TEACHED’s #GivingTuesday initiative can visit http://www.teached.org/donate/ .