ACES Pillars Film Project- An Artifact

As an ACE Scholar, I am currently taking a 1-credit hour seminar course that educates me and fellow ACES on the group’s values and mission as an organization. An important project we completed in this course was the ACES Pillars Film Project, where groups of 3-4 students were tasked to watch a movie/documentary and connect the ACES pillars- Positive Social Change, Advocacy, Community, and Service- to the context of the film. Students were also asked to provide a summary of the film, provide critiques, a target audience and a call to action from the flim, and explain how they connected to the film and how it connects to present day.

My groupmates and I decided to watch the documentary, American Promise, a documentary that follows two African American boys through their academic and personal life journeys over a 14 year period. The two main characters, Idris and Seun, both attend a prestigious, predominantly white private school as children, and the film documents how both boys feel throughout their education experience from the age of 5 until the boys venture into college. This documentary- although started almost 20 years ago-  is still extremely powerful and relevant in today’s society. Both Idris and Seun face extreme prejudice in their school, Dalton School in Brooklyn, New York, as both boys are extreme minorities in a sea of white children. In result, both children are treated differenlty by teachers, fellow students, and faculty due to their race in multiple ways, ultimately leading to one of the boys, Seun, to transfer schools as he enters high school.

While debriefing on the movie and assembling our presentation, my groupmates and I all agreed that this film exposed us to struggles and hardships African Americans in our nation have faced and still face. We noticed a lack of positive social change in this film, and were able to connect that to current day issues with movements like the Black Lives Matter movement, fighting against prejudice in the U.S. and equality for all, despite race, ethnicity, gender, etc. We also noticed a strong sense of advocacy from the families of the children as they fought for their kids’ rights in the education realm and the real world, which also connects to current movements in the U.S. that are fighting these persistent inequality epidemics.

This project inspired us to encourage our fellow ACES to watch this movie and spread its message of looking past race and discrimination. We felt it was an excellent film for future educators and American society to watch as it exposes us to the common misconceptions many of us make against not only African Americans, but all other minorities as well, intentional or not. This film taught me the importance of respect for all people and to create a welcoming sense of community for all children in the classroom and people in everyday life. I will take these lessons from this movie and utilize them as I become an educator in order to ensure that all of my students- regardless of their differences- feel equal.

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