Education Film Series - 04/18/2012

Three Films highlighting education

Saratoga Film Forum to Present “Education Film Festival” April 19-22 How to improve the performance of America’s schools is the focus of a four-day “Education Film Festival” to be hosted Thursday, April 19 through Sunday, April 22 by the Saratoga Film Forum in partnership with the Department of Education Studies at Skidmore College and the Saratoga Community Federal Credit Union. Kicking off the series Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Dee Sarno Theater at the Saratoga Arts Center will be The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System, a 60-minute documentary in which filmmaker Bob Compton and Tony Wagner, Harvard researcher and author of The Global Achievement Gap, explore why students in Finland consistently are able to outpace all others in the world. Following the film’s Thursday night showing, three educators and a Saratoga Springs high school student will discuss the lessons Americans might learn by studying Finland’s model. Moderated by Hope Casto, assistant professor of education students at Skidmore, the panel will include: • Michael M. Piccirillo, who will become the next superintendent of the Saratoga Springs City School District July 1 upon the retirement of current superintendent Janice White. He has been the district’s assistant superintendent for secondary education since 2007; • Kerry Morris, fifth-grade teacher at Greenfield Elementary School and school representative for the Saratoga Springs Teacher's Union; • Collette Molloy, a former teacher has spent most of her career in educational publishing and is now a consultant for Pearson Education, an international educational publishing and technology company; • Aidan Hopper, a senior at Saratoga Springs High School. Tickets for both evenings’ showings are $7 for the general public and $5 for students and Film Forum members. The second film in the series – to be shown Saturday night – is To Sir, With Love, the classic 1967 British drama starring Sidney Poitier that deals with social and racial issues in an inner city school. It will be screened at the Spring Street Gallery, 110 Spring Street, starting at 7 p.m. Admission is free. The final film in the series, American Teacher, will be shown Sunday at 3 p.m. in the Dee Sarno Theater at the Saratoga Arts Center. Produced and directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth and narrated by Academy Award-winner Matt Damon, the full-length documentary chronicles the stories of four teachers who live and work in disparate urban and rural areas of the country. By following these teachers as they reach different milestones in their careers, the film tells the deeper story of the teaching profession in America today. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for students and Film Forum members. The Film Forum’s decision to host the “Education Film Festival” stems from the “overwhelming response” generated by its showing of Waiting for ‘Superman’, a film that analyzes the failures of the American public education by following several students through the educational system, said Carol Godette, a member of the Film Forum board who is organizing the series. “Few issues are of greater importance to our community that the success and future of our schools,” she noted. “We want to make another major contribution to that discussion.”