Tuesday, September 08, 2009

PBS WIDE ANGLE's Time For School Documentary

Classroom 2.0 has been asked to co-sponsor a live Web event this Thursday at 12:00pm (Eastern Daylight Time) related to the PBS WIDE ANGLE documentary project, Time for School. While the event is not in my preferred online tool (remember I work for Elluminate!), this is a good chance to extend the relationship Classroom 2.0 has with PBS and give educators a chance to hear and talk with the film’s producers and experts on global education.

The event take place this Thursday, September 10th, at 12:00 noon Eastern Daylight Time. To listen live go to Blog Talk Radio in your Web browser, and you can call (718) 506-1351 with any questions for our guests. Students are welcome to join as well.

WIDE ANGLE’s unprecedented, award-winning 12-year documentary project, Time for School, follows seven kids in seven countries struggling to get what nearly all American kids take for granted: a basic education. This year's Time for School is being broadcast in two parts, the first of which was shown last week and can be watched on the Web at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/time-for-school-series/full-episode-time-for-school-3-part-1/5532/. The second, concluding part is being broadcast Wednesday, September
9, 2009 in most areas, but date and time varies, so check your local listings: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/schedule/.

More information on Time for School from their Website:
We started filming in 2002, watching as kids first entered school in Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya and Romania, many despite great odds. Several years later, in 2006, we returned to film an update and now, three years later, we travel to check in on our young teenagers who are making the precarious transition to middle school.

Among the highlights: in Afghanistan we reunite with 16-year-old Shugufa, who resolutely remains in school despite the Taliban¹s recent acid attacks on young women her age. We visit the biggest slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where 15-year-old Joab¹s mother has died and his father has abandoned the family, and, incredibly, Joab manages to stay at the top of his class while also raising and feeding his two younger siblings. And in the blazing desert of Rajasthan, India, we encounter Neeraj, 15, only to learn that she has been unable to realize her dream of making it to 10th grade: since our last visit her night school has closed, and she now helps support her family by grazing the livestock full-time while her brothers continue their education.

These children's stories put a human face on the shocking fact that more than a hundred million children are currently out of school; of these, two thirds are girls. WIDE ANGLE plans to continue revisiting all the children, and their peers and families, through 2015, the year they should graduate and, not coincidentally, the U.N.'s target date for achieving universal education, a Millennium Development goal endorsed by all 191 members of the United Nations.

You can watch the 2002 and 2006 episodes online at:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/episodes/time-for-school-series/introducti
on/4340/

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