Scott Noble's History of Resistance

Scott Noble has been making documentary films for close to a decade. His films are consistently thoughtful and never superficial. Reminiscent of Chris Marker’s documentary work in style and approach, Noble’s films remind us that history is important. They also provoke a sense...

Ron Jacobs

16 min

The Way Politicians Talk about Economics is Wrong – and Dangerous

The government is very excited about “returning to budget surplus”. But what does it actually mean? Because so far, chasing surpluses has gutted our schools and hospitals. It's stopped us from acting on climate catastrophe. It's condemned folks doing it tough to starve. Why?...

GetUp! Australia

Vertical Literacy: Reimagining the 21st-Century University

The Fridays For Future (FFF) climate strike by high school students may well be one of the most important, yet hardly covered stories by the US media today. During the week of March 15th alone, 1.6 million strikers were counted across 125 countries. This environmental...

Otto Scharmer

21 min

Pushing Back on Grievance Studies with Bret Weinstein & Heather Heying

Mike Nayna: In an attempt to expose academic fields corrupted by postmodern ideology, Helen Pluckrose, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay spent a year submitting intentionally broken papers to academic journals. Their secret project was cut short when an investigative...

Michael Nayna

3 min

Teach Us All (trailer)

Sixty years after the Little Rock Nine faced violent resistance when they desegregated Central High, America's schools continue to represent the key battleground of the Civil Rights Movement. Contemporary Little Rock, New York City, and Los Angeles present a microcosm of the...

27 min

The Swedish Schoolgirl That Took Davos To Task On Climate Change (2019)

Greta and the Snowman: From Greta Thunberg to the man who's measured the weather every day for nearly half a century, it is private citizens leading the charge on climate change prevention. This report profiles these two extraordinary characters.

What Covington Catholic Students Should Know About the Church's History With Indigenous People

Leaders at Covington diocese and Catholics in general are likely unfamiliar with the church’s brutal history in connection with Native peoples; numerous news reports on the incident have failed to acknowledge it.

Mary Annette Pember

Education, Jobs and Capitalism

American capitalism has a hate-love relationship with the nation’s schools. On the “hate” side is a stream of complaints from business leaders and organizations about the many students, particularly in city schools, who fail achievement tests, are high school dropouts or, if...

Gerald Coles

31 min

The Dark Side of Tulum (2019)

An independent documentary exploring both the beauty and betrayal of Tulum, Mexico - and what can be done to change it. *Available with Spanish subtitles - simply click the CC button on the video player.

Nationalism and Its Contradictions

Allow me to begin by stating an anthropological and genetic fact. Any conversation about so called “American” nationalism must begin with the story of human migration itself, which is a story that started in Africa: the one place where all humanity can affirm a shared genesis...

George Cassidy Payne

6 min

3 Great Untruths to Stop Telling Kids—and Ourselves | Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt explains three areas where we need to update our understanding of the world.

Big Think

5 min

How Overparenting Backfired on Americans | Jonathan Haidt

Being raised indoors might the reason young Americans struggle in the adult world. - American childhood is going, going… gone, says Professor Jonathan Haidt. - In the mid-'90s there was a sharp shift to overprotective parenting. In previous generations, kids were allowed to...

Big Think

Noam Chomsky Turns 90: How a U.S. Anarchist Has More Than Survived

“The person who claims the legitimacy of the authority always bears the burden of justifying it. And if they can’t justify it, it’s illegitimate and should be dismantled. To tell you the truth, I don’t really understand anarchism as being much more than that.” —Noam...

Bruce E. Levine

35 min

Ripple Effect (2014)

RIPPLE EFFECT is a short documentary film that shows how essential a life skills education is to all young people. There are many issues facing our children: bullying, substance abuse, violence, lack of employability, and graduating high school. RIPPLE EFFECT demonstrates how...

There Is No Such Thing As A Bad Parent

Parenting is the most important role a person can fulfill in their lifetime.

George Siegal

Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, but Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

Columbus’s treatment of the Taíno people meets the UN definition of genocide. But there has also been a curricular genocide — erasing the memory of the Taíno from our nation’s classrooms

Bill Bigelow

6 min

There Is More Than One Kind Of Intelligence - George Monbiot

People’s first experience of the system is often profoundly alienating. This is not the fault of their teachers but of the system itself, which assesses us for a particular kind of intelligence. We pass or fail on ridiculously narrow criteria. I was lucky at school because I...

George Monbiot

Bulldoze the Business School

Visit the average university campus and it is likely that the newest and most ostentatious building will be occupied by the business school. The business school has the best building because it makes the biggest profits (or, euphemistically, “contribution” or “surplus”) – as...

Martin Parker

26 min

Being a White Student at a Historically Black College

On this episode of 'MINORITY REPORTS,' Vice met up with Tiago, a white freshman at Morehouse College, an HBCU in Atlanta that counts Martin Luther King, Jr. and Spike Lee as alumni. We sat down with him to hear why he decided to enroll in the school, asked his peers for their...

VICE

The Circle of Courage – Native American Model of Education

The Circle of Courage is based in four universal growth needs of all children: belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity.

Reclaiming Youth At Risk

School Shootings: Who to Listen to Instead of Mainstream Shrinks

I have never spoken with a school shooter, but I’ve talked with many teenage boys and young men who—though behaviorally nonviolent themselves—emotionally connect with the anger, alienation, and hopelessness of school shooters.

Bruce E. Levine

41 min

Children Full of Life (2003)

What would happen if even one generation were raised with respect and without violence? - Gloria Steinem Mr. Kanamori, a teacher of a 4th grade class, teaches his students not only how to be students, but how to live. He gives them lessons on teamwork, community, the...

Reveal, Remember and Resist: the Three Rs Remixed

Passivity in the young is an obstacle to social transformation. Let’s teach kids to recognize and use their agency.

Leon Prescod

The Big Story: Can We Change Civilization by Changing Its Origin Story?

How did humans go from savanna-dwelling primates to moon-bouncing Tide Pod™ eaters? This is the big question that Big History has been trying to answer for millennia. Sure, other ages may have framed the question differently. Pre-Internet historian Herodotus may have asked...

Samuel Miller McDonald

67 min

Reconciling Two Incompatible Sacred Values in American Universities: Jon Haidt

Professor Haidt argues that conflicts arise at many American universities today because they are pursuing two potentially incompatible goals: truth and social justice. While Haidt thinks both goals are important, he maintains that they can come into conflict. According to...

Duke University Department of Political Science

43 min

How Social Justice Activists Took Over a College and Drove Some Professors Out (2018)

Bret Weinstein left the Evergreen State College in the wake of student protests last Spring. However, internal struggles with faculty and administration over equity was happening months before this. Subverse went to Evergreen with Weinstein to hear his side of where this...

106 min

The Queen's University Talk: Jordan Peterson on The Rising Tide of Compelled Speech

Jordan Peterson: "I was invited to Queen's University March 5 to give the inaugural lecture/discussion of the Liberty Lecture series, funded by Faculty of Law alumnus, Gregory Piasetzki (LLB 1980). Dr. Bruce Pardy (https://law.queensu.ca/faculty-re

Jordan B Peterson

16 min

My Son Was a Columbine Shooter. This is My Story.

Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the two shooters who committed the Columbine High School massacre, murdering 12 students and 1 teacher. She's spent years excavating every detail of her family life, trying to understand what she could have done to prevent...

TEDMED

Parents Need to Start Talking to Their Tweens About the Risks of Porn

Editor’s note: This article includes references to graphic sexual content that may be inappropriate for some readers.

Gail Dines

When Our Children Become Killers, Gun Reform Isn't Enough. We Need to Redesign Our Society

What can we do to create a culture where none of our children grow up to become killers?

Tim Hjersted

Why I Teach a Course Called 'White Racism'

The need for students to learn about racism in American society existed long before I began teaching a course called “White Racism” at Florida Gulf Coast University earlier this year.

Ted Thornhill

Learning on the Homefront

What comes to many people’s minds when they think of homeschooling? Granola-eating Hippies Christian missionaries Anarchists General weirdos

Mary MacLachlan

3 min

'WASTELANDERS' - Eco-poem for kids (and bigger people!)

My name's Kevin Latham, and this poem belongs to my 'Developing Minds' range aimed at older kids (as well as really big ones, like myself!). It's my hope that these offerings will inspire creativity and constructive thought amongst young people, whilst encouraging them to...

2 min

'SLICK' - Eco-poem for kids (and bigger people!)

My name is Kevin Latham, and this poem belongs to my 'Developing Minds' range aimed at older kids (as well as really big ones, like myself!). It's my hope that these offerings will inspire creativity and constructive thought amongst young people, whilst encouraging them to...

85 min

ANICCA - Embracing Change (2017)

ANICCA is a very personal, honest and inspirational documentary about key issues regarding our struggle with change: fear, courage, trust and the big challenge of accepting reality as it is.

16 min

Know Your Stuff: The Military Industrial Complex of Israel | Dr. Shir Hever

In this video Dr. Shir Hever talks about the history and evolution of the Israeli military industrial complex from the 1980s onwards until the modern era.

acTVism Munich

Why We Should Teach About the FBI’s War on the Civil Rights Movement

Mainstream textbooks almost entirely ignore COINTELPRO. Though COINTELPRO offers teachers a trove of opportunities to illustrate key concepts, including the rule of law, civil liberties, social protest, and due process, it is completely absent from my school’s government book.

Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Taking the Fight Against White Supremacy Into Schools

"Eventually, we need to move beyond discussions about tearing down symbols of white supremacy, and begin to strategize about how to tear down the systems that still prop it up."

Adam Sanchez

4 min

Akala on Education and the Secret to Eternal Youth!

We asked rapper Akala about education, didn't realise we'd find out the secret to eternal youth. Thanks Akala!

Double Down News

123 Subversive Documentaries That Challenge the Status Quo

Now that there are thousands of films on Films For Action, we realized the very best gems have really become buried all across our library, and for people new to this information, we needed a more guided way to dive in. Spread across 15 core themes, this collection aims to be...

Films For Action

Meet the School That Hates Rules

Most students are told to be seen and not heard. “Democratic schools” offer a refreshing alternative.

Brian Foglia

Why We Need to Democratize Education

Achieving comprehensive social change requires radical alteration of everything, including education. But most of the attempts to reform the educational system are limited. What is needed is a democratization of education through the introduction of alternative egalitarian...

Yavor Tarinski

12 min

John Waters Commencement Address is Priceless

John Waters' rollicking commencement speech at The Rhode Island School of Design offered up some good one-liners and a few pearls of wisdom, though phrased, quite naturally, in an irreverent way.

RISD

70 min

Re-Learning Hope: a Story of Unitierra (2016)

RE-LEARNING HOPE is the story of Unitierra, an autonomous university in Oaxaca, Mexico that is immersed in, and has emerged from, the social and indigenous movements of the region. The film tells the story of this emergence of Unitierra and its powerful critique of...

2 min

A Short History of School

Very few people know the history of school. Nor do they know the real reason schools were established in the first place. Here's a short history of schools in the U.S. from the documentary Class Dismissed.

Jeremy Stuart

Films For Action University: a Map for Navigating the Transition From Empire to Earth Community

This collection of 122 documentaries is a map for navigating the 21st century. It is guided by the premise that we are facing a planetary emergency, and the primary role of schools today should be to prepare students to become active participants in designing the transition...

Films For Action

11 min

Kids Gone Wild - Forest Kindergartens Build Trust and Connect Children with Nature

Children are running wild in the mud, climbing high into trees and playing with knives, but no one is telling them off. This is kindergarten, Danish-style.

SBS Dateline

A Design School for Planetary Collapse

Storm clouds gather for a future that will be turbulent and dangerous. We need designers ready for this future.

Joe Brewer

What Schools Teach Without Teaching: American Myths and Powerlessness

All over America, school children are completing another academic year before their summer vacation. This invites the questions, what did they learn and what did they do with what they learned?

Ralph Nader

On the Wildness of Children: The Revolution Will Not Take Place In The Classroom

“In Wildness is the preservation of the World.” Thoreau says it in “Walking,” and Jack Turner, in his exquisite collection of essays, The Abstract Wild, questions how many of us have any idea what it means. Pe

Carol Black

This 2-Part Primer Will Help You Think Like an Unschooler

Many of us have difficulty explaining the concept of unschooling, life learning, or self-directed learning to those who are unfamiliar with it. In an attempt to help unschoolers communicate their way of looking at things to the wider community, we have come up with the...

Carol Black & Neal Marlens

5 min

What Happens When You Bring Meditation to Public Schools

Classrooms all over the country are trying something new: sitting and breathing.

Vox

5 min

How The Free Market Really Works

An example of how the Free Market functions, taken from the book titled 'The New Human Rights Movement,' written by Peter Joseph.

Prosocial Progress Foundation

A New Browser Plug-In Lets You Access Millions of Scientific Papers for Free

Unpaywall is a web browser plug-in that brings free information to those who seek facts. The open-source service is disrupting traditional publishing by giving users access to peer-reviewed journal articles for free, and it's all totally legal.

Dom Galeon

5 min

Jane Goodall - Sowing the Seeds of Hope

“If you really want something, and really work hard, and take advantage of opportunities, and never give up, you will find a way.” Jane Goodall

14 min

Richard Wolff Explains How & Why Bankers Want You to Stay Indebted Forever

In this interview with Professor of Economics Emeritus (University of Massachusetts) and founder of Democracy at Work, Richard D. Wolff talks about bankruptcy protection, debt jubilee, students debt and the function that a credit system serves in our society today.

acTVism Munich

2 min

In Utero (trailer)

IN UTERO is a documentary about life in the womb and its lasting impact on human development, human behavior, and the state of the world.

2 min

The Feynman Technique - 3 Steps to Learning Something New

Richard Feynman was a physicist who received a nobel prize for his work in quantum electrodynamics. He was notorious for asking his mathematicians to explain concepts in simple language to test their understanding. Here his unique technique to learn new materials: Step 1...

Sprouts

69 min

Ike - Knowledge Is Everywhere (2014)

The future of our children, our health, and our society, will depend on how we meet the defining social challenge of our time: developing a quality, comprehensive education system. The conflicts over policy and resources have become commonplace - sowing division rather than...

8 min

Solving the Education Disparity Problem

Interns at our college designed this Solar Powered Projector to propose insight into the gender disparity in school attendance, and why boys are 20% more likely to attend class.

Barefoot College International

29 min

The Feminist Library: A Short Film (2016)

The Feminist Library: A Short Film was made in support of the Save the Feminist Library Campaign in London (UK), documenting a crucial moment in the library's herstory as it fights for its very survival. Shortlisted for the Women's History Network Community Prize, the film...

2 min

They Screened This Documentary to 80 Villages (trailer)

What does it mean to stand behind girls education in some of the toughest and most backward communities in India? See how non formally educated Barefoot R&D technology innovators are solving the education disparity problem by realizing the dream of education for girls in...

Strangely Like Gulag: Schooling and the Industrial Machine

For many years, I’ve seen more and more of my rural and tribal neighbors pack their children off to school. Now, every morning between 8:00 and 9:00 am in this upwardly-mobile-yet-backward district, the country roads are full of children commuting to school, hoisting bags...

Suprabha Seshan

3 min

Planet Earth II Could Be Best Nature Doc Ever Made (trailer)

10 years ago Planet Earth changed our view of the world. Now we take you closer than ever before. This is life in all its wonder. This is Planet Earth II. A decade ago, the landmark television series Planet Earth redefined natural history filmmaking, giving us the ultimate...

6 min

Prince Ea Just Put The School System on Trial and Found it Guilty of Killing Free Thought

Albert Einstien once said "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid". Today Prince Ea puts modern schooling on trial.

Prince Ea

What Are Democratic Schools?

Imagine a school where children and teenagers are accorded all the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship; where students truly practice, rather than just read about, the principles of free speech, free association, and freedom to choose their own activities...

Alternatives to School

The Pedagogy of the Meaning of Racism: Reconciling a Discordant Discourse

Racism is a term on which a great deal of discourse does and should turn in all realms of social work theory, practice, policy, and research. Because it is a concept heavily freighted with multiple and conflicting interpretations and used in a wide variety of ways, the idea...

Carlos Hoyt, Jr.

3 min

Baltimore Elementary School is Teaching Yoga and Mindfulness

When one of the kids at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in West Baltimore acts out, chances are she'll be sent not to the principal's office but to the Mindful Moment room, a soothing space with comfy cushions and beanbags, lit by glowing pink Himalayan salt lamps. It's...

Holistic Life Foundation

2 min

How Gardening Helps Students Grow

Jaureguiberry's elementary school is giving kids in Uruguay a first-hand look at environmental sustainability. The school was built with recycled materials, and students grow indoor and outdoor edible gardens.

AJ+

Dear Fellow Jillb4 Hill Folks and Berniecrats

Dear fellow JillB4 Hill folks and Berniecrats, a part of me really does not want to expend energy posting to all my center-left groups about the necessity of preventing Trump from winning the election. The necessary historical context in which to look at how detrimental a...

Creed J Shepard

2 min

Why School Sucks

I hope all of my teachers see this. - Prince EA

Prince Ea

15 Films Inspiring and Illuminating the 'New Story' Revolution

Charles Eisenstein is one of the first people I heard talk about the "new story," synthesizing a diverse movement that has been emerging for the last several decades. When I go back far enough, I first heard about these ideas from reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn when I was...

Tim Hjersted

Cultivating Self-Awareness in Parents

Shefali Tsabary's latest book argues that parents need to focus more on themselves and less on their children.

Diana Divecha

3 min

Success at School Vs Success in Life

Many people who do brilliantly at school turn out not to do so well at life. Why?

The School of Life

Law Professor's Epic Response to Black Lives Matter Shirt Complaint

A first year law school student wrote a complaint about her professor having worn a Black Lives Matter T-shirt during class. The professor’s response is priceless.

Social Design Notes

The Scientific Way to Train White People to Stop Being Racist

No one wants to be called fragile. And if you’re white, what you feel reading the title of this article may be indicative of the term. “White fragility” refers to white people’s low emotional tolerance for discussing topics of race and racism.

Katherine Kirkinis and Sarah Birdsong

Cultivating Empathy for the NEXT Crisis

A central question for this moment in history is how do we collectively navigate a crescendoing wave of crises and move toward planetary resilience and thriving?

Joe Brewer

Empathy: Why It's Important, Why We Should Nurture It in Our Kids

One of the most important skills we can teach our kids is empathy. Empathy is the ability to see and value what another person is feeling or experiencing. When we see someone in pain and feel that response in our own gut, that’s empathy. When we see someone crying tears of...

Steve Palmer

My First Journey With Psilocybin Mushrooms

In May 2013, my whole world shifted. At the time, I was living in Amsterdam and I began to feel the call to the Peruvian Amazon to work with the sacred plant medicine ayahuasca.

Arianna Joy

Seven Must-Have Skills for the 21st Century

We live in a world that moves faster than we do. Trying to keep up can be an overwhelming task that at times feels hopeless, like we are falling further and further behind—but it doesn’t have to. We are fully capable of adapting to the changing times, and it begins with...

Tommy Lehe

Dumbing Us Down: The 7 Hidden Lessons of Compulsory Education

While teaching means different things in different places, seven lessons are universally taught from Harlem to Hollywood Hills.

Meryn Callander

5 min

Greed 101: Hedge Funds Bringing Poverty and Suffering to Places Like Puerto Rico

They're called "vulture funds" and they make a killing off of places like Puerto Rico - sometimes literally.

Brave New Films

In the Absence of the Village, Mothers Struggle Most

Dear Mothers, I’m writing you today because I can no longer contain the ache in my gut and fire in my heart over an injustice that you and I are bearing the brunt of.

Beth Berry

Ten Ways We Misunderstand Children

1. We expect children to be able to do things before they are ready.

Jan Hunt

"Good" Children - At What Price? The Secret Cost of Shame

A five-month-old baby is lying in his mother's arms. He is close to sleep, then wakes and begins to cry. His mother tells him that he should stop being a naughty boy, and that she will be cross with him if he doesn't sleep.

Robin Grille and Beth Macgregor

What Is Biomimicry, Anyway?

Let’s play a game. It’s called “Who made it?” and it goes like this: I’ll describe a series of objects, and you guess who made them. If you guess all of them correctly, there will be a special prize waiting for you at the end of this article. Ready? Let’s begin.

Grist staff

How Many of These Outlaw Legends Do You Know?

There's a lot of mythology around outlaws, with some viewed as heroes and some as villains. Here are 6 legendary outlaws who you might not have head of.

Andrew Butler

93 Documentaries to Expand Your Consciousness

This is the crash-course in 'what the hell is going on here' that we surely all wish we got from our education growing up but probably never did.

Films For Action

Will There Still Be Ivory Towers in a World Without Elephants?

Universities have become detached places for the pursuit of career advancement — a fantasy world in these turbulent times.

Joe Brewer

Positive Parenting: How to Raise Your Children With Unconditional Love

Parenthood lies deep within us. We are wired to help our little ones survive and prosper. Modern life, however, has removed us from our natural environment. It can be hard to raise a child in world of fear and distractions. Science and psychology bring back a big dose of...

Vegard Gjerde

68 min

Re-Learning the Land: a Story of Red Crow College (2015)

RE-LEARNING THE LAND is the story of a Blackfoot community in southern Alberta, Canada, and how they have re-taken control of their education system within Red Crow Community College. The film traces the decolonization of their learning and the development of an innovative...

6 min

5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do

In his humorous and uplifting style, Gever Tulley debunks classic myths of childhood safety. With rampant fear mongering, is it any wonder that children are actually over-protected? Instead, Tulley believes the most effective way to keep children safe is to give them a little...

TEDx Talks

Happiness and Children

Depression and anxiety are rising rapidly among young people: what’s going on?

William Davies

Radical Politics in the Age of American Authoritarianism: Connecting the Dots

If the left is to fight back against authoritarianism, we must bring together diverse movements working for social change.

Henry A. Giroux

12 min

Plant The Seed

Watch the 6th graders at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School in Queens, NY transform an unused piece of their campus into a beautiful permaculture garden.

Work In Progress Pictures

Untying the Blindfold: Beyond Brussels, the Truth for Our Children

The First World is quickly learning that it was easy to skip the lecture on morals and ethics - it is physics that will eloquently phrase the challenge in the end. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Saraswati Nagpal

The Real Irish-American Story Not Taught in Schools

“Wear green on St. Patrick’s Day or get pinched.” That pretty much sums up the Irish-American “curriculum” that I learned when I was in school. Yes, I recall a nod to the so-called Potato Famine, but it was mentioned only in passing.

Bill Bigelow

90 Inspiring, Visionary Films That Will Change How You See the World in Profound Ways

The world today is in crisis. Everybody knows that. But what is driving this crisis? It's a story, a story that is destroying the world. It's a story about our relationship to the world and to other humans, but we take this story for granted. We don't even see it as a story...

Tim Hjersted