6 min

Learn about a new "superpower" that isn't being taught in 90% of US schools.

The Government Shutdown Opportunity: Public Workers Ignore Washington and Reorganize Cooperatively

Cory Doctorow, guest of honor at the upcoming FenCon science fiction convention in Dallas, notes (“During the shutdown, some scientists can’t talk about science,” Boing Boing, October 4) that some of his fellow speakers will be unable to speak if the government shutdown...

Kevin Carson

66 min

Schooling the World (2010)

If you wanted to change an ancient culture in a generation, how would you do it? You would change the way it educates its children.

Carol Black

When You Kill Ten Million Africans You Aren't Called 'Hitler'

Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?

Liam O'Ceallaigh

3 min

9/11 in the Academic Community (trailer)

Coming this Fall of 2013 -- A Winner of the 2011 University of Toronto Film Festival, the film examines the academic community's treatment of critical perspectives on 9/11 by exploring the taboo that shields the American government's narrative from scholarly examination.

School Is a Prison - And Damaging Our Kids

Longer school years aren't the answer. The problem is school itself. Compulsory teach-and-test simply doesn't work.

Peter Gray

Let's End the Pledge of Allegiance in Schools

Just in time for back to school: In Massachusetts this week, a venerable classroom tradition is facing a high court challenge. The state’s Supreme Judicial Court is currently weighing an atheist couple’s argument that the words “under God” be struck from the Pledge of...

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Ripping Off Young America: The College-Loan Scandal

Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone

56 min

The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today (2010)

"The Lord is Not On Trial Here Today" is a Peabody Award-winning documentary by Jay Rosenstein that tells the compelling personal story of Vashti McCollum, and how her efforts to protect her ten-year-old son led to one of the most important and landmark First Amendment cases...

College? No Thanks.

At TED talks, the most viewed video — now surpassing 14 million hits — is “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” by England’s Sir Ken Robinson.

Thomas Larson

Documentary Film Flowchart: Choose a Great Film Based on Your Mood

Documentary films are not only wildly entertaining, but also serve as a powerful and engaging educational tool. As quality documentary films continue to be produced around the globe, we encourage teachers to take advantage and enlighten their students with some of these...

Chris Ingrao

Who's Afraid of Howard Zinn's Radical History?

Mitch Daniels’s covert war on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States A recent Associated Press expose—drawing on e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act—revealed that in 2010, Mitch Daniels, then Indiana’s Republican governor, covertly set out...

Sonia Murrow & Robert Cohen

Ten Alternatives to Time-Outs

As parents begin to seek a more gentle method of discipline, they often start by dropping the obvious punishments, such as spanking or removal of unrelated privileges. Finding themselves without tools to enforce their instructions, they begin to rely heavily on traditional...

The Hippie Housewife

4 min

Art Saved My Life (trailer)

Filmmaker Damon Lee Patterson attempts to immortalize the power of art in his feature documentary Art Saved My Life. The film aims to prove art has the power to transform, heal, progress, enrich, and even saves someones life.

Elizabeth Warren Wants to Use the Fed for an Absurd Thing: To Help Students Instead of Wall St.

In historic breakthrough, Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren offers bill to force the Federal Reserve to finance student loans at 0.75% with no cost to taxpayers; measure embodies principles needed for US economic recovery from current depression. I urge a major all points...

Webster Tarpley

9 min

Frustrated With Growing Up? Watch This Video

Apparently, empathy and enlightenment can be found right at the check-out counter. So can boredom and frustration. Freedom is realizing I have the choice.

The Actualization Agent

2 min

When Kids Recite The Pledge of Allegiance in School This Is Basically What They're Saying

Nationalism in schools - yeah it's gonna sound kind of creepy no matter what country you do it in.

Arkfeller

6 min

A Cosmic Journey into the Fractal Universe

The realm we exist in is so unimaginably huge, yet so incredibly detailed. We couldn't even begin to comprehend the true complexity of this cosmic domain.

Knowledge Share Inc

17 min

The World Becomes What You Teach

This video is a popular TEDx talk by Zoe Weil, the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (www.HumaneEducation.org). She is a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement and speaks and lectures throughout the world.

TEDx Talks

30 min

Educating on respect

What is an animal sanctuary? Click the CC icon for English subtitles. El Hogar de Luci shows you its project: El Hogar. A place of respect for farm animals rescued of a certain death from the meat, dairy and eggs industry. An on-line tour to explain our daily work, not...

Fundación El Hogar

58 min

Solar Mamas (2012)

SOLAR MAMAS: Are women better at getting out of poverty than men?

11 min

The Gift of Learning

The Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship commissioned ITN to make this short film to look at some of the key features of a Steiner School including: - how Steiner Schools nurture spiritual development in keeping with the cultural setting of the school and without being tied to...

SteinerWaldorfSF

Is Scott Noble’s Film, “Human Resources,” a Masterpiece?

Seeing gurneys of babies trundled through the chiaroscuro of old black-and-white footage at the start of Scott Noble’s Human Resources, the gurneys in the tunnels of God only knows what kind of institution, the viewer does well to brace herself for the coming onslaught.

David Ker Thomson

2 min

Class Dismissed (trailer)

This is the new teaser trailer for the upcoming documentary Class Dismissed : A Film About Learning Outside of the Classroom. For more information and to find out how you can help see this film to completion please visit http://www.homeschoolfilm.com The movie should be...

59 min

Education Education - Why Poverty? (2012)

In China, education is considered the only way out of poverty. But as the nation’s higher education system has largely been privatized by for-profit companies, the future for millions of students is bleak. College is less accessible to Chinese youth than ever before, and...

The Case Against Competition

When it comes to competition, we Americans typically recognize only two legitimate positions: enthusiastic support and qualified support. The first view holds that the more we immerse our children (and ourselves) in rivalry, the better. Competition builds character and...

Alfie Kohn

2 min

Two Spirits (trailer)

Fred Martinez was one of the youngest hate-crime victims in modern history when he was brutally murdered at 16. Two Spirits explores the life and death of a boy who was also a girl, and the essentially spiritual nature of gender

223 min

Slavery: A 21st Century Evil (2011)

Today, 27 million men, women and children are held, sold and trafficked as slaves throughout the world. In Slavery: A 21st Century Evil, Rageh Omaar embarks on a worldwide journey to uncover the truth about the flourishing 21st century slave trade. Episode by episode, his...

Plant a Front Yard Community Garden and Meet Your Neighbors

Teaching you how to meet your neighbors, grow food together, share the harvest and create a life that excites you.

The Food is Free Project

Join 1.1 Million People in Supporting the Student Loan Forgiveness Act

America has over $1 trillion of outstanding student debt. Over the last 30 years, the cost of college has skyrocketed, increasing by over 800 percent! In these tough economic times many are wondering how to balance the monstrous debt they have accrued while they struggle to...

Films For Action

2 min

The Revisionaries (trailer)

Once every decade, the 15 members of the Texas Board of Education meet in Austin to revise the state's textbook standards. Led by Don McLeroy, a Young Earth Creationist, the panel will debate and implement new standards related to science, evolution, social studies, and...

7 min

The Failures of 'Race to the Top' and 'No Child Left Behind'

Welcome to standardized testing season, when students nationwide are clearing their desks, sharpening their pencils and fighting feelings of anxiety to meet our schools’, states’, and federal government’s desire for a simple, quantifiable way to measure them. Is this really...

5 min

Healthy Homework Guidelines: A New Vision for Homework

Together we can transform homework and encourage schools nationwide to reexamine and reimagine homework practices to better support student engagement, health and learning with healthy homework guidelines.

'Waiting for Superman' Documentary Is a Slick Marketing Piece Full of Half-Truths and Distortions

Davis Guggenheim's 2010 film Waiting for Superman is a slick marketing piece full of half-truths and distortions. The film suggests the problems in education are the fault of teachers and teacher unions alone, and it asserts that the solution to those problems is a greater...

Rick Ayers

145 min

The Forbidden Education (2012)

The school has been around for more than 200 years and is still considered the main form of access to education. Today, the school and education are concepts widely discussed in academia, public policy, educational institutions, media and civil society spaces. Since its...

300 min

The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto

The Ultimate History Lesson is a 5-hour course, illustrating the cause and effect relationship of how Americans became incoherent, and thus how the American dream has was usurped by an international agenda.

5 min

Plant a Seed

To make a difference, one must be the difference. Get involved with the global project and help shift consciousness at http://ParadigmShiftCentral.com/plantaseed and https://facebook.com/events/373284992739951/

Skull Babylon / Paradigm Shift Central

5 min

Alfie Kohn: No Grades + No Homework = Better Learning (trailer)

In a thought-provoking presentation, Alfie Kohn makes a compelling case that two traditional features of schooling -- grades and homework -- are not only unnecessary but actually undermine students’ interest in learning. This trailer is made up of 4 clips from the DVD. Click...

How Films For Action Began, and Where It's Headed

This is a little window into our strategy to help catalyze a Global Paradigm Shift

Tim Hjersted

The Case Against Grades

"I remember the first time that a grading rubric was attached to a piece of my writing….Suddenly all the joy was taken away. I was writing for a grade -- I was no longer exploring for me. I want to get that back. Will I ever get that back?"-- Claire, a student (in Olson...

Alfie Kohn

The Perversion of Scholarship

Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics...

Chris Hedges

9 min

Noam Chomsky on the Responsibility of Intellectuals

Utrecht, the Netherlands, March 2011: Noam Chomsky lecture on "Responsibility and integrity: the dilemmas we face". He spoke to students of Utrecht University on the responsibility of what he calls "intellecutuals", which he describes as "people of relative privilige... and...

ChomskyInNederland

2 min

Hello, I Am Awake - (Erase Those Barriers Of Indifference) (trailer)

Join FACEBOOK COMMUNITY: http://www.facebook.com/iamawakenow Hello, I Am Awake - (Erase Those Barriers Of Indifference) - Video Trailer - Join the Awakening Facebook Community. We share awake videoes, awake trailers and uplifting documentaries from around the globe.

1 min

Hello, I Am Awake (The 5th Element)

"The 5th Element" project is a visual reflection of a human shift in consciousness taking place on our planet right now. More and more people are starting to see beyond the mainstream illusions of separateness, endless fear mongering, socially constructed ideas of who we are...

I Am Awake Project

73 min

The Superior Human? (2012)

"The Superior Human?" systematically challenges the common human belief that humans are superior to all other life forms, which is often used as an excuse for animal cruelty and the destruction of our own environment. It reveals the absurdity of this belief while exposing...

53 min

Education For a Sustainable Future (2012)

Education For a Sustainable Future presents information on how today's practices in schools are socially unsustainable. The documentary film critically analyses what is considered socially relevant in a new education system which brings out the most potential in all of...

33 min

Democratic Schools: A Film About The Desire To Learn (2006)

At democratic schools pupils themselves can decide, what and how they want to learn. There are no curricula, no marks and examinations are voluntary. Pupils and teachers have the same rights and organize their school together. With decisions everyone has a voice... Can that...

Youth Rights, Dignity, and the Anti-Democratic Values of Public Schooling

As students, we are told that we are being made into an “informed citizenry” capable of maintaining a vibrant democracy. Indeed, we are told that we must give up most of our constitutional rights in the name of achieving this goal. We are compelled to attend an institution...

Films For Action

Modern Schools Stole Our Common Sense—Here's How We Take It Back

Long before we could vote, we learned to sit still, follow directions, and ignore the world outside the classroom window. This slowly dimmed the wild common sense we needed to fight corporate rule and reclaim our world, but it's not too late to reclaim what was lost.

Carol Black

3 min

The War on Kids (trailer)

THE WAR ON KIDS is a 95 minute documentary that shows how American public schools continue to become more dangerously authoritarian. In addition to failing in their mission to educate effectively, they erode the country's democratic foundation and often resemble prisons...

Why Aren't Public Universities More Transparent and Accountable?

Over the last six months of researching for my work-in-progress documentary about the pitfalls of American higher education, The Elephant on Campus, there have been many problems I have come across. One of the biggest and least talked about problems is that public...

Michael Newman

25 min

The Elephant on Campus (trailer)

The Elephant on Campus is a feature-length [work-in-progress] documentary about the problems plaguing higher education in America and the search for solutions to fix this broken system. Contrary to popular belief, college is no longer the sacred cow that it used to be. With...

15 min

Haiti Earthship Project: Overview

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti, members of the Earthship Biotecture crew visit Haiti to build an off-grid, sustainable housing unit and teach Haitians how to build the structures themselves. By giving power back to the people, HOPE is renewed and a real solution...

8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Bruce E. Levine

2 min

The Elephant on Campus | Dennis Littky

a snippet of michael's interview with radical educator dennis littky.

Dennis Littky

Teacher Writes Open Letter Criticizing U.S. Secretary of Education

In response to Arne Duncan's Open Letter to America's Teachers, Kansas high school teacher, David Reber wrote an open letter of his own that criticized the Secretary of Education's "corporate-style education reform".

David Reber

Start a Films For Action Chapter in Your City

Films For Action

8 min

Instruction Manual for Life

TheraminTrees and his brother QualiaSoup collaborated to make this interesting animation called Instruction Manual for Life. It uses the construction of cupboards and drawers to create a koan like allegory that is left open to interpretation.

TheraminTrees

Bucky Fuller & his World Game: Intro to Saving Planets

I think now is a good time to be talking about Bucky’s vision of a World Game. We have the technology to do this and a new administration could easily provide the funding. I don’t think any of this material is Utopian or far out, but if you do, let me know why.

Brainsturbator

90 min

Intro to Permaculture

This is an 18 part 90 minute intro to permaculture webinar with Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture in Illinois. Bill has been teaching permaculture for 6 years. He holds 2 PDC Certificates and has Advanced Training in Permaculture Design and in teaching Permaculture.

Midwest Permaculture

Dealing With Uncertainty: Why Reaching Out to Young People Is so Important

What does a young kid do when she realizes that the map she's been given by her parents and school teachers to navigate this world is almost entirely outdated?

Tim Hjersted

27 min

Intellectual Ecology, Green Chemistry | John Warner

Nature teaches us that no system is truly isolated and positive synergies are often at work. Yet the isolation of the various technological disciplines in our educational and industrial institutions has limited synergy in the human-built world. These walls are starting to...

Bioneers

27 min

Class Dismissed: A Paper Tiger Documentary (2004)

Class Dismissed provides a critical look at how U.S. history is taught in high school, at the myths that reduce the complexity of history into simple soundbites, and the information that never seems to make it onto the textbook pages. How can we alter this system to address...

No Child Left Inside: Unplug Your Kids and Kick Them Outside!

“Every child,” wrote pioneer botanist Luther Burbank, “should have mud pies, grasshoppers, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields...

Mike Weilbacher

5 min

Urban Farming Guys: Farmin' In the Hood!

This is a story of about 20 families who have purposefully uprooted from out of their comfortable suburban homes and moved into one of the worst neighborhoods in Kansas City. They bought homes within a 5 block radius of each other and put down a stake for the sake of the...

TheUrbanFarmingGuys

Raising Awareness: Why We Shouldn't Take It for Granted

A lot of people knock raising awareness as being too abstract. But when you consider it as a strategic first step in the larger picture, taken concurrently with other actions, I don't think we can underestimate its significance.

Tim Hjersted

Soul Of A Citizen: 'From Drunken Party Girl To Climate Change Activist'

When we try to engage people politically we never know who will respond, or when someone will shift from reveling in their apathy to taking powerful public stands. Here's a striking example of one such transformation.

Paul Loeb

10 min

Bernie Sanders: Don't Balance the Budget on the Backs of Middle Class

A video of Sen. Bernie Sanders March 2, 2011 speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sanders talks about the need for strong budget priorities in an era of severe income inequality. He makes the case that cutting public funded services like education and healthcare hurts...

Senator Bernie Sanders

83 min

Chris Hedges: Empire of Illusion

Journalist Chris Hedges discusses his recent book Empire of Illusion: the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. In it, he charts the dramatic rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy, and illusion. Hedges argues we now live in two societies...

The New School

Are you sick of highly paid teachers?

WARNING!!!! THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS HEAVY SARCASM!!!

Matthew Coppens

The Public School Nightmare: Why Fix a System Designed to Destroy Individual Thought?

I want you to consider the frightening possibility that we are spending far too much money on schooling, not too little. I want you to consider that we have too many people employed in interfering with the way children grow up — and that all this money and all these people...

John Taylor Gatto

Revolution Brewing in Wisconsin has Easy Solution

Another revolution is brewing, but in an unlikely place: Wisconsin. Teachers are on strike, classes canceled, in protest of a state government plan to cut their benefits and weaken their unions. The governor says the cuts are necessary to balance the state budget. Given...

George Donnelly

Bad Food Makes Kids Dumber, Study Says

A new study says 3-year-olds who mostly eat processed foods have lower IQs five years later. (So Pop-Tarts and Sunny-D are why we're "falling behind" China in math and science?) The study, cited in The Guardian, examined the diets of 14,000 wee Britlets, based on what their...

Holly Richmond

720 min

The Reality of Me (2011)

The TROM documentary is trying to present, in a simplistic way, the world in which we, human beings, live. The world discovered so far, not some idea or personal choice. Moreover we tried to present alternative solutions to current problems and took into account the future...

Films For Action Launches New Website, a "Learning Library for People Who Want to Change the World"

Lawrence, KS -- After 12 months in development, Films For Action has launched its new website - a head-to-toe redesign that lays the foundation for a vibrant community-powered news site dedicated to inspiring positive social change. At the heart of the new site is a...

Films For Action

162 min

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011)

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is a feature-length documentary by Peter Joseph that argues for a global transition away from our current monetary-based economic system toward a more sustainable and equitable model known as a Resource-Based Economy.

Peter Joseph

Huge Numbers of Students Don't Learn Critical Thinking in College

What happens when you fail to invest in education (and no, I don't mean investment in excessive layers of school administration), the most important single item in our nation's success or failure? You end up with this result: An unprecedented study that followed several...

Steven D

12 min

Changing Education Paradigms | Sir Ken Robinson

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

The RSA

Why Aren't US Students Rioting Over Crazy Tuition Hikes Like College Kids in Europe?

While London has been rocked by student protests over proposed tuition hikes, United States college campuses have been largely quiet. Tens of thousands of students in the UK have taken to the streets -- confronting police, storming the Conservative Party headquarters...

Simeon Talley

105 min

Peter Joseph: "Social Pathology"

This lecture was given by Peter Joseph in New York on March 15th, Zeitgeist Day, 2010. Some audio had to be replaced due to static problems.

68 min

Free to Learn: A Radical Experiment in Education (2006)

Free to Learn is a 70 minute documentary that offers a “fly on the wall” perspective of the daily happenings at The Free School in Albany, New York. Like many of today’s radical and democratic schools, The Free School expects children to decide for themselves how to spend...

60 min

FRONTLINE | College, Inc. | Season 2010 | Episode 9

The business of higher education is booming. It's a $400 billion industry fueled by taxpayer money. But what are students getting out of the deal? Critics say a worthless degree and a mountain of debt. Investors insist they're innovators, widening access to education.

Fox News Owner Buys Education Tech Provider, 3 Million-Student Audience

Wireless Generation, a US education technology company, will become a subsidiary of News Corporation for about $360 million in cash as Rupert Murdoch seeks to expand his company into academia.

Eric W. Dolan

48 min

Anna Silber: How Reading is Taught in a Waldorf School

Embark on a journey following the students' experience from kindergarten through the first few grades. We will focus specifically on how Waldorf teachers approach reading and how a love of language is inspired in the process. If you have questions about how it is done the...

The Tyranny of Compulsory Schooling

Let me speak to you about dumbness because that is what schools teach best. Old-fashioned dumbness used to be simple ignorance: you didn't know something, but there were ways to find out if you wanted to. Government-controlled schooling didn't eliminate dumbness - in fact, we...

John Taylor Gatto

95 min

The War on Kids (2010)

Blame for problems with schooling in America is often assigned to insufficient funding or the inherent failings of today's kids. In rare cases, parents, teachers, and administrators are also implicated. However, all efforts to improve the quality of education are doomed to...

Cevin Solig

Host a Film Screening (Quick Overview Guide)

Regularly watching the news over the years, and getting my news from a variety of sources, I’ve noticed that the mainstream news media does a pretty bad job of covering certain issues. A story about Paris Hilton takes the lead over a story about the Afghanistan war or a piece...

Tim Hjersted

97 min

The Zeitgeist Movement: Activist Orientation Presentation

The Zeitgeist Movement is not a political movement. It does not recognize nations, governments, races, religions, creeds or class. Our understandings conclude that these are false, outdated distinctions which are far from positive factors for true collective human growth and...

Linguistic Team International

5 min

Information Deformation

This video takes a look at data, information, knowledge and wisdom. What are we doing with the information that we get? Is it helping us make better decisions and live better lives?

2 min

Jesus Camp (trailer)

Jesus Camp is a 2006 documentary directed by Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing about a Pentecostal/ charismatic summer camp for children who spend their summers learning and practicing their "prophetic gifts" and being taught that they can "take back America for Christ." According...

9 min

Empire or Humanity?

Empire or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me about the American Empire by Howard Zinn and narrated by Viggo Mortenson.

Henry Holt

6 min

A Students' Guide To University

This 2-part cartoon series explores commonly overlooked areas, relationships and politics of the education industry. Chapter one exposes the relationships of product placement and exclusive corporate contracts within the university environment.

UpdocFilms

28 min

Singing Minstrels - Teaching Kids about Climate Change

Enjoy toe-tapping tunes as environmental educators Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz regale us with songs like "Penguins on Thin Ice." Their shared goal is for education to be fun and entertaining. Their catchy lyrics bid "Goodbye, Oil" and ask "How do we find the balance?"...

peakmoment

34 min

John Taylor Gatto - State Controlled Consciousness

John Taylor Gatto is a learned eloquent critic of the present school system all over the world. In this 2003 interview he exposes the hidden agenda that makes most of us hate school. While exposing the wide-reaching harmful effects of mass-compulsory schooling, Mr Gatto gíves...

Lennart Mogren

6 min

This Animated Cat Is Having One Helluva Scary School Nightmare, but It's Actually Really Profound

Every night Pinky tries to get some sleep, only to be kept awake by a bizarre school building slideshow. Words by Ivan Illich, author of Deschooling Society. If you're curious to learn more, seek out this book, considered a classic for the alternative learning...

pinkyshow

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