Concerned Citizen

View doc here. Made by Aaron Fisher, Shawn Hall, and Taylor Barlow Tiave

Teaching is crucial to making our society a better place.  Some of the most influential people in my life were my teachers in public schools who motivated me to not just learn but to dream.  My (Shawn) aunt, who teaches elementary school in Orem, embodies this type of teacher.  She spends hours meticulously planning fun interactive lessons so that her students will not just pass their tests but learn life lessons to help them become better citizens as they grow up.  When reading about Goldbard’s Datastan and Storyland, I couldn’t help but think of my aunt’s unique way of teaching her students.  For her, stories, drawings and art teach us just as much as numbers and figures.

When it came to editing the short documentary, we needed to strategically plan what would and would not be included in the small time frame we were allotted. What was good about our footage was that this schoolteacher had plenty of examples of how her students are not only learning scholastically, but she is also going the extra mile by teaching them lifelong lessons such as conflict resolution. The problem we found in this was picking out which parts to use since, unfortunately, we can’t use everything. Since some of her interview was a bit rambling we decided to use her most concise declarations to show how she was herself simultaneously being a concerned citizen and creating future concerned citizens.

What was interesting to us about Shawn’s aunt, was her pride in problem solving. She seemed really invested in making sure that her children reacted and responded to each other in a dignified and respectful manner. She took great pride in her children, and new that they were also capable of doing great things. Much like Robin William’s character in Carpe Diem, she believes that if her students learn new ways to view the world that they will improve their communities and the world at large. In her eyes, her kids were the future. She believes her kids can change the world, and she feels that it’s her job to make sure that they are developed into productive members of society. Especially with the current divisions in societies created across America based on race and income, this caring teacher strives to make sure that her kids respect each other and each other’s backgrounds as well.

            When we were filming this project, what we decided to do was get a lot of establishing shots. We made sure to get shots of her room and the exterior and interior of the school, to make sure that the setting and the environment of these kids was known. The teacher had such a beautifully decorated classroom, and we wanted to highlight all of the care and time it took to make it that way. What was even more interesting about this classroom is that the teacher changes up the theme for every this, and this year’s theme was the Pixar movie UP! We also set out to get shots of drawings done by kids in the hallway and shots of encouraging signs and papers as well, to show that this school was a nurturing environment. Not only that, but it’s a place where kids can mature and become good people. And we also did long shots of the teacher in an interview style so that with these longer takes, we can juxtapose audio over other establishing shots and also cut back to her interview. This way, we can make the interview and documentary polished, and really be able to hit home our argument and subject matter.