American Promise

A Film Screening + Conversation with Director, Michèle Stephenson

American Promise spans 13 years as Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, NY, turn their cameras on their son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, who make their way through Manhattan's Dalton School, one of the most prestigious independent schools in the country. Chronicling the boys' divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation, this documentary provides a rare look into the lives of two middle class black families as they navigate the ups and downs of parenting and educating their sons in a country still wrestling with notions of difference, race, class, and opportunity. American Promise is the winner of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival US Documentary Special Jury Award.

This screening is provided by the Ed Factory's Teacher's Institute @Minneapolis and sponsored by the Blake School, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Jack and Jill of America, City of Lakes chapter.

Sugata Mitra is the Teacher's Institute 2013-2014 featured Visiting Scholar. Mitra is a winner of the 2013 TED Prize. He is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University in England. His “Hole in the Wall” experiments were the basis for the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle, which won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year. Mitra's international experiments have shown, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they’re motivated by curiosity and peer interest. 

Peter Williams is the founder and executive director of an organization whose goal is to improve global health, using design to create healthier environments as preventative measures for tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria. Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments (ARCHIVE) has projects in countries all over the world, including Haiti, Cameroon, and Ethiopia. ARCHIVE identifies and addresses the causes of poor health in disadvantages communities and uses strategies related to housing design improvements to create environments that promote better health.