Over nine years, Upper School history teacher Dan Greenstone and Upper School arts teacher Travis Chandler have taught the elective Creating Historical Documentaries. Students analyze documentaries, write, record, edit, and ultimately create their own historical documentary by the end of the semester. Overall, student films have been submitted to 15 film festivals and garnered three awards. This year’s documentaries covered topics such as Chicago’s queer legacy, Teen Takeovers, local ICE raids, and segregation in Chicago’s cemeteries.
Both Chandler and Greenstone started working at Parker 14 years ago and met during orientation. Five years later, the class began after students in Greenstone’s Sociology of Sports elective started seeking assistance from Chandler to create their documentaries. “And I was like, ‘wow, this guy’s great,’ so I went to him and I’m like, ‘hey, maybe we should team up officially,’” Greenstone said. The decision was unanimous. “It seemed like such a great idea that we had to do it,” Chandler said.
Following its inception, the class has evolved and served new purposes over time. Now, eight student-made films have been submitted to film festivals, and the class has an annual MX presentation to showcase their films to the Parker community. One aspect of the class, however, has stayed consistent:passion. “The best part is to see when they [students] get so excited about the topic that they dive in head first, and it really flips the traditional teaching dynamic in a way that’s super progressive,” Greenstone said. Both teachers remarked on students’ commitment to their topics and final products. “There’s always a group that I’m not positive is going to be able to pull it off, and almost inevitably, they come up with not only a final product, but one of the better ones,” Chandler said. He continued,“it always blows me away.” Chandler and Greenstone always appreciate when students come to them for help. Greenstone calls this the “beauty of the class.”
Two such students from this year’s class were seniors Chase Wayland and Ella Goodman. “For my senior year, I was trying to focus on doing things that were skill focused,” Wayland said. “ I wanted to build out some of those more like, ‘how do you make a film?’ and, ‘how do you research in an effective way?’ those sorts of things.” Students are placed into groups of three or four and learn to write, interview, film, and edit a documentary film. Student groups spent the first few days reading the news, then shifted to watching documentaries and brainstorming what topics they wanted to cover in their 15 minute film. Chandler and Greenstone provide a list of recent topics (although students are welcome to choose more historical topics), and students pick from there. For Wayland’s group, Chicago’s history of racially segregated cemeteries was enticing after group member Wesley Knights brought the idea after hearing it on a WBEZ podcast. For Goodman’s, Chicago’s recent legislation and curfew against “Teen Takeovers” stood out. “It stuck out to us because we’re teens and it’s happening as we were doing it,” Goodman said. “And, we have a lot of access, because we live in Chicago, to the city and a bunch of different cool people.”
The filming processes differed for groups covering actively unfolding news and for those covering Chicago history. Ella’s group interviewed aldermen Timmy Knudson and Jesse Fuentes, members of City Council who were actively voting on legislation at the time of filming. Scheduling these meetings with consistently occupied people proved strenuous. “It’s definitely a difficult process, especially because I’m not a filmmaker,” Goodman said. Wayland’s group had access to more archival information but still scheduled hours of interviews across the city. “We had the benefit of hindsight,” Wayland said.
Through the process, Greenstone began to realize the impact of the class and its unique aspects as part of a Parker education. “We realized that it was a real capstone of progressive education because we’re getting students out of the building meeting really interesting, accomplished people,” Greenstone said. “You’re interviewing them, and then they’re putting all the things they’re learning into an authentic product, which is a video that people want to watch.” Chandler sees the process of making the film almost as rewarding as the film itself. “Going through the process of making a film is so difficult and challenging and rewarding and fun all at the same time that it’s just a great experience for anyone to go through, especially if you’re picking a topic that’s of real social importance,” Chandler said. “I think you get a ton out of it.”
This sentiment is reciprocated by Chandler and Greenstone’s students. The impact of the process and the stories students carry with them from the class is significant. “Whenever I go to a graveyard now or I pass by one, I sort of consider it more,” Wayland said. “My hope, based on what people have said to me, is that they’ll see a graveyard and they’ll think about our film and then they’ll think about, ‘oh, what’s the history of this place?’” Goodman also reflected on the importance of high schoolers making documentaries and sharing stories. “I think everybody wants students to educate others and learn,” Goodman said, “So I think that’s more powerful than another documentary company making another one.”
The majority of teenagers don’t read for pleasure anymore. A recent study by the American Psychological Association (APA) found that less than 20 percent of U.S. teenagers read magazines, books, or newspapers daily. This lack of reading reveals the importance of visual media that educates, argues Greenstone. “Not all video is equal,” Greenstone said, “and what we’re trying to do is have deep, thoughtful, highly researched, historically accurate videos made by our students [that are]more nutritious than the average TikTok.” Congruently, Chandler and Greenstone find the immersive, narrative-driven aspect of a documentary film to match or exceed the impact of an important text. “It’s one of the better storytelling mechanisms that we have, and we can tell greater truths through this art form that can’t be done any other way,” Chandler said. “They have more impact emotionally than reading.” Documentaries, both argue, are the best way of telling stories that other mediums can’t in what Greenstone calls “a very visual culture…The best way of teaching students and other people broadly about these stories is through a visual medium because I think that’s where our culture has gone.”
