Just got back from Boys of Baraka. I expected to love it, and I liked a lot of it. I checked my watch the first time my eyes watered up; it was 3:43, just about nine minutes after the film started. I'm not a crier, but my eyes watered up a lot during this movie, and probably at no times more than when it focused on Richard, who was the broken heart of the film. The type of kid who, like Bobby, I would describe as having an "old soul," meaning his place in his frenetic world is one of the thoughtful, reflective, and quiet observer. This kid was the soul of the film for me, and I wish the filmmakers had given him a better sendoff than the fatalistic vision they have for him at the end, which is a woman who sees him once a year saying she would be shocked if he made it to high school and would drop dead if he actually graduated.
This cynical vision for Richard is the last we see for him, and the hope of the future lies with another profiled kid, Montrey. See, this is where I'm jaded, because I have an inside scoop on Montrey. Yes, the kid made it into a great high school, as the film shows, but he failed out after one year. He skipped all the time, and fell into the same behavioral patterns he fell into when he was in middle school. The film focuses its hope on him, closing with a beautifully optimistic vision of him enrolling in this school and saying he's going to do his best. What the filmmakers couldn't have known at the time was that he lasted just a year, and checked out long before that year was up, and seemingly didn't learn anything about how to deal with his problems from his Baraka days.
It could be said that he never would have made it that far without the Baraka school, but that's unknown. What is known is that he's now attending Forrest Park High School, his zone school, a school where 24% of kids were proficient in reading and 6% of geometry students were proficient in 2004. I know this because when we walked out of the film today, Montrey was in the lobby of The Charles, his eyes on teh faces of the audience members as we strolled out. I wasn't sure why he was there; maybe he was just seeing the movie. We talked to him for a while, and he says he wants to go back to that good school he got kicked out of, and that's great. But it's clear that the year in Baraka may have helped him get into a good high school, but it didn't help him stay. Maybe he will make it back. We can certainly hope.
I do not mean to bash the Baraka School. For one thing, none of these kids featured got to stay in the school for the two-year enrollment; it was closed for security concerns after a civil war erupted in the area surrounding Kenya. (The scene in which the news of the school closing is delivered is particularly heartwrenching.) It seems the Baraka School was serving as a liferaft for kids to traverse from their troubled elementary school experiences to a decent high school instead of attempting to go through the city's almost uniformly horrible middle schools (there's only one I would send my kid to if I had any, while there's four I high schools that are decent), but the liferaft was sunk when they were only halfway finished with their trip. Still, the sense of defeat these kids feel when they return was disappointing. The world had opened up for them, they had seen that there is a world beyond Beltimore; why are they so fatalistic when they return? I'm talking about Richard, mostly, the kid that ripped my heart out in the movie.
I've taught three kids from the Baraka school. One I had during my first year of teaching; he was a nice, quiet kid who was a terrible writer and later failed a class for plagiarism. However, the other two kids are two of my all-time favorites. I had them both as freshmen, and they're now Juniors, and they're two kids who always make a point of coming to see me to tell me how they're doing. Both were insightful, polite, and smart kids who have done well at the challenging school I work at. I've seen the program work. It's sad it's not happening anymore.
And so the film turns out to be probably all I could have expected it to be for me: moving, even devastating, and frustrated, even infuriating. And that latter part is on all fronts - infuriated by the system, devastated by the kids, frustrated at the filmmakers. The Baraka School itself is shown to be not a savior, and the filmmakers sort of emphasize that there are no easy solutations, just that this was one that sometimes worked. And then it was ended, prematuredly after just 84 minutes. I find the filmmakers' lack of classroom scenes to be troubling, almost to the point where I wondered what they were hiding. What did these kids learn? Where were the moments when they learned? Were they transformed? The film's ending is so cynical - some of it because I know what happened with Montrey - that the only conclusion I can come up with it that these kids weren't transformed by education. And that's the saddest part of all.
Props for providing something that shines some light on this problem of urban education that the nation will continue to both inflict and suffer from for years and years. Now I wish someone would make a documentary about some of these kids that don't go over to Africa. Why do they have to go to Africa to be deemed worthy of a documentary? These kids go through more than most people could imagine.
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15 comments:
Wow. I just saw the movie last night, and was searching on the internet to find out what had happened since the film ended.
Your analysis was great, but I do think that the movie shows that with creative solutions and better-administrated funding we could affect change in the broken educational and social systems facing kids.
I, too, was touched most profoundly by Richard and found myself wishing someone could locate him and take him away (again) to a better place.
I heard that after seeing this, the mayor of Baltimore wants to constuct a Baraka-like residential school in Baltimore. Why not continue with the Baraka School as it had been established? Certainly Baraka fell short in many ways, but it also succeeded in ways that I never expected.
The outrage of the parents at the school's closing and the crushing diappointment of the students illustrate the depth of the school's effect.
Anyhow, thanks for the update, however sad.
I just saw the movie today by myself, and I cried in the first few minutes, and I welled up thoughout the movie. My friend said he knows a couple of the parents.
I was in India in December, and I saw somethnig on the BBC channel, showing the two young women who made it, and showing clips of the movie, and I wanted to see it so badly, and I was so excited it finally played here.
Yes, they did not show enough teaching, mostly disciplining. But, you can only show but glimpses, but those video messages, etc. wow.
Thanks for a great, insightful review of this film. I just watched it with my husband and am so heartbroken I know I will have trouble sleeping. We, too, were bothered by the lack of classroom-scene coverage, and I was also irked that so few of the boys received focus during the film (there are updates on only 4 of the boys in the "special features" on the DVD). The mayor's wish to create something like Baraka in Baltimore is a nice sentiment, but I think that one reason that the program had such an impact was that it was impossible for anyone from home to see them during the school year (in fact, it seemed like a 2-month summer break was too long to be away from Baraka -- would maybe take away from the "flow" of it all). In any case, would be great to see another program like this get off the ground, if Baraka cannot re-start.
First of all I want to say that I understand your comments as a teacher, but most of the gripes you have about the way it ended and the way the boys futures after the film were portrayed were addressed in filmmaker's commentary. I think that they did an EXCELLENT job, and you may want to watch/listen to their commentary in its entirety before you judge it. I also am very proud to hear that you are a male teacher, which we need more of.
Like the others, I just saw the movie yesterday, and it really touched my heart. I couldn't believe that when the Baraka school closed, nobody could step in and tell those kids, "here, come to this other safe haven for your one more year." It seemed to evil to have hope taken away.
You know, what also surprised me was the negative aspect of them returning to Baltimore for the summer. In the beginning of the movie, it was so hard for the kids to be far from their families, and I thought, "I wonder why they don't get to go home for Christmas," but then when they did go to Baltimore for the summer, I got the feeling that they would mostly have rather stayed in Kenya, Baltimore life was just so hard. I mean, it looked like it would be constant struggle to not let yourself get to feeling defeated there. I've been to Baltimore, and I remember feeling that the racial tension was so intense you could almost touch it.
Anyway, those kids' stories all touched my heart.
I too am outraged and heartbroken after viewing this. These boys were let down once when the Baraka school was closed and no other options were available to them. Anywhere would have been better than to place them back in the hole they were digging out of! All this taught them was that they can trust no one, that life is full of empty promises so why even try to change? It seems to me that these boys have never known a life that isn't filled with despair and had no idea what was on the other side of their success or how they could really benefit from it. All they knew was what others told them but they had never really experienced what it was like to have hope for a future themselves. I truly believe that the Baraka School has the potential to be like a seed planted in the minds and hearts of these young men, and with time that seed will grow and begin nourishing other young men in these communities. The Baraka Boys could one day turn around the life of another troubled youth and offer them the same hope they were given. I pray for these boys that they will take something from this experience even though it was cut short and realize that the potential to succeed was in them all along.
Everyone loves a good end and I'm very sad to hear about Montray...
This shows that even with an intensive Baraka intervention, it is difficult to make up for the years of neglect that young people experienced.
I grew up in a completely different social, educational and ideological setting: i was born in the Soviet Union, the land where official ideology was to erase calsss lines and create a more equal society, not promote competition,but to achive social goals through cooperation. Coming to US was a shock to me because of two main factors: 'RACE' and CLASS. It is not just the existence of the inequalities but the extent of inequalities that traumatised me and the fact that most other people fail to notice these enqualities because they see and live with them every day. I saw in my highschool that Black students still have to work soooo much harder to do well: In AP classes Black students were the very motivated ones and few of them were in AP courses unlike the 'review' and 'regular' classes, which had a disproportionately high numbers of Black students. Kids like the Baraka boys are the proff that in this 'land of opportunity', if you happen to grow up in one of those neighbourhoods where Baraka boys grew up, you need to work much harder than anyone else to be successful and where are you supposed to get that motivation from? Where are you supposed to find out that you can be so many things in life, that the sky is the limit? Where?
And what hurts me the most is that it is too 'normal' for too many to label those young kids as automatic failures and not give them chances like Baraka school was trying, it is too normal to say 'don't drive to that neighbourhood', 'if i were you i'd not drive in that area of Baltimore'... This is just wrong, but despite the fact that generations of young people have 'fallen through cracks' i don't see actual actions or strong committments to change the situation. Do you?
Why did the boys have to go to Africa? Remember when they were sitting around the table talking to their counselor and pondering how it felt to be around others they view just like them - black and poor.
Black and poor. Yet, their African community showed them people who lived without hostility, drugs, crime, materialism - they saw people who lived in relative peace, simple lives, who knew how to show love to others, respect and goodwill. Name one African American community in the United States that isn't overwhelmed with the same negative social conditions that Baltimore has.
They could no longer blame their discontent or unhappiness on being black and poor. They couldn't blame it on a government that has failed them, afterall, there is no welfare system in Africa. They couldn't blame it on not having money or a flash car or bling-bling. Montrey commented on how these Africans survived without the daily technology we have come to rely on in the United States, let alone personal luxuries or materialistic "things".
Then perhaps personal satisfaction and happiness lies in oneself. Perhaps? Perhaps if you treat others with respect and love, if you have self-confidence and integrity - then these other superficial things won't matter as much?
How does anyone ever hope to change horrible social conditions? You start by changing yourself. I have no doubt, even though their journey was not complete, that these boys were touched deeply by the things they saw and learned that year in Africa - and they have changed.
I just watched the film. Incredibly moving: this is a school I have wondered about since meeting one of the board members of the foundation years ago while on vacation.
Does anyone know what has become of Richard?
He was so motivated: I hope that he has found a similar program to enroll in, like SEED.
I picked up the box in the film store and was so excited to hear the story of an education program uniting American blacks with the African continent. There is decedence in so many sectors of American life, and so much misinformation about Americans among Africans.
Yet, I struggled for get something valuable out of the documentary which assures me that the beneficiaries struggle to get something out of their experience at Baraka School. When I envision going to African to revisit one's values, I imagine having true interactions with Africans. Schools throughout much of the continent, especially in rural areas, lack anything more than wooden benches and chairs. Teachers lack adequate training. And yet, true education comes from shopping at the market, doing household tasks like preparing a fire, tending the garden or family farm, running errands for one's elders, slaughtering animals for a feast, holding someone's baby for a minute and wielding a machete to clear the yard. When I learned that the cheap real estate was the real reason for the school's location in Kenya, I was disappointed to see that the administrators didn't try harder to avail themselves of the situation.
African children often have a lower quality of formal education, but they gain so much in their interactions with the world. The kids of the Baraka school were isolated from the realities of African life, which would have been so critical to their emotional development and critical reasoning. They left as selfish and sheltered as they would have been in normal American schools. They would have gained as much on a camping trip outside their native Baltimore. It seems they were punished by outdoorsmanship and sports, instead of learning the value of hard work. Furthermore, they regarded their Masai neighbors, and were regarded by the same, as foreign, dangerous and strange.
It is a shame that a pilot program of this magnitude could not have been more creative in its approach. I often think, working in Africa, that Americans would benefit from some of the values that Africans hold. And that the challenge of true life in the world outside our easy American ways could kick the ego and swagger out of some of the most difficult students while closing the divide between one's world and another's.
How could they affect change if there was no change? They didnt educate these kids about Africa. They didnt expose them to anything aside from a nice place. They reinforced the same social mores and hierarchy in the states. I saw no young black male counselors to look up to. These kids were exploited. Where there other african children to learn from? "living in Africa" come now. These people dont care about these kids they taught them nothing. Walking up a mountain won't get a child out of poverty this movie made me sick!
This movie just shows how inefficient and useless non-profits and public programs continue to dissapoint the needy time after time.... The principal and the school system should have realized the risks beforehand and should have developed an exit strategy so that the school continue operations if something were happen. If this school was actually run by a business, this would have happened. It's sick that the school just cut these boys' future from under them and ruined their lives. Maybe im being too pessimistic, but I believe that if this was a private school.... run by people who weren't so altruistic then maybe the school would have found a solution for these boys.
T.O yo i knew some of these boys richard romesh and montrey they was bad when they was lil and montrey went to the same school i was goin too but i like to thank this program for helping some be successful
I am a teacher and this film is rivoting and heart-breaking all at once. It was amazing to see these boys go from not wanting to go at all, to not being able to get back to the school at all. Their opinions about how they have been failed or how their not being able to return to Baraka for a second year is really deep. Contrary to what many may have viewed these boys from Baltimore as...they are probably some of the wisest inner-city youth I have ever seen in quite sometime...I would say they might be down, but I have a feeling they will not stay out for long. My thoughts and prayers with them and the families who saw fight to have them participate in this program.
The fact that black males are capable of any kind of greatness is not a surprise to black people who birth and raise them. Here's the problem which the film brought out--their potential for greatness can be unlocked with the right kind of nurturing. W/o that kind of personal, meaningful interaction with the education system, they do fail. It's no reflection on them, but rather a reflection of the fact that those who are raised in the "Baltimores" of the world make as far as they do w/o failing. It takes an exceptional-exceptional person to thrive in such an environment. If we could reach all these young men and allow them to flourish, a new world order would be ushered in. Their potential is truly "atomic". Let's not forget to give "props" to the grands because so often the parents flake out on these kids. The only suggestion I had for the Baraka School is for them to set up a buddy-system for these young men with Kenyan youngsters (male) their ages and give them some time to interact with them..say twice a month. That way they can start making these "connections" and "relationships" early on.
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