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Precious Knowledge Short Summary

The documentary Precious Knowledge follows the lives of four high school students attending the Mexican American studies program at Tucson High School in Arizona. Despite the program’s success, there is opposition, with one person, Mr. Tom Horne, wanting the program removed completely. He believes the class is influencing students towards a Mexican revolution against the American government. The teachers and students organize rallies to help the community understand the program’s purpose, but ultimately, a bill is signed into law ending all ethnic studies in the district. The documentary’s characters were genuine, and the filmmaker captured their emotions well. However, the ending was unexpected, and it would have been great to focus on the other ethnicities in the class. Overall, the documentary was educational and eye-opening.

Precious Knowledge Movie Review

As the documentary begins, it introduced Priscilla, Gilbert, Crystal and Mariah. They are four high school students who attend the Mexican American studies at Tucson High School in Arizona. In spite of how well the program is doing, there has been many disapproval of the program. The main person who really didn’t like the program and wanted it completely removed is Mr. Tom Horne. His main reason of disapproval of the program was that he believed that the class was influencing the students for a Mexican revolution against the American government. He then suggest a bill that would end the Mexican American studies program at Tucson Unified School District. With this all happening the teachers reminded their students not to react negatively to these events rather handle it in a lawfully way because their opponents just want the satisfaction of something terrible to happen to support their arguments. Instead of violence or immature reactions the teachers and students organized rallies to help get the community to understand what they are doing. Regardless of all the hard work the teachers and students did to help the community understand the truth, the bill was signed into law by Jan Brewer.

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The movie ends with the teachers having their last class with their students before graduation and shows one of the students from the program who graduated attending the University of Arizona. In this documentary there were things that I found to be such great features. First the characters were just so real, their emotions were so genuine and you could feel the pain they felt when they lost their precious class. The filmmaker really knew how to catch those moments well. I’ve watched many documentaries and at times I feel that its so staged and rehearsed. Another thing I found to be a great feature was how long the documentary was. It was about 70 mins. During that time I learned so much about the situation then I knew 70 mins before. It was short and sweet and I even wished it was a little longer.

There were two things about the documentary that I found to be was the worse features. First one was that the ending, it wasn’t what I expected. I thought that the program would stay and that Tom Horne would change his opinion of the program. Instead the program was removed from the school district and a bill was signed into law ending all ethnic studies in the district. The second thing that I didn’t really like was that it was clear that it wasn’t only Mexican American students in the class, there were also other ethnicities in the class. It would have been great to focus on them as well because I would have loved to see how the class affects them in school and on a personal level especially since its not about their ancestors.

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Movie Review: Precious Knowledge

The movie “Precious Knowledge” shows the treatment of minority students in public schools in the Tucson Unified School District. The film is about four students and their peers struggling against the banning of Mexican American studies in TUSD. The movie focuses explicitly on the Mexican American/Raza studies class. The students learned honest truths about America along with their culture. Politicians in Arizona pass laws to disband the program because they feel it must be eliminated. Precious Knowledge has many viewpoints from opposing sides, and most of those viewpoints are radical.

The Mexican American studies were meant to give students a chance to have better education. Students, teachers, and parents are against political officials in Tucson. Students, teachers, and parents want the program taught in Tucson because students can become thriving adults by learning about their cultures. They believe minority students will thrive by learning about multiculturism. They argue that the program is based on the love for humanity and not hate for the oppressor. They want to learn identity development to have a better understanding of collective struggle. They believe learners should appreciate themselves in educational material for their growth and self-esteem. Parents and teachers supported this program because the test scores for students improved, and many of them joined college after learning the program.

On the other hand, politicians are against this program as they feel it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money. Politicians argue that the program should be disbanded because it’s unethical for students to be taught about ethnic backgrounds. Teaching students about ethnic backgrounds doesn’t make them united individuals but treats them as a group of Chicanos. Tom Home was determined to see the program disbanded because he believed the program taught “destructive ethnic chauvinism” (Dos Vatos, 015). He was Arizona’s educational superintendent. Politicians believed that the students were taught to be disrespectful to America. one of the classrooms didn’t have a picture of Benjamin Franklin. This was seen as a disrespect to the founding fathers, translating to anti-Americanism. The politicians were against the program because it taught students to be radical and act rebelliously. Politicians argued that it was wrong to teach the Mexican culture in America, and if students wanted to learn about their culture, they should consider going back to Mexico.

I argue in favor of the government’s position. The government spends a lot of money to fund public education, and if people want to learn something different from the curriculum, they should do it at their own cost. The studies would train the students to be radical and against the government funding their education. If the parents and teachers feel students should learn the Mexican American studies, they should engage the relevant stakeholders to ensure the studies are included in the curriculum. The program teaches students to hate America instead of teaching the teaching students to transcend their tribal roots and live together as one people. The program is against the fore founding fathers of America, who agreed that children should be indoctrinated into socialism.

Dos Vatos. (2015). Precious Knowledge. In  Vimeo . https://vimeo.com/ondemand/preciousknowledge/75043626

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Precious Knowledge

Film. Directed by Ari Luis Palos and produced by Eren Isabel McGinnis. 2011. 70 minutes. High school seniors become community leaders in Tucson’s embattled Ethnic Studies classes while state lawmakers attempt to eliminate the program.

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“Rarely has a film been so timely and downright revelatory.” — Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post

What a timely and important film this is. We meet the inspiring educators associated with Tucson’s embattled Mexican American Studies program, and a few of the many students whose lives have been transformed by it. And, straight from central casting, we meet the scoundrels trying to shut the program down — politicians who wrap their racism in a language of opportunity, individual rights, and Americanism. The stars of the film are the young people who establish a new relationship to life and learning through their classes and activism.

As one of the students says in class: “I started thinking, “Oh, I’m a Chicana, I ain’t going to be able to graduate, I’m going to have kids young. . . . And then I started coming to these classes and I started seeing, like, why am I believing all this? Instead of believing it I should change it.”  Precious Knowledge raises questions for all educators about how we can more authentically speak to students’ lives in the curriculum. And it confronts us with today’s Klan 2.0 —  bigots who quote Martin Luther King Jr. as they shutter Mexican American Studies classes and ban books. This is an essential film for professional development, teacher education, and high school classes addressing racial justice.

Precious Knowledge is a co-production of Dos Vatos Films, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Arizona Public Media, and Latino Public Broadcasting, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

• Audience Favorite and Special Jury Award, San Diego Latino Film Festival, 2011
• Honorable Mention in the Best Documentary Category, Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, 2011

Casting aside the inflammatory rhetoric and national headlines of the anti-ethnic-studies instigators, Precious Knowledge provides a clear-eyed portrait of students, teachers and their community struggling to deal with the nation’s most unnerving campus witch hunt in recent memory. Tracing the political roots of the legislative ban — and the program’s own mandate and success to alleviate the long-time achievement gaps among Latino students — Precious Knowledge ‘s riveting pacing and compelling portraits will astonish, infuriate and inspire viewers. In truth,  Precious Knowledge is the type of unique and powerful film that could ultimately shift public perception and policy on one of the most misunderstood education programs in the country. —Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post , read full review .

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Article. By Bill Bigelow. If We Knew Our History Series. The attack on Mexican American Studies and Rethinking Columbus shares a common root: the attempt to silence stories that unsettle today’s unequal power arrangements.

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More than Precious Knowledge: A Critical Review of Precious Knowledge

• Connie Wun University of California, Berkeley

Precious Knowledge (2011; dir. Ari Palos) is an award winning documentary that follows the debate over the ethnic studies curriculum (ETHS) in the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD), including the political climate that surrounded the passage of House Bill 2281--the bill that dismantled the program. The film connects the struggle over ETHS with a history of racism and xenophobia in the state of Arizona. It highlights the capacities of ETHS/MAS teachers and curricula to transform the academic and personal lives of traditionally marginalized students. Despite its emotional intentions and rhetorical strategies, the film leaves itself open to questions regarding how ETHS/MAS and its supporters can analyze racism, anti-immigrant policies and practices from a critical race and feminist framework, a framework that explores the relationship among the state, race and gender. It also leaves unanswered, questions regarding how to support ETHS programs while encouraging an abolitionist critique of the state and its institutions.

Author Biography

Connie wun, university of california, berkeley.

Connie Wun is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Berkeley. A National Science Foundation Research Fellow and Chancellor’s Fellow at UC Berkeley, she examines school discipline, punishment, race and gender. She has published in Educational Philosophy and Theory and The Feminist Wire.

In every case, copyright of work appearing in JCT is retained by the author. In accordance with its mandate to promote discussion on matters of curriculum, the Foundation for Curriculum Theory permits limited reproduction of parts of JCT. Individual articles may be reprinted for educational purposes, provided that no fees (other than copying costs) are charged.

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More than Precious Knowledge: A Critical Review of Precious Knowledge

2013, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing

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Precious Knowledge reports from the frontlines of one of the most contentious battles in public education in recent memory, the fight over Mexican American studies programs in Arizona public schools. The film interweaves the stories of several students enrolled in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School with interviews with teachers, parents, school officials, and the lawmakers who wish to outlaw the classes.

While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with 93 percent of enrolled students, on average, graduating from high school and 85 percent going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming this innovative curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who became engaged, informed, and active in their communities.

As the nation turns its focus toward a wave of anti-immigration legislation in Arizona, the issue of ethnic chauvinism becomes a double-edged weapon in a simmering battle making front page news coast to coast. When Arizona lawmakers pass a bill giving unilateral power to the State Superintendent to abolish ethnic studies classes, teachers and student leaders fight to save the program using texts, Facebook, optimism, and a megaphone.

Lawmakers and politicians respond with a public relations campaign to discredit the students, claiming that a textbook used in the classes, Paulo Freire’s The Pedagogy of the Oppressed teaches victimization and sedition. Officials ask that the classroom’s Che Guevara posters be replaced with portraits of founding father Benjamin Franklin. Meanwhile, the students answer back by fighting for what they believe is the future of public education for the entire nation, especially as the Latino demographic continues to grow.

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Precious Knowledge

When a highly successful Mexican American Studies program at a high school in Tucson comes under fire for teaching ethnic chauvinism, teachers and students fight back in a modern civil rights struggle.

Ari Luis Palos

Ari Luis Palos has directed and shot a number of films including: The Beauty Salon , Mas Alla de la Frontera/Beyond the Border , Impresario , The Kentucky Theatre , El Rio de los Perros/The River of the Dogs , Al Garete/Adrift , Corazon del Plata/Heart of Silver , and The Spirituals . Palos enjoys participating in Tucson’s All Soul’s Procession ; a performance … Show more art extravaganza where he transforms into a dead vaquero to mourn and celebrate loved ones who have passed. He once rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle from Oaxaca, México to a small factory in Nicaragua, just to smoke the world’s finest cigar. Show less

Eren Isabel McGinnis

Eren Isabel McGinnis has produced 19 movies including P.O.V.'s Tobacco Blues , The Girl Next Door (shortlisted for an Oscar!), Beyond the Border , The Spirituals , and Dos Vatos-México . She has a degree in Cultural Anthropology from San Diego State University, and a certificate in Film and Video Theory and Production from the University College Dublin, in … Show more Ireland. McGinnis, a Fulbright scholar, spent a year of living, writing, and filmmaking in Juchitán, México. She is currently in training for the grueling El Tour de Tucson bike ride and enjoys hiking in the Sonoran desert or any place where there is a trail to the mountaintop. Show less

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Precious Knowledge interweaves the stories of students in the Mexican American Studies Program at Tucson High School. While 48 percent of Mexican American students currently drop out of high school, Tucson High’s Mexican American Studies Program has become a national model of educational success, with 100 percent of enrolled students graduating from high school and 85 percent going on to attend college. The filmmakers spent an entire year in the classroom filming this innovative social-justice curriculum, documenting the transformative impact on students who become engaged, informed, and active in their communities.

As the nation turns its focus toward a wave of anti-immigration legislation in Arizona, the issue of ethnic chauvinism has become a double-edged weapon in a simmering battle. Arizona lawmakers recently passed a bill giving unilateral power to the State Superintendent to abolish ethnic studies classes.

Precious Knowledge provides an insider’s perspective student leaders fight to save their classes. The students are able to mobilize rapidly with texts, Facebook, optimism, and a megaphone.

Lawmakers and politicians a mount a public relations campaign to discredit the passionate students, claiming that Paulo Freire’s textbook The Pedagogy of the Oppressed teaches victimization and sedition. Officials ask that the classroom's Che Guevara posters be replaced with portraits of founding father Benjamin Franklin. Meanwhile, the students answer back by fighting for what they believe is the future of public education for the entire nation, especially as the Latino demographic continues to grow.

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The Movie “Precious” Essay

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Synopsis and challenges the characters face

Two characters, why the movie was in the selection list.

The movie is a tragic story about a sixteen year-old black girl in Harlem. It occurs in the 1980s when the AIDs epidemic was rife, and stark poverty was a harsh reality. The lead character –Precious Jones – is the object of many misfortunes. She bore two children from incestuous, paternal abuse.

As if this is not enough, she lives an isolated life with her mother who uses her child to get welfare and abuses her in the process. Precious must also deal with undesirability within her neighborhood and school. She gets pregnant by her father for the second time and joins an alternative school. It is at this institution where she meets a mentor who builds her confidence.

One challenge the lead character faced was living with a mother who made her feel valueless. She bravely endures physical abuse from her mother. Sometimes this causes her to behave dishonorably as was the case when she stole a bucket of chicken.

The long term effect of that domestic situation was that she believed what her mother told her. Another challenge that Precious encounters is living in a world where conventional standards of beauty differ from her appearance. She believes that the only way she would gain validation is if she were famous and had a light-skinned boyfriend.

The first character that is quite impressive in the movie is the lead actor Gabourey Sidibe. Precious is an engaging character who convincingly displays the dynamics of her life. At some point, she steals a bucket of chicken from a local fast food restaurant. In another situation, she fights and engages with other people.

When she wanders off into fantasy land, one enjoys the experience together with her. Perhaps, her most moving experience occurs at the end of the movie when she summons the courage to leave her mother and take care of her children. She is ideal for the role both physically and emotionally.

The second convincing character in the movie was Monique who played Mary –Precious’s mother. She was a deeply flawed individual who lacked the moral and emotional qualities of a parent. It would have been easy to overdo these qualities and thus make the character relatable.

However, Monique avoids that trap by maintaining a fine balance between her personal inadequacies and her miserable past. The bewilderment in her eyes when she remembers her past convinces the audience that she is an ensnared and depressed woman. She becomes part of the system of abuse that put her in that position in the first place.

Precious and Mary seemed real in the movie because they looked and sounded just like what one would expect of persons in their role. One gets the authentic experience of poverty and lack through these women. Precious’ normalization of beauty and self worth are believable. In my life, I have met an educator like the alternative school teacher, who encouraged me to pursue my dreams regardless of my fears.

This movie addresses human sexuality in the context of marginalization, exploitation and poverty. It brings to bear the plight of victims who lose their free will in sexual encounters. Families that offer them nothing but pain trap them. Precious is also a film that highlights the intersection of race, inter-racial biases, physical attractiveness and life chances.

Because the main character possesses physically undesirable traits in her community, those around her perceive her as susceptible to anything. She is a victim of incest and no one is willing to protect her from it because they think she is less human. This movie uncovers the delicate relationship between race, physical attraction, sexual abuse and systemic disenfranchisement.

Some troubling gaps are evident in the film. First, director Lee Daniels perpetuates some of the same stereotypes that the film purports to challenge. Precious is about a black girl who struggles to develop self worth against all odds.

However, by casting all helpers; the social worker, the alternative school teacher and the male nurse, as light-skinned or white, the director portrayed dark-skinned people as inferior. Furthermore, the movie does little to address institutional race issues that lead to such extreme levels of parental failure. There is no mention of the failed welfare system of the 80s or the war on drugs. The director merely blames Precious’ mother for her failure.

Unfortunately, the outcome of the movie is unsatisfactory. While Precious finally summons the courage to leave her abusive and neglectful mother with her children, she must live with the harsh reality of her existence. Precious is now a single mother of two with little family support.

This does not end with her exit from the house. Furthermore, she is HIV positive at a time when management of the disease was difficult and underdeveloped. Precious is still living in the underclass environment of Harlem where poverty and deprivation surround her. It is unlikely that she will develop her passions because of marginalization of her community.

As a result, her life will still be far from ideal. Her villainous mother seems to get away with gross wickedness against her daughter. Precious gets no justice for years of physical, verbal and sexual abuse that her mother either instigated or allowed to happen. The ending thus makes it seem like no moral consequences exist for this villainous character.

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IvyPanda. (2018, December 19). The Movie "Precious". https://ivypanda.com/essays/precious/

"The Movie "Precious"." IvyPanda , 19 Dec. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/precious/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Movie "Precious"'. 19 December.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Movie "Precious"." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/precious/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Movie "Precious"." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/precious/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Movie "Precious"." December 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/precious/.