To Touch A Child is a fascinating short film from 1962 created by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. Flint Michigan was a national leader and innovator in many ways even outside of the automobile industry, the school system being no exception. I grew up in Flint's East Side in the 70's & 80's and can tell you that a positive "can do" attitude permeated the city. I attended Williams Elementary School (built in 1968), which had an Olympic swimming pool with a retractable roof, hockey & ice skating rink, wood shop, tennis court, gymnasium, auditorium, nature preserve, park, football & baseball fields... There was always something to do at the school for anyone who wanted to attend, and I personally benefited from the programs instituted by the great philanthropists of Flint Names like Whaley, Sloan, Longway, Kearsley, Whiting, Mott and Manley among others. Flint has one of the most interesting history's of any city in the United States. While some outsiders today say the city is dead, the people who lived there and knew what a great city looked like long to see that great community system return. A system that has never existed since Flint.
The legacy Frank J. Manley and Charles S. Mott created by funding after school programs using existing Flint public school buildings was the first of its kind and adopted nation wide soon after. Anyone who ever attended an event after school can thank Frank J Manley, who came up with the idea, and Mott, who paid for it.
For those not from the Flint area, it might sound crazy, but you could get an almost free education in just about anything you could imagine. Technical, vocational, academic, or just plain recreational, you could sign up for classes that took place after school and better yourself. Today, you'd have to pay thousands for University quality classes at an "extended campus" program.
Directed by Herk Harvey, an industrial/educational film director, the film focuses on Cook School in Flint, Michigan. The film was instrumental in the spread of the community school idea throughout the nation.
The film begins with children playing in the street, down by the river, while vacant school buildings lie dormant (in the film the newly built Southwestern High School is shown along with Cook and Potter Elementary schools).
At almost 50 years old, To Touch A Child is a dated film but a remarkable window into Flint culture and American culture at the time. There are hilarious references to the classic housewife dieting and cake decorating of the period. There are highly melodramatic elements and unnecessary camera movement. However the film, thankfully, isn't totally dismissible. And so very pertinent today as the United States struggles to raise its next generation of kids. The US should look at the history of Flint to see it's own future.
To Touch A Child - 1962
29 сен 2024
