Choice Review

Despite its title, this book is about more than using video as an educational tool. Each brief chapter should be read carefully for its insights into the educational system. Schoonmaker (Newhouse School, Syracuse Univ.) and Wolf (New Jersey Institute of Technology) were involved in a movie-making research project with K-12 students. Most of the work was done in a failing urban school that was scheduled to close at the end of the year. This was only one of many challenges, but as the authors rightfully observe, education is messy. The children and mentors learned by doing, including making mistakes. Contemporary children come to schools with a media literacy that their teachers often lack. Providing them with cameras in which to tell their stories is a powerful learning experience. Even very young children respond to the opportunity the video camera offers. In impoverished schools, the authors observe, educators often see children "as the source of the problem rather than the source of the solution." Listening to children may upset the balance of power that often exists between teachers and students, particularly when it involves adults recognizing media literacy as a legitimate aspect of learning in a digital age. --Sally Sugarman, Vermont State Colleges