High School (1968)

[Hildegard Lobach]

HighSchool is a 1968 American documentary film by Frederick Wiseman that shows a typical day for students and faculty at a Pennsylvanian high school during the late 1960s. It is one of the first direct cinema (or cinma vrit) documentaries[citation needed] . It was shot over five weeks between March and April 1968 at Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The film was not shown in Philadelphia at the time of its release, because of Wiseman's concerns over what he called "vague talk" of a lawsuit.[2]

The film was released in November 1968. High School has aired on PBS. Wiseman distributes his work (DVDs and 16mm prints) through Zipporah Films, which rents them to high schools, colleges, and libraries on a five-year long-term lease. High School was selected in 1991 for preservation in the National Film Registry.[3][4][5]

... [t]he movie was shot in 1968, and the school was then clearly attempting to hold off what it perceived as cultural anarchy outside its walls. Many of the teachers and administrators are exercising a bland and frightened dictatorship; their speech is deadened as if any sign of life might inspire the students to break out of control.Meanwhile, dull and demoralized by the teachers' inability to bring any subject to life, many of the best students are gathered in a class of malcontents where they sit in resentful torpor - they are also victims of the hypocrisy and authoritarianism promoted in the school ...

Provocative filmmaker Frederick Wiseman brought his cameras to Northeast High School in Philadelphia for five weeks in March and April 1968. The result is an unnarrated, cinma vrit glimpse into the lives of students, teachers, staff, and parents.

1968 is the height of the civil strife and the emergence of the youth culture of the 1960s, so that is definitely undergirding a lot of what we see on screen, although I think it can be overstated. One scene shows a conversation about former students wounded in Vietnam. The assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr. is mentioned in passing. A teacher surveys a class of white students about their willingness to be part of an organization with black people (the higher the percentage of black members, the fewer hands go up).

But the majority of the film depicts what feels like the timeless aspects of high school. The movie was filmed 5 years before I was born and 20 years before I attended high school, but a lot of it felt familiar. There are no long-haired hippies at this school. Rebellion comes in the form of high hemlines, talking back to teachers, and attempting to avoid gym class.

Discrepancies in the education of Anglo and Mexican-American students surfaced in Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. Mexican-American students experienced a 60% dropout rate from high school, and those who did graduate averaged the reading level of an 8th grade Anglo student. In some schools, teachers prohibited students from speaking Spanish, and in others, school staff recommended Mexican-American students educational curriculum meant to help students with mental disabilities. These schools funneled many Mexican American students into vocational programs and discouraged from post-secondary studies. In response, students, teachers, parents, and activists began to organize.

The East Los Angeles Walkouts, also known as Blowouts, reflected a mass response to these discrepancies. From March 1-8, around 15,000 students walked out of their classroom in protest thanks to the organization of collective groups, who together formed the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee (EICC). This committee continued to voice student concerns even after the walkouts concluded, ultimately presenting a list of demands to the Los Angeles Board of Education, including recommendations for curriculum changes, bilingual education, and hiring of Mexican-American administrators.

The East Los Angeles Walkouts represented a call to action for civil rights and access to education for Latino youth in the city. Even with the rejection from the Board of Education, the event remains one of the largest student protests in United States history. In bringing together so many organizing groups, the demonstrations also highlighted an ability to mobilize across age and class lines. The walkouts also represented a strong group commitment to the Chicano identity, which continued to develop afterwards.

Staff in the Hispanic Reading Room can provide access to these books at the Library of Congress. If you cannot visit the Library in person, please contact us using Ask a Librarian for assistance. In many cases, you can also find these materials at your local library.

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The scenes within High School provoke the viewer to approach this documentary from multiple perspectives in an attempt to derive a singular meaning. Within the high school are scenes of language classes, gym class, as well as interactions between students and figures of authority. These scenes are often shots of parts of the body, this disjointing being rooted in the tension of the execution of power within the confines of this institution aimed at educating those within it. Power for those in authority is focused through their hands, a tool of molding and discipline. Whereas students find power temporarily in their verbal protest, placing emphasis on their mouths. Tension develops further in the viewing of the high school as a factory that is perpetually reproducing a strategically devised product, in this case the student.

Known as the East L.A. Chicano Student Walkouts or Blowouts, the protests voiced concerns over run-down campuses, overcrowding, corporal punishment, lack of college prep and culturally relevant courses, and teachers who were poorly trained, indifferent, or racist. During the Walkouts, many student protesters were blocked by administrators barring doors to the outside, and others were violently jailed by helmeted police officers.

Peaking at 22,000 students, and serving as an early catalyst of the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, the Walkouts are considered among the first major Mexican American opposition to racial and educational inequality in the U.S.

The actions led to the school district hiring more Latinx teachers, and the introduction of bilingual classes and ethnic studies. Partly as a result, the following year, the number of Mexican-American students enrolling at UCLA rose 1,800 percent.

March 6, 2018, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the East L.A. Chicano Student Walkouts. Fifty years later, the historic high schools remain important neighborhood anchors for some of the oldest and most ethnically diverse neighborhoods of Los Angeles and in the nation. They also serve as collective reminders of the ongoing need for change through student-led activism. Then, as now, high school students were angry and frustrated that the institutions that were supposed to support and protect them were falling short.

In 1963, Sal Castro had just begun his teaching career at Belmont High and volunteered at the conference. There he found hundreds of students from all over L.A. County who expressed similar grievances about poor conditions in the schools and lack of opportunity for Mexican-American students. At the time, dropout rates for Mexican-American students in East L.A. were among the highest in the nation: 45 percent at Roosevelt, 57 percent at Garfield, 39 percent at Lincoln, and 35 percent at Belmont.

From March 1 to March 8, 1968, approximately 22,000 students at five LAUSD schools in East L.A. and near Downtown walked out of their classrooms to protest run-down schools, overcrowding, lack of college prep and culturally-relevant courses, among other grievances. School administrators and police officers were inconsistent in their responses. Lincoln High students were allowed to leave the school grounds peacefully, while at Roosevelt High, administrators locked the gates and LAPD squad cars surrounded the campus to intimidate students.

Many of the high school and college student organizers went on to live lives of accomplishment. Paula Crisostomo, a Lincoln High student, became a school administrator where she continues to fight for reform in education. Roosevelt High alumna Victoria Castro was elected to the LAUSD Board, where she served as president from 1998 to 2001. Lincoln High alumnus Moctesuma Esparza became a successful film producer and remains an activist by creating opportunities for Chicanos in entertainment and in other fields. Garfield High student Harry Gamboa, Jr. became an artist and writer. Carlos Muoz, Jr., one of the East L.A. 13, went on to a distinguished teaching and research career in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

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