The First Class

- The 2023 documentary "The First Class" presents a slice of life portrait of the first year of the first class at a new high school with an innovative curriculum of project-based learning.

The setting is Crosstown High School here in Memphis, starting in the fall of 2018.

An independent film directed by Lee Hirsch, it is both a character driven drama and an exploration of the challenges and promise of a new model of educational engagement.

Join us for this roundtable discussion about the film as we go Inside The First Class.

[calming piano music] I'm Eric Barnes, and thank you for joining me for this special roundtable discussion about the film, "The First Class," that many of you have just watched.

Joining us to have that discussion today are Lee Hirsch, he's the filmmaker behind the movie.

Thank you for being here.

- It's great to be here.

- Ginger Spickler is founder of Crosstown High.

Thank you for being here.

- Thanks for having us.

- PJ Crimiel is a graduate of that first class, graduated in 2022, but started in 2018, the first class.

Thanks so much for being here.

- Yes, of course.

Thank you.

- And Sarah Navarro is Head of Network Success at XQ Institute, and we'll talk a little bit more about what that means as we go around the table here and talk about the movie that was just on.

The documentary, if you missed it, you can get at wkno.org or at the PBS app.

It's "The First Class".

And Ginger, you are the founder of Crosstown High.

And how did, I guess, the story of Crosstown High, how did it happen?

What is your quick story of a very long journey to get this school launched?

And then we'll talk to Lee about the whole movie and the story of it.

- Yeah.

Well, if you did catch the film at all, you see in the film that there was a billboard on I-55.

I was headed to New Orleans and looked out the window and saw this billboard that said "Rethink high school".

And at the time I was working in the education space in Memphis and had the opportunity to talk to a lot of families who were, I was hearing from them that, you know, while there were a lot of good options for schools in Memphis, there wasn't always exactly what they were looking for.

And I think a deeper level to that was that they, their children, educators that I was talking to, didn't always feel like what was happening in high school was actually addressing what students needed to enter the world today.

High school is really largely based on an industrial age model that hasn't changed in over a hundred years.

And what we saw in this billboard, this, that said "Rethink high school", was an opportunity to really think about what high school could be.

And it happened, just so happened that Crosstown Concourse was opening and they had set aside space for a high school inside that building.

And, you know, we thought what better place to rethink high school than in this amazing vertical urban village.

- And let me actually bring in Sarah Navarro, talk about what the XQ Institute is and your role, the institute's role in the launch of Crosstown High.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, we made the billboard.

We were excited for communities around the country to rethink high school back in 2015 when the competition launched.

So the Execute Institute is dedicated to rethinking high school communities across the country to make sure that students have what they need to be prepared for post-secondary success.

That learning is real world, is meaningful, and that we tackle outdated policies that are keeping high schools in the industrial revolution age like Ginger mentioned.

- And I'll go to Lee, you're a filmmaker, done other documentaries.

What drew you to this project?

What did you, I mean, we'll talk more in details, but just your first, you know, sort of 30 second, this is what drew me to it, this is what I take from it.

- Sure, you know, I had made the film "Bully" before, which kind of like was a very difficult film that looked at some of what can go really wrong in high school.

And so I was looking for a project that got to the heart of like how you do it really differently.

And I'd actually been visiting a number of schools across the country, kind of looking at different models, different practices, and when I, it's one of those, like, it sounds cheesy, it's kinda like a love it first sight story, but like when I walked into Crosstown, I just felt like this is the place.

I saw like joy.

I saw kids really engaged in their learning.

I saw like a team of educators that were trying to like, make it all work and figure it out, but like had a really shared vision, and a city that needed it.

You know, a school that offered something so different in terms of being really diverse by design, in terms of like the student body actually representing the city both racially and socioeconomically, by bringing kids together.

So I just was like, this place is awesome in the most like, cheesiest of ways.

Like, I just felt very drawn to what was happening and thought this is a really good place to try and tell this story about how high school can be done differently and how learning can happen in a really different way.

- So now that the really hard question to PJ, which is, does all this ring true?

Is this, was this your experience?

You were going into ninth grade in that first year, spent four years there, graduated in 2022.

Does this ring true to your experience?

- I would say 100%, absolutely.

I think that PJ coming in there in ninth grade would not agree because like, it was extremely hard.

It was tough.

And you see that not just like the students were going through this like struggle of like what means, but also the teachers.

So I think like, yeah, it was hard, but like 100% I feel like they had morals and they stood on them and those morals are now in me and I'm living it.

- So having watched the documentary, which again, folks, if you missed it, you can get it at wkno.org.

- PJ, have you seen the documentary?

- Yeah.

Have you seen it?

- Hmmm.

[all laughing] - What was your take on watching that?

One, was it just disorienting?

Like you, it's like it's home videos plus?

And your friends and these teachers and so on.

But again, what was your experience of watching it?

- I get that question a bunch, and the first thing I always say is, why did I wear that outfit?

[all laughing] I was just like, man.

- I like your style.

- Oh, thank you.

But it's just like, yeah, you know, but of course it's disorienting because it's just like, I live this thing every single day and I would see like Lee in the hallway all the time, but I'm just like, oh, you know, it's whatever, like these guys are holding cameras.

But like to actually see it come together and to like see your own growth as a student just put on screen and like actually like know this is something that really happened to you and it wasn't a dream.

It's a beautiful thing because like at the beginning of the movie, you see that I, and I, this kind of resonates with me a lot.

I have like a stutter and then like, I'm looking at that and like, as a person who's been through speech therapy and getting more comfortable talking to people at the end, I do a very heartfelt presentation that I love and I see my growth as a presenter and as a student.

It's just a beautiful thing.

Yeah.

- For you, Ginger, who've been there this whole time, you know, and before, what the does the documentary, and Lee's sitting right next to you, so, but does it capture your experience of that first year?

And for those who didn't watch it's not all smooth.

- No.

It's not.

- I wanna be really clear to anybody who watch it will know this.

This was a very honest take on staff burning out and struggling and everybody kind of trying to come together and make this work.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing and a glossy end to everything and glossy beginning to everything.

- No, absolutely not.

I think, you know, as we went through the high school design process, where we landed for what we wanted to do in this high school was a lot of hard stuff.

We wanted to be a diverse school.

We wanted to be a place where students were learning through projects and were developing competencies, skills that they could take with them for the rest of their lives.

And these are all, and we wanted students to feel like they had really actually strong relationships with the staff and their fellow students.

You put all of that together and that's hard.

And that is not what most of the educators who were coming to this space had done in previous schools.

And so yeah, to PJ's point, like we were learning right alongside them, and I mean, we still are to a certain extent, but we have definitely learned some things since then.

PJ, you'll be glad to know.

- Yeah, I wanna come back to that question.

I'm gonna stay with this, sit here with Lee and talk about that, the intimacy of some of this.

I mean, you obviously there's permission.

It was, I mean, you were in kids' homes, they're taking phone calls, they're difficult conversations.

You are, as PJ was saying, you're roaming the halls.

Maybe that generation is just, you know, I'm sorry that you're a younger generation.

I mean that in the best way.

A younger generation is very familiar with cameras and videos, but you're there filming all these things, including very difficult moments.

What was that like?

And again, you'd done "Bully", but still you're working with kids and parents and families and some who are under a lot of stress.

Most families and most kids at that age are, how does all that work?

- You know, I think it's like, it's a great question.

I think you have to have trust.

You have to be looking out for your subjects and care about them.

And they have to know that.

That that's a two-way kind of, you know, it's interesting because, you know, I think I've always felt like, like what you're asking is a complex question.

And like, you want to have a kind of partnership when you're filming particularly young people that they're like comfortable and helping co-create with you.

So you're not like stepping in and just sort of dominating with your camera and your presence and sort of forcing them into a kind of performance, but that you're kind of like, like you're not quite a friend, but you're a friend by their side.

And when they don't want to be filmed, you need to be able to step back immediately.

And I think, and of course like the first year of Crosstown, there were many cameras, there was another team that was filming, our projects merged.

So these students had like cameras present.

So to your point, like there was a certain like level of comfort with being filmed where eventually you start to kind of become part of the wallpaper in a way, or that you fade into the wall, but you wanna navigate that in a respectful way and you want, like, I think the intention matters, right?

Like, so like the intention of this film and for me as a filmmaker was to tell like this honest story, but also to kind of celebrate the things that I was seeing.

And it wasn't to like, so I'm going on and on.

- No, no, no.

- But you have to navigate in a very like, honest and authentic way and have trust and know when it's time to not film.

- It's very much not reality television.

There's an alternate universe in which this documentary gets made, and it's not a documentary, it's reality television.

It's a lot of scripted moments.

It's a lot of playing up conflicts that, I mean, I think it's just important to point that out, that how, 'cause we are, we live in a reality television world, literally, that it's so different than that.

It feels different, but I assume that's also what you're describing, that's the reality of how you put it together.

- Yeah I mean, as documentary filmmakers, not to say that some documentary filmmakers aren't doing reality, but I've never done reality.

And it's like I do verite and in the verite world, which is where you just film, you're observational.

So it's why you could shoot, you know, like I think the amount of footage we have for this film-- - Yeah.

I can't imagine.

- Is like thousands of hours.

And so you spend a lot of days observing, not prodding, to wait for moments where you see change and transformation.

And then you meticulously kind of go through that to find that and to see that arc and to see like how you get to a moment where like, as PJ described, at the end of her four years, she gives this speech that for me, and if you've seen the film, you'll remember this like kind of sums up the whole point of education.

You know, she's like, if we're not asking these tough questions, what's the point?

And like, and then you sit in the edit room and you cry because you realize that like you have captured a growth story and you've done it by being observational and by letting that unfold before you, as opposed to trying to in any way force or push that.

- For you, Sarah, watching it, I mean this is, what was it like to watch the film you all have are working in lots of different, you know, schools and education settings around the country, do you?

And it's not all perfect, right?

I mean, it is not an infomercial for the work of XQ or Crosstown High or anything.

I mean it, but again, it's a very hopeful and great story.

I don't mean to be negative about it, but it's certainly captures the complications of that time of life.

- Absolutely authentic.

I mean, and I think that's what's so compelling about it.

You know, there are communities around the country that are trying to do and doing a good job of high school transformation, but it is not easy.

And there are bumps along the road.

And for others to be able to get a peek into that and see how that unfolded at Crosstown was incredibly powerful and inspiring for other educators who are working toward the same thing.

At XQ, we don't have all the answers about what high school transformation should look like.

We have some design principles, we work with communities, but the most important thing is that we work to empower communities to claim their school, to claim what high school is.

And that's what Crosstown has done.

So to be able to see that and the transformation journey with the students at the center for us has been incredibly powerful and continues to be.

- And it just for logistics on this, Crosstown High is a charter school.

There are 10s of charter schools, many, 20, 30, 40, I can't remember, I've lost track of charter schools in Memphis.

So that means Ginger, what is a charter school, and then we go to PJ.

- Glad you asked.

- Yes.

- A charter school is a public school.

So we get funding from the state, just like a Central High School or a White Station High School.

But we have more autonomy from the district.

So whereas the district might say to a Central or a White Station, this is how we want you to do things in your school.

We are accountable to the district, but we do have a lot of autonomy in how we do school.

So when I said earlier, we use project-based learning, we use competency-based learning, those are decisions that we have made because we believe that we will be able to, you know, achieve the results, better results than by not using those things.

But we are still, you know, our kids still take the EO- end of course exams at the end of the year.

Our teachers are still licensed.

Our, you know, PJ took the same number of credits that she would've taken had she gone to a district high school.

So there's a lot of similarities, but the how of education is what is really different for us.

- So to PJ I'll put you on the spot.

I mean, for those who maybe watched or caught the end of it, again, you can go to wkno.org, you can learn more at thefirstclass.org as well.

Go to the PBS app to see the whole documentary.

But what is, in your, if someone says, oh, you know, what is project-based learning, how do you respond?

- Wow.

I say that it is just, you are really just honing in to the skills that you know you have.

And when it came to projects, we were able to do it in like an array of things.

Like we were able to show how we're going to Mars via puppet show, via song, via video.

- Hologram.

- Yeah, exactly.

So my thing is just like, it's great because it's just like project based learning makes it so that the student is actively learning, but also building skills and honing in on skills that they know that they are good at, that they love doing.

So it's not just like, make a tri-fold in science and write a paper in English.

It's just like you do everything that you wanna do to show your learning in a way that's most true to you, which is beautiful.

- And Ginger mentioned the point in the testing where, you know, in that first, I think it's 6, 10, 12 weeks, that some students, even some teachers like, I'm not sure what we've taught.

I'm not sure what I've learned.

How am I gonna translate this to a test, a state, you know, kind of multiple choice sort of written test and everyone does really well, right?

And which is this wonderful moment.

And I think maybe it was you or someone, one of your classmates who was like, oh, I am able to do this.

I am able, even though I wasn't trained to take the test, I can take the test successfully, right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

The figure out so many things.

We've got eight minutes left here.

The role of the building, and this is a little, this is more of a Memphis-centric thing.

And the documentary is about this school, but it's also sort of about national challenges around education, especially just, but I happen to live in Crosstown, I see Ginger there all the time.

I see the students coming down and watched as a resident.

The first year your class, I probably walked by you as I was buying coffee downstairs, didn't know it.

Going from one class the first year, then a second class, then a third class, then a fourth class.

The building is very, is unique to say the least.

How does that still, or does it still influence the whole experience of Crosstown from a faculty point of view and a student point of view?

- Yeah, I mean, it definitely does of course when, you know, not most high schools are not inside of a million square foot building with all of these people around.

But when people come and visit us and they think, they say, oh, well I couldn't do this because I'm not in this kind of building.

We say, actually no, because we work with community partners throughout our city.

Like some are in the building, we talked about you came, you know, a few years ago and spoke to a class.

But so many people come from the community from outside of Crosstown into the class.

And so like the question that you asked PJ about like, what is project-based learning?

I think the definition that I give is that it is learning that students can see the relevance of, so throughout education, throughout eons of education, students have asked the question, when am I ever gonna use this?

And so when I think about project-based learning, I think about learning where kids don't have to ask that question because they are seeing how it connects to your work, to the work of the people at Church Health down at, you know, the other end of Crosstown, but also people outside of Crosstown in our community.

And so when I think about like, how does this translate to schools outside of Crosstown High, it absolutely can, it just really requires thinking beyond the classroom that learning happens outside in the community best.

- Lee, maybe I'll ask you too, you captured the story of LeCedric, one of the students there, which is, as a viewer, you are increasingly holding your breath and hoping that this young man, you don't know where he is gonna go.

He's struggling some, he's just, he's getting late to class.

For those who haven't watched it, there's a near fight, some kind of conflict situation.

How does that come about in the, in the way you're shooting thousands of hours?

And I'll give you immense credit that you, I took it, it would, there could be a documentary that features LeCedric or the LeCedric's story that feels a little bit more hyperbolic or a little more suddenly taking over the documentary.

But it does feel like, hey, kids who are in ninth grade, I mean, I was a ninth grader once, it's a rough time.

There are kids struggling with things.

Talk about that journey and and where it goes.

- Yeah, I mean I'm like a, I'm an enormous Cedric fan.

And I think, like for me, I mean this is a like a really good example of like how you have to have a trusting relationship, number one.

I guess I just believed in him, like a lot, and that's because I like hung out with him filming and got to see like how smart he was and like how kind he was actually, and I understood his past and I understood like what he was carrying in terms of trauma.

And so like I think everybody, you're also holding your breath as you're filming the story because you wanna make, you want him to succeed and thrive.

And I think, you know, at the crux of the film, I think like is a very important issue, which is that like Crosstown could have expelled Cedric or suspended him out of relevancy or being, you know, unable to compete or to still stay in with his class.

And they made a really hard choice, which Ginger could probably like elaborate on, but to like break kind of policy.

And this is where like this idea of like knowing your students and caring about your students and having like a very, like one-on-one relationship matters to create the space for him to like A, stay in the school, but to be supported through his growth.

And like, honestly like, like if you see him in the community, he's such like an incredible young man and like I am immensely proud that I got to actually film his story and that his family like let us be part of their journey.

- The scene in the kind of, I dunno if it's a formal epilogue, but there's a kind of touching base with many of the people in the documentary last year, and sitting with him and just seeing him how he has changed, it was just, it was amazing.

It was, it kind of gives me chills to think back on it.

With just a couple- - And he still has the same incredible girlfriend.

[all laughing] - That's good.

All right, that's good to know.

Couple minutes left.

Let me, one thing I should have asked earlier, how, maybe an easy answer.

How did XQ come to Memphis?

Or was it that Ginger found you via the billboard?

Or was Memphis on your radar for some reason?

- Yeah, it's a great question.

So in 2015, we launched a national competition and we asked communities around the country to raise our hand communities that were, you know, fed up communities that wanted something different, something better, something more relevant.

And hundreds of communities across the country did.

And Memphis was one of 12 ultimately that we referred to as our XQ super school.

So the part of our original competition challenge, and we supported them to do the amazing things to build what they have built at Crosstown.

And then throughout the years we have continued to scale those efforts.

So we work in a different cities, Washington, D.C., New York City, Rhode Island as a state and many other places around the country, but continue to learn from Crosstown and Crosstown welcomes in, you know, our network and hundreds of people annually from around the country to prove that, you know, to Ginger's point earlier, this is possible in the Crosstown Concourse and it's possible in a small town elsewhere.

It's possible in a big city.

And it takes the love and the care and the mindset and the students at the center.

- And just to add to that, like you see this kind of transformation not just in charter schools.

- That's right.

- But, you know, XQ supports this kind of like, like imaginative re-imagination.

That's a really funny way of putting that.

But like in large district public schools also in Tennessee and like, you know, so there's, there I, what I love about Crosstown, maybe this is why I like kind of like glommed onto it right at the beginning, is people can come and learn and see what is possible.

- With a minute left.

PJ what are you doing now?

A couple years out of Crosstown?

- Yeah, I am currently a sophomore at the University of Memphis.

- Fantastic.

And I am majoring in political science with a minor in social justice and child development.

And I am having a great time joining organizations and still talking with people about like, you know, how can education be better for us all?

So, it's awesome.

- You're taking on the easy stuff.

I can tell.

- Yeah.

- And you're a sophomore now, or Junior?

I can't do math anymore.

- I'm a sophomore.

- Okay.

Yep.

Yeah, okay.

Well it is great.

It is great to see you having seen the movie.

Thank you all for being here.

If you missed any of this conversation, you can go to wkno.org and get it.

You can also watch the full documentary, "The First Class" at wkno.org.

Get the PBS app.

You can also find it probably other places we go to thefirstclass.org.

That is all the time we have right now to talk about the documentary.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you for joining us.

Goodnight.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

[gentle piano music] [acoustic guitar chords]