Pressure Cooker

In Northeast Philadelphia’s Frankford High School, students swipe IDs to gain access to the cafeteria at lunchtime. They pass through metal detectors. Police greet them after school. Forty percent of their classmates will drop out before senior year. So why are Frankford students showing up at school in the wee hours of the morning to tournée potatoes while a teacher screams at them? Students show up because teacher Wilma Stephenson demands their dedication to culinary arts training, and earns their respect with her expertise and her results.

Speaking in Tongues

The award-winning documentary Speaking in Tongues spells out an intriguing paradox of America’s identity: Although we’re a nation that prides itself on diversity, we also militantly cling to monolingual education at the expense of culture, communication, and even academic achievement. Speaking in Tongues follows four San Francisco children, all of whom attend either a Spanish or Chinese immersion public school: a young African-American boy who lives in public housing but is gaining fluency at his Chinese school;