Documentary Gives Students Voice About Curriculum

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Ankur Singh took the spring semester of his freshman year at the University of Missouri off to travel the country making Listen: The Film.

Listen: The Film, a documentary created by a freshman at the University of Missouri who interviewed high school students about what they want to learn, will be shown Tuesday, Dec. 10, on the University of Arkansas campus. The film starts at 6 p.m. at the Arkansas Union Theatre and is free and open to the public.

"I was always passionate about learning so I signed up for many Advanced Placement classes expecting them to be challenging college-level courses that would expand my critical thinking and creativity," said Ankur Singh. "But, what I got instead were classes that consisted of rote memorization and constant test preparation. It angered me and eventually I just stopped studying and my grades dropped. How come us students were never asked what we wanted from our own education?"

Singh attended high school in Illinois. He took the spring semester of his freshman year at Missouri off to travel the country making the film.

The Center for Children and Youth and the curriculum and instruction department in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas are sponsoring the film and a question-and-answer session with Singh. The feature-length documentary questions standardized testing and its effects on students, as well as school closings, expectations of students and the battle teachers face regarding curriculum.