Thanks for your comments about actually showing more classroom instruction. As the new Video Director at Edutopia, I'm working on finding the balance in our documentary storytelling between telling and showing what goes on in the schools we cover. And I agree with you - we need more showing!

It's a unique challenge to try and convey as much information as we'd like to in our short web documentaries. Showing something as it's happening, in a cinematic, compelling, and contextualized way will always be my first choice. Capturing that moment on film, though, can be elusive because our film crew is limited in the amount of time we can spend in a school. We have to be there at just the right moment to witness and film a relevant and useful example, that is also visually engaging and that we can edit down to just a couple of minutes that will still make sense for a viewer who wasn't present.

I'm planning to move our documentaries more and more in the direction of showing, and I'm thrilled to hear that you want more of it. Please stay tuned for future video installments as I try to strike the balance we're both looking for.

A central issue for KIPP schools has been their capacity to move beyond command and control instructional models to ones in which students are much more active constructors of learning, are in dialog with teachers, and in which speed is not so privileged, or producing "right" answers. This school is a response to these critiques, and I see that clearly.

HOWEVER, your video includes only a few seconds of actual instruction, so we are not able to assess what the level of intellectual challenge is in classroom environments, how authorized students feel to actually step up and take charge of their learning, and how seriously students are invited to be in complexity and paradox and lack of clear answers--the heart of critical thinking. This is a serious flaw with the video, and makes me wonder: is this a problem with the school? The model? The 5 minute video?