High School II

HIGH SCHOOL and the four-part film about the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind: Schools and the transmission of knowledge are one of the most important strands of Wiseman's work. Twenty-six years after making HIGH SCHOOL, Wiseman again decided to observe daily life in a public school. By choosing the highly successful Central Park East Secondary School in New York’s Spanish Harlem, New York (up to 95% of the students went on to college), he was showing us an institution that was almost the exact opposite of the first and thus acted as a commentary to the earlier film. Obedience and passivity are not what is transmitted here; the teachers use alternative teaching methods and trust the students’ own sense of responsibility. (hb)