Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/48237
AROUND AEA AEA Board members attend the Mitchell20 premiere in Phoenix. It Takes One Person, cont. from page 11 like, and how connected they are with their students. What the film does is very much dem- onstrate to everyone a visual of that." The film, with narration provided by actor and activist Edward James Olmos, is a powerful and emotional story about teaching in America today. The film spans a three-year period, and what it uncovers, according to Mitchell20 Co- Director Andrew James Benson, is an education system that works against teachers seeking to become more effective as educators. "If we had a real profession of teaching in this country," said Berry, "the first thing you would see is that no new teacher, no matter how they're prepared, would teach indepen- dently in the first two years of teaching. They would be tightly supervised. We also would see, if we had a real profession, the highest- paid anybody in the school district would be a practicing teacher." Mitchell 20 Resources • Website: www.mitchell20.com • Facebook: facebook.com/themitchell20 • Twitter: twitter.com/themitchell20 12 Winter 2011/12 ❘ AEA Advocate Mitchell Elementary is in a high-poverty, high-minority neighborhood. The film docu- ments the passion of the Mitchell teachers for their students and profession and the struggles they face in providing quality teaching with limited resources and support while trying to achieve NBC. What makes this documentary special is that it is a story about teachers as told by teachers. Executive Producer and Executive Director of the Arizona K12 Center Kathy Wiebke says about the documentary, "Every child deserves a great teacher. Through the real stories of these 20 teachers at an inner city school, Mitchell20 shows us that when we support teachers and give them a voice in the system, we can im- prove education in America for every student." Co-Director Randy Murray added, "We thought this film was going to be a heart- warming story of teachers working to improve their craft. What our cameras captured was the reality of teachers taking on one of the greatest challenges of today – preparing our children for the future."