FILM REVIEW: K.C.I.: BEYOND THE THREE R’S
Available for free on the National Film Board of Canada’s website: K.C.I: Beyond The Three R’s is a fascinating portrait of one of Canada’s oldest high schools during the early 80s. The film serves as not only a trip down memory lane, but concurrently a look into the problems that faced teenagers and secondary schools during the 80s. What’s uncanny is the timely chord that many of these problems strike: as times have changed and moved forward, many of the same problems and attitudes plague teenagers just the same way in the 80s, as they do today. Kids these days.
The film opens on a familiar scene: a student is late to school, mumbling something about mistaking 8 a.m. for 7 p.m. because their bedroom is too dark.
“You should get a light next to your bed or something,” comes the dry suggestion from the secretary.
From here, the film leads the viewer through an all-encompassing portrait of K.C.I and the students and teachers that make the school what it is. The documentary captures a rich inner life inside of K.C.I. Students make goofy faces during choir practice and dive into spirited debates in philosophy class. A girl matter-of-factly recounts seeing a drug deal in the hallway.
“I see two guys by a locker and one guy gives him some money, the other gives him a bag of weed and I say hey—it does happen in the high schools, it’s not just in movies,” she said.
Much of the film is also concerned with the different ways education is expected to train our youth. The film tries to highlight the ways in which external circumstances, as well as the students’ own desires influence their wants and needs from secondary school. Many students fear that their studies will not prepare them for life outside of high school.
“I know how to add, and I know how to read and I know how to write. And what I need to learn now is how to deal with problems. And getting a trigonometry problem is not gonna be much use [in the outside world]. [But getting a problem] like my wife had an illegitimate child, I’d like to know how to deal with that,” one candid student said.
K.C.I Beyond The Three R’s also tracks early experiments in connecting education with a broader community and work placements. The film frames the high school Co-Op program as a program still in its early trial periods, with varying successes. Now a standard for most high schools, seeing these programs from their early days helps give context to the current education system.
Seeing the ways in which formal education has shifted since 1982 towards higher university enrollment is telling. As outlined in the documentary, in 1982 only 17 per cent of Canadian high school students moved on to university. According to the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario that number has now moved to 52 per cent.
By the end of the documentary, a complete portrait of K.C.I during the 80s has been painted. The documentary ends from a voice over quote.
“It is harder than ever to respond to all the demands being made on them. Some are failing. KCI has problems, but it provides a good example of how secondary education is adapting to a rapidly changing world,” the narrator states.
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